Free Web NovelChapter 6: The Devil’s Laughter
Three weeks and two days had passed since the letter arrived.
Some of Asteria’s wounds and bruises had completely healed, but the ones that mattered—the ones visible to the world—remained stubbornly present.
Her face still bore the remnants of that night, tiny swollen bruises scattered across her cheekbones and jaw like a faded map of pain. No amount of time or rest had been enough to erase them completely.
But William Auclair had a solution for everything, didn’t he?
He had hired the best makeup artist money could buy, a flamboyant and sharp-tongued man who looked at Asteria like she was a broken canvas he was being forced to repair. The cost didn’t matter to William.
What mattered was making Asteria presentable—no, desirable—for the blind date he had arranged. If she looked damaged, if she looked like what she truly was, then his plan would fall apart before it even began.
And William Auclair’s plans never fell apart. He made sure of that.
The logic behind his scheme was simple, cruel, and brilliantly manipulative. He knew—what an invitation from the Eisenthurn family meant. That letter with its elegant seal, delivered personally, was not a suggestion or a request.
It was a declaration of interest. Romantic interest. For generations, the Eisenthurns had used this tradition to pursue the people they wanted, and the entire world had learned to respect it.
If Keres Eisenthurn had sent an invitation to Asteria, it meant she wanted Asteria. Romantically. Intimately. The implications were clear to anyone with half a brain.
But William had no intention of letting that happen.
His plan was elegant in its ugliness: If he could push Asteria into a successful blind date with someone else—someone he had carefully selected—then Keres would surely be disgusted.
She would see Asteria as nothing more than a common whore who couldn’t even respect a formal invitation. She would discard Asteria like garbage. And once that happened, William could step in and present his precious Emmaline as a more suitable alternative.
"In the end, Asteria will be the one to take the blame."
His words from that night echoed in the assistant’s mind as he watched the preparations unfold. The assistant had his doubts—serious, gut-churning doubts that kept him up at night.
Disrespecting an Eisenthurn invitation was not something any sane person would do. The Eisenthurns had long memories and longer reach. If they felt their letter had been mocked, they wouldn’t take it easily...
The assistant didn’t want to think about what would happen.
But William didn’t pay him for his opinions. William paid him for his silence and his obedience.
~~~•••~~~
In the dressing room, Asteria sat perfectly still while the makeup artist worked on her face. His touches were rough, almost punitive, as if he resented having to waste his talent on someone so far beneath his usual clientele.
"Don’t frown," he sneered, his voice sharp and cutting. "I can’t focus on fixing your ugly face!"
The sound made Asteria flinch—a full-body jerk that she couldn’t suppress no matter how hard she tried. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she immediately nodded, shrinking into herself like a wounded animal trying to disappear.
"Don’t make him angry. Don’t cause trouble. Just be quiet. Just be good."
The mantra ran through her head on a loop, as automatic as breathing.
While the artist’s hands moved across her face—dabbing, blending, and concealing—Asteria’s mind drifted to the pounding beats of her heart. She was nervous, scared and terrified, really. frёewebnoѵēl.com
She had been on blind dates before. Three of them, to be exact. Three dates that had led to three marriages, and three marriages that had led to three different kinds of hell.
If this date became successful—if this man decided he wanted her—she would have her fourth husband.
And a new husband meant new pain.
It was simple math, really. The kind of math that had been beaten into her over years of suffering. Every husband had his own preferences, his own cruelties, his own ways of reminding her that she was nothing.
She had learned to adapt, to survive, to bend until she thought she would break entirely. But she had never escaped.
She didn’t even understand why she couldn’t get pregnant. No matter how much she made love with every single one of them—no matter how many times they used her body for their pleasure—her womb remained empty. Barren and useless.
And because of that, she had come to believe something terrible: that she deserved nothing more than to be a cumdump. That her purpose in life was simply to be used and discarded. That she was worthless, utterly and completely, and no amount of hoping would ever change that.
The makeup artist clicked his tongue in irritation, and Asteria realized she had been frowning again.
"S-Sorry," she whispered, forcing her face to relax.
The artist didn’t acknowledge her apology. He just kept working, his silence somehow worse than his insults.
~~~•••~~~
Two hours later, the Aleman Restaurant gleamed under the evening lights.
The building was a paradox of luxury and vice—a five-star establishment on the surface, with crystal chandeliers and marble floors and waiters who bowed at exactly the right angle. But beneath that polished exterior, the Aleman housed has a thriving illegal business: a hotel for the wealthy and a bar for the underworld.
Keres Eisenthurn walked through the front doors like she owned the place.
Which, technically, she did.
The manager appeared before she had taken ten steps, his face pale and his hands clasped in front of him. He bowed deeply—lower than he bowed for anyone else—and murmured his greetings with the reverence of a man addressing royalty.
"Welcome, Ms. Eisenthurn. Right this way."
He led her through the main dining area, past the wealthy patrons who pretended not to stare, and into a long, silent hallway. The sounds of the restaurant faded behind them, replaced by the muffled thump of bass from somewhere deeper in the building.
At the end of the hallway, the manager pushed open a door, and the bar revealed itself.
The room was lively but not loud—a careful balance that the Aleman had perfected over years of catering to dangerous people. Women danced on the stage, their bodies moving in practiced rhythms that were more about suggestion than art. In the darker corners, other women were openly having sex with mob bosses and crime lords, their moans swallowed by the music.
This was the underbelly of the Aleman. This was where deals were made and broken, where loyalties were bought and sold, where the rules of the outside world simply didn’t apply.
When Keres entered, the entire room shifted.
The laughter died in throats. The conversations stuttered to a halt. Every person in that room—every mob boss, every gang leader, every high-ranking criminal—held their breath as if they were standing in the presence of something far more dangerous than themselves.
"Greetings, Eisenthurn!" The chorus rose from multiple tables, a mixture of respect and fear.
Keres didn’t acknowledge them. She walked past their bowed heads and averted gazes like they were furniture, taking her place in her VIP area without so much as a glance. Her bodyguards fanned out around her, their hands resting casually on the weapons hidden beneath their jackets.
The silence followed her like a shadow.
Everyone in that room knew the stories. Everyone had heard what Keres Eisenthurn did to the small gang leader who had dared to disrespect her. His screams had echoed through the underworld for weeks, a cautionary tale for anyone who thought they could cross an Eisenthurn and walk away.
Keres settled into her seat and gestured for the manager to approach.
He was there in an instant. "Yes, boss?"
"Get me the best whore you have here," Keres said, her voice flat and disinterested. "Put me in a regular VIP room. I want to keep a low profile."
The manager blinked, making sure he had heard correctly. Keres Eisenthurn hated repeating herself, and he had no intention of being the one to discover what happened to people who made her angry.
"Yes, boss," he said quickly. "I’ll have it done now."
He scurried away to complete his task, leaving Keres alone with her thoughts and her bodyguards.
~~~•••~~~
She didn’t expect to see Asteria.
But the universe had a cruel sense of humor, didn’t it?
Keres’s eyes swept across the room with the casual boredom of someone who had seen everything and been impressed by nothing. And then she saw her—a small, trembling woman sitting at a table in one of the VIP areas, her face freshly made up but her eyes wide with unmistakable fear.
Asteria Csilla Auclair.
And sitting across from her, grinning like the idiot he was, was Joshua Moretti—a young mob boss who had risen through the ranks on a combination of nepotism and dumb luck.
He was handsome in a shallow way, with sharp features and cold eyes that didn’t hide his cruelty. Everyone in the underworld knew about Joshua. Everyone knew he was dangerous not because he was smart, but because he was unpredictable.
Keres watched as Joshua poured himself a glass of vodka, his movements slow and deliberate. He was trying to look sophisticated, but to Keres’s eyes, he just looked like a child playing dress-up.
"Honey, calm down," Joshua said, his voice carrying across the room. "We’re just here to have fun. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you."
The words made Keres’s lip curl.
He won’t hurt her. What a joke. Joshua Moretti hurt everyone he touched. It was only a matter of time.
"Do you drink?" Joshua asked, holding up the vodka bottle.
Asteria shook her head frantically. "N-No, sir."
"Hey, don’t sir me." Joshua’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. "What about call me Joshua? Besides, sooner or later, we’re gonna get married."
Asteria’s breath hitched. Keres saw it from across the room—the way Asteria’s shoulders stiffened, the way her hands clenched in her lap, the way she seemed to shrink even smaller than she already was.
But Asteria didn’t protest. She didn’t run. She didn’t do anything except mumble, "Y-Yes~," in a voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the music.
Keres felt something twist in her chest. She didn’t know what it was, and she didn’t care to examine it.
"Sandro," she said, not looking away from the scene unfolding across the room.
"Yes, boss?" Her main henchman leaned in closer.
"I thought I sent an invitation to the Auclair family."
"Yes, boss. You did. Three weeks and two days ago."
"Then why," Keres said, her voice dropping to something cold and dangerous, "do I see Asteria Csilla Auclair here? With that smug, stupid Joshua?"
Sandro followed her gaze, his expression hardening when he recognized the young mob boss. He didn’t answer immediately, because there was no good answer to give.
Keres scoffed, but there was no humor in the sound. It was sharp, bitter, like broken glass grinding together. She smiled then—a thin, sarcastic curve of her lips that didn’t reach her eyes.
"Or maybe," she said slowly, "I haven’t made myself clear enough in that letter."
Sandro shifted uncomfortably. "What should we do, boss?"
Keres sighed and shook her head, the gesture almost lazy. She picked up her glass of whiskey and swirled the amber liquid, watching the light catch the edges.
"Nothing," she said finally. "Take photographs. I’ll just take advantage of the opportunity to ruin her image to my parents." She paused, and then the smile returned—wider this time, crueler, the smile of a woman who had found something amusing in the middle of something irritating. "Make sure you take them from the perfect angles. Get a video if you can. I want them to see what kind of hoe Asteria Auclair really is."
She laughed then—a rich, dark sound that rolled through the VIP area like thunder.
"Hahaha!"
It was the laugh of a devil. The laugh of someone who had the idea that the person she was trying to destroy was the same person she had been told to protect.
Sandro pulled out his phone and began taking pictures, his face carefully blank.
Across the room, Asteria had no idea she was being watched.
She was too focused on surviving the moment, on keeping her hands from shaking too visibly, on saying the right things and making the right faces and praying that this night would end without too much pain.
Joshua pushed a cocktail toward her—a swirling pink thing that looked pretty and tasted sweet. "Asteria, here, drink this. It tastes great."
She hesitated. She hated alcohol. It made her feel dizzy and out of control, and she had learned long ago that being out of control was dangerous. But she also knew that saying no was dangerous in its own way.
She took the glass and drank it all in one shot.
"WOOHOO! WOW! You’re a pro!" Joshua’s face lit up with genuine surprise and something that looked like approval. "Come on! Another one!"
He poured her another drink before she could respond, and Asteria found herself accepting it, drinking it down just as fast as the first. The liquid burned her throat and warmed her stomach, and already she could feel her thoughts starting to blur at the edges.
From across the room, Sandro’s phone captured everything.
~~~•••~~~
Three hours later, the bar had grown louder and darker.
Keres had left her VIP area about an hour ago, retreating to one of the regular rooms where the whore the manager had picked for her was waiting.
She didn’t care about Asteria anymore—or rather, she had filed Asteria away in the part of her mind labeled "to be dealt with later." The photographs were taken. The evidence was collected. Everything else could wait.
She had more pressing matters to attend to.
Like the beautiful woman kneeling in front of her, ready to earn her keep.
But even as Keres lost herself in the pleasures of the night, the drama in the main bar was reaching its peak. She felt bored so she stopped the woman and put her clothes back.
"I’m leaving, I’m getting bored." She said, then let Sandro assist her.
Going back to Asteria, she was drunk.
Not just tipsy or buzzed, but truly, deeply drunk. Her head spun, and her vision blurred, and she couldn’t seem to make her thoughts line up in the right order.
Something was wrong—something beyond the alcohol. She felt hot, dizzy, and strangely disconnected from her own body.
"Uhm... I... I think... I have to... Err..." She couldn’t even finish her sentence.
Joshua’s eyes gleamed with something that made her stomach turn. "I think you need to rest, Asteria. Come, I’ll bring you to one of the VIP rooms to rest."
He stood and offered her his arm, and Asteria took it because she didn’t know what else to do. Her legs felt like jelly as he guided her out of the bar area, down the long silent hallway, toward the hotel section of the Aleman.
And then, because the universe truly had a cruel sense of humor, they crossed paths with Keres.
She was coming from the opposite direction, her hair slightly disheveled and her lips still swollen from the activities she had just finished. Her eyes met Asteria’s for just a moment—a flicker of recognition that Asteria was too drunk to fully process.
Then Joshua opened his stupid mouth.
"Oh~~~ my mortal enemy," he drawled, his voice dripping with false friendliness. "Didn’t know I’d see you here."
"The audacity you have to call the top mob boss in the mafia a mortal enemy," Sandro sneered from behind Keres’s shoulder.
Joshua’s smile didn’t waver. "Oh~~~ Yeah. I forgot." He tilted his head, pretending to think. "But... isn’t it awful that you lost a bet with me?"
Keres’s expression didn’t change. She looked at Joshua like she was looking at a bug that had crawled onto her shoe.
"You know I can shoot you and kill you right now," she said calmly. "But I won’t do it, knowing you have a woman in your arms." Her gaze flicked to Asteria, who was swaying unsteadily against Joshua’s chest. "And to clarify, you didn’t win. You simply cheated."
The words hit Joshua’s ego like a slap. His smile tightened, and his grip on Asteria’s arm became bruising.
"And you plan to fuck this woman?" Keres calmly uttered the words like it’s casual talk. "Hah! I bet you wouldn’t be able to satisfy her, knowing how small your dick is."
Joshua’s pride had been wounded, and men like Joshua didn’t handle wounded pride gracefully. He pulled a gun from his jacket and pointed it directly at Keres’s chest.
"FUCK OFF, BITCH!"
The room exploded into motion.
Sandro’s gun was out before Joshua had finished his sentence. Keres’s other bodyguards followed suit, their weapons trained on Joshua from multiple angles.
Joshua’s own bodyguards—two large men with dead eyes—also drew their guns, and suddenly the hallway was filled with the gleam of steel and the smell of gunpowder anticipation.
Keres didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink. She stood there with a gun pointed at her heart, looking at Joshua like he was a child having a tantrum.
"Try to pull the trigger," she said softly. "I bet you’re just a kid, Joshua. You’re no real man."
Her voice was still calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that came before something terrible.
Joshua’s finger trembled against the trigger.
Asteria, still pressed against his side, still drunk and confused, looked between the two of them with wide, terrified eyes. She didn’t understand what was happening.
She didn’t understand why this woman—this beautiful, terrifying woman—was looking at Joshua like she had already won. free𝑤ebnovel.com
All Asteria knew was that she was trapped between two predators, and neither of them cared if she got hurt in the crossfire.
The standoff continued and the hallway was filled with the kind of tension no sane person would wanna be in.
And somewhere in the distance, a clock ticked toward midnight.
