WARNING:
This chapter has a few scenes of sexual assault and maltreatment that may not be suitable for everyone. Reader discretion is advised.
***
Bloom played in the bouncy castles with her best friends Dodolea and Daze. They were the children of baron Luther and baroness Scylla, huge investors at her publishing company and coincidentally Bloom's classmates. They were childhood friends and had playdates orchestrated by their parents to curry favour with Kika even though her husband had his title suspended indefinitely.
She was still a princess consort. She had the power and authority. It's just people avoid her and prefer not to join forces because of Luke's dark history of crimes. Drug amplifier production, kidnapping of the crown prince's son and even murder of a Titan to name a few.
"Mummy, Mummy!"
"Y–Yes sweetie."
Kika's head had been darting in every direction since the party started an hour ago. Luke was nowhere in sight. He wasn't picking up her calls or replying to her texts either.
"The magic show is about to start. When am I gonna hit the piñata?"
Kika smiled softly at the little munchkin. She always used to ask too why she had to eat her vegetables before she can eat dessert. Why can't she just eat everything she wanted all at once? Bloom already knew she was royalty at that age.
Killian thought she was adorable as a toddler and granted her the title of Viscountess and bestowed on her a fiefdom.
"Bloom, I already told you that breaking the piñata is the last activity for today. No amount of pouting is going to make me change my mind. Go and try out the other party games sweetie and even get some snacks, it'll be time before you know it."
Bloom wasn't happy about the rejected request but snacks sounded good too. She raced to the snack table with her besties to try out the pepperoni pizza rolls.
Kika almost dropped her phone when Luke eventually picked up her call a few minutes after the kids had broken the piñata and started stuffing their pudgy little fingers with candy.
"Hello, who are you?"
Kika felt the back of her throat closing up for the first time today.
"I'm Luke's wife, can you give him the phone?"
"What..."
The female voice sounded so astounded. Kika laughed quietly at herself. He was out with some woman on his own daughter's birthday.
"He isn't here right now, I'll tell him you called when he's back."
"Good."
She pulled her mouth tightly after hanging up.
"What did daddy say?"
Bloom tugged on her mum's palazzo pants with one hand and chewed messily on some liquorice and pixie sticks. She loved sour candy too.
Kika bent down to Bloom's level.
"Chew slowly sweetie, no one's going to take the candy away from you, okay?"
Her gaze dropped down afterwards and Bloom stopped chewing entirely.
"Daddy said he's busy again, didn't he?"
Kika tipped her head up but Bloom has no tears welled up in her eye sockets. She just puffed her cheeks and then showed the inside of her lower lip.
"I'll be fine, Mummy."
She wrapped her sticky hands around her mum's head from the midsection of her face then she ran off to play Simon says and blow bubbles with her friends.
***
Kika rubbed the spittle dripping from the side of her face. She had fallen asleep for the umpteenth time while waiting for Luke to come home.
She tapped her phone screen lightly and the light came on and she read the time.
"Twelve–fifty..."
She scrunched up her red-tipped, damp nose while trying to hold back any tears that threatened to fall. Bloom had been so brave today. Shrugging off the fact that her father purposely missed her party and continued with her life.
She felt strangely proud for some reason. Her daughter inherited her resilience against sentiment and emotional torment. Although bottling everything up inside is detrimental to your health, it deceives the enemy into thinking you're more formidable against failure than you actually are.
The most important thing is to survive, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
She yawned again and missed the sound of the door snapping shut behind her husband.
"Luke?..."
She yawned again. She baked a cake, supervised the party entertainers and arrangements and made sure the kids and their parents had a great time. She also stayed up waiting for him so she could ask him why he didn't come to the party.
"I told you about the party today. Why didn't you show up? Bloom was waiting for you all day."
Kika rubbed her eyes half-heartedly. She didn't want to get rid of the entire sleepy feel so it'll be easier for her to shut her eyes and be in dreamland a few seconds later.
"Hmmm?"
She added that when he didn't reply after the first few seconds. She decided to just be direct and ask him immediately after he returned than drag it out. She didn't want to attempt something as stupid as asking him what he was doing all day either. The call had explained it all.
She removed the hand blocking her eyes only to see him closer to her than he needed to be in order to reply her question.
"Luke?"
That was when she noticed the bleeding cut right above his eyebrow. His face looked reshaped too. She reached out to him without thinking.
"Oh my goodness, Luke are you okay? What happened to you?"
She found more bruises on the side of his neck and his lower lip was almost divided in half, he had a black eye too.
Luke wrapped one arm tightly around her fist and threw her on the couch.
"L-Luke W-What are you doing?"
She stumbled out of the sofa but he caught hold of her before she could slip away. He pinned her down by her waist to the tiles and kissed her.
"You got away the last time but I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen again."
He greedily tore at her blouse after that. Kika struggled, trying to pull away, but he held her tightly.
"Luke! Luke get off me! Aaaaarrg–"
He easily covered her whole mouth with one hand. His fingers bit into the sides of her face. He paid no heed to the fact that he might also be suffocating her.
She couldn't focus on what was happening. She couldn't focus on the pain, the thrusting pain, the violation...It was easier to think about the ceramic floor tiles but they were so hard, and cold and we're supposed to be stain resistant.
The floors could be cleaned but not the gruesome memory his actions would etch in her heart.