The Series of Unfortunate Events (pt. 1)

trigger warning! Mentions of torture

(Marco's POV)

The universe really seemed to be against us lately.

After the explosion of our warehouses, we received news that one of our hostage compounds in the northern parts had been raided and all the hostages were now in police custody. So we lost our warehouse, we lost a billion euros, and we lost some of our hostages as well. Was this Karma? It really was starting to seem like we had received nothing but trouble ever since Katarina arrived at our house. Was this her fault?

Maybe I was too ambitious with wanting to take over the America's, it seemed like maybe it would be the other way around now. I wasn't sure if Katarina had anything to do with what was happening here, but when I asked the guards about their report on her, they said she was just sitting in her cell, acting like she was really at home. This wasn't surprising to me. Katarina was a strange woman and her actions sometimes called for a sanity check.

It's not that I was expecting her to be distraught and sad, but as always, the intended reaction I wanted from her didn't arrive at all. I wanted her to be willing to do whatever I wanted by the time she left that cell, and it wasn't happening. I didn't seem to be any closer to breaking her.

When I voiced my concerns to my father, he suggested that I remove the commodities from her cell, which I did. Her television was taken away, her stereo was taken away, her couch was taken away, even her bed was taken away and replaced with a flat and uncomfortable mattress that was placed directly on the floor. Still, nothing.

When I checked the security camera footage, Katarina was making the most out of the new mattress I had given her. She found ways to make it comfortable and glamorous, even going as far as discarding all the other furniture to place table top items on the floor to match with her bed. I didn't really understand what her logic was.

This was a woman who had grown up receiving everything she wanted. She was only accustomed to the utmost luxury and comfort, so how was this so easy for her? I was not expecting her to have such a positive attitude about everything. I even took away her extra clothes to see what would happen and she somehow found ways to fabricate new outfits from the ten items of clothing she was left with.

She was unbreakable. Or so I thought, until my father suggested that all she needed was a little pain and suffering. Hurting Katarina had crossed my mind multiple times, but I had avoided doing it because I didn't need her father coming after her. Now that she was declared dead, I was basically free to do whatever I wanted with her because nobody was going to know.

I took away her food and only fed her once a day. When that didn't work, I resorted to feeding her every other day. Still nothing. No pleas for clemency, no acknowledgement of her situation at all, just her looking for something new to do in her cell. So I resorted to cutting off her water and only allowing her to shower once a week. Still, nothing. She found new ways to keep clean.

I discovered that Katarina was very resourceful when it came to pulling luxury out of nowhere. Nothing I did seemed to phase this girl! Even when I was starving her and slowly reducing her to a shell of herself, she just found ways to cope and ADJUSTED! Desperate times called for desperate measures though, so I called in my specialists and told them to take care of her.

So here I was, standing in front of the woman who had robbed my sleep from me. She was chained up the same way she had been when I first took her. The only difference was, this time she was aching and bruised. I had Katarina subjected to every form of torture I could think of without breaking her bones or cutting off her digits. Nothing. The woman reminded me of Morticia Addams with the way she just took it and made dirty jokes about it.

Psychological torture was like a joke to her. She saw straight through every curve ball and decoded what we were doing right in front of our faces. She was unaffected by pain, it seemed. When I received a call that said she laughed after being shocked, I had to drive eight hours and come to see her for myself. Her hair was matted and beads of sweat were running down her back. It seemed hard to believe that this was the same woman who had tried to kill me with aspirin.

"A visit from the legend himself," she rasped. "How fortunate."

Her voice was hoarse and had deepened severely, probably from how dry her throat was lately. Seeing her like this, reduced to her lowest point, was a shock to me. How could she find the drive to still be sarcastic after everything I put her through? Anyone else would have been telling me all the secrets to their success by now.

"How haven't you broken yet?" She was becoming an enigma to me, and I was desperate to figure her out. I wanted everything that she was laid out for me on paper, detail by detail. "I've done everything I can think of to you."

"Oh, baby," she raised her head to look at me. Her gaze was unfocused, but the moment she saw me, her pupils sharpened. Being looked at like that by her… it felt like being stabbed. "I'm a masochist, remember? I like it when you hurt me."

Okay, speaking to her was useless. I could see through her act, though. She was beginning to crack. That unfocused look in her eyes when she looked at me let me know that she was slipping. Whether it was a coping mechanism or not, she was slipping, and I needed her completely sane in order to help me get my hands on what would have one day been her inheritance.

"Get her down from there and clean her up. She's going back to the house."