LOVE CLASPED HER trembling hands and bowed. Soon it would be her turn on the stage. The veteran entertainers at the club were now performing. They said she was the star of the show tonight. Everyone was waiting for her performance. After she sang tonight, she had no idea what could happen to her. There was nothing she could do now but to pray. Hopefully, she would be able to handle whatever would come her way.
“Kulas, get your Ate Love some water. She looks like she's going to pass out.” Lorena was worried.
Kulas gave her a glass of water. "Thank you."
“You’ll be fine. This is your first time singing in this place so it's normal to feel nervous. It will go away eventually.”
"Lorena, you're babying our newcomer again,” Andres said. "You’ll spoil her.”
Love felt tears welled up in the corner of her eyes. The fear she felt for Andress was really something else. Honestly, he looked decent enough as a person. He even wore a white coat and seemed to be able to carry himself like a Spanish don. He looked really different from his men who looked like a bunch of throw-away gangsters. But she also felt like his soul was darker than those men.
Lorena was about to reason out but one wave of his hand and she immediately moved away, pulling Kulas with her. 
Andres pulled up an empty seat there and sat in front of Love. “I just want to clear something out. Not because you’re blind, you will be given special treatment. You all needed to make money. You still have to pay a debt, so I don’t want to waste time with all these dramas.”
"Y-Yes, Boss," she whispered softly in a trembling voice.
“I don’t want you to make a scene and cry when you go up on that stage, do you hear me? I don’t want you crying when you’re at work. I'm already working things out for you so I would still be able to earn a lot of money from you even though you don’t have eyesight! Do you want to get hurt?!”
She forced her tears to stop when he shouted at her. Even her emotions were not hers to control anymore.
She had no rights over her tears.  
Andres smiled when she nodded. “Good! I want you to be happy while entertaining our customers later. If you don’t do your best, you’ll stay longer here at the club. You won’t be able to pay off your debt anymore.”
She just nodded at everything he said. She had no other choice anyway. She would just cry later. Now she needed to face everything. She would just prepare herself for whatever happened to her after her performance. She would just put everything in God’s hands.
Mimi picked her up later on and took her backstage. Then the host finally introduced her. "The newest star of the Comet Club, Lovellia!"
The host guided her until she got close to the microphone. She wanted to melt at that moment. There were lusts in the eyes of the men in the audience. Many VIPs came when they heard there was a new star performing at the club tonight. There were politicians, businessmen, and old actors.
The introduction of her song Lost In Your Eyes filled the whole place. When she started singing, the lust in the eyes of the men intensified.
“I get lost in your eyes…”
Her voice was shaking and she just wanted to cry but couldn't. She would get in big trouble with Andres.
How she wished she really was blind so she doesn’t need to see all those perversions in front of her. She never wanted to be in that place. She never experienced this kind of treatment even in her nightmares.
She closed her eyes so she could just concentrate on her singing. She became even more hopeless. Was this going to be her dark world from now on?
She remembered what Lorena had said earlier, about a man coming in to save her from this miserable place.
And who would that even be? One of the regular VIPs at that club? Who would waste time on her especially when they knew she was blind? Men look down on women who work at the club. Women who could easily be bought with money.
Suddenly, the image of Mitos' impostor came into her mind. He promised to help her in order for Mitos to make it up for all the pains she had gone through because of him. But she had driven him out of her life. He would never come back again to help her.
He might not even help her, even more, when he learned about her situation now. Mitos who said he loved her never came back, so what more of that man who was just a stranger to her.
There was no hope for her anymore.
She was a bit surprised when she heard people applauding her. She had finished singing and she almost didn’t notice it.  
Andres himself took the microphone from the host. "Did you like our new star?" Everyone in the audience agreed. “She just didn’t have a beautiful voice. She also has the face of an angel. Very innocent. She is also good at giving massages. Anyone who would be with her tonight will not be disappointed.”
People in the audience were intrigued by her even more. She almost hugged herself. They looked like they were stripping her with their stares. 
“Let’s start the bidding. Ten thousand pesos. ”
She felt like someone kicked her in the chest when someone from the audience raised his hand. "Ten thousand!"
And just like that. They were selling her like she was just some fish in the market. The people there were really heartless. How she wished she really would just disappear. If only she could just run away, she would have done it. She felt like her stomach was turning upside down as the price got higher.
“Eighteen thousand? Higher than eighteen thousand?”
Andres looked disappointed because that's all the bid has reached for her. She felt one of the male performers there stood behind her and ripped her clothes. 
"Don't!" she screamed as she tried to cover her chest.
The men shouted. "Did I hear twenty thousand?"
She tried her best to cover herself as she cried uncontrollably. She felt really hopeless. No one would really come to save her. She felt like slowly dying. 
"Stop what you're doing!”