Chapter 3 - The Golden Cage
The fourth floor of the Hayes estate didn't feel like a home. It felt like an art gallery designed by a paranoid king.
The elevator doors opened directly into a sprawling penthouse-style suite overlooking the sprawling, mist-shrouded lawns of the estate and the distant, steel-gray waters of the Atlantic. The walls were lined with dark oak paneling, rare Impressionist paintings that looked terrifyingly authentic, and floor-to-ceiling windows reinforced with bulletproof laminated glass.
I stood awkwardly in the center of a cream-colored wool rug that cost more than my family’s entire apartment building in South Boston.
“Don’t touch anything,” a sharp, melodic voice commanded from the doorway of a walk-in wardrobe.
I jumped, spinning around to see an impeccably dressed woman in her late forties with silver-streaked dark hair, wearing a slate-gray designer pantsuit. She held a sleek digital tablet in one hand and eyed me with the cold, critical appraisal of a high-end fashion curator inspecting a particularly flawed mannequin.
“You must be Clara,” she said, stepping forward. “I am Mrs. Vance, head of household operations. Or, given the bizarre decree the Boss just barked down the intercom, I suppose I should start practicing how to curtsy to you.”
“Please, don't,” I blurted out, holding my bandaged hand defensively. “I’m not... this is a mistake. I’m a maid. I was scrubbing the West Wing. Mr. Hayes hit his head, or he’s delirious from the blood loss—”
“Victor Hayes does not get delirious,” Mrs. Vance interrupted smoothly, walking past me toward a massive velvet-upholstered chaise lounge by the window. She tapped her tablet screen, bringing up a holographic projected inventory list. “When the Boss makes a decision, the world bends around it. Whether you want to be here or not is entirely irrelevant to the laws of gravity, Clara.”
She gestured toward a set of double doors leading to a private bathroom lined in Italian marble and gold fixtures.
“Go wash the cleaning chemicals out of your hair,” Mrs. Vance ordered, her tone softening just a fraction, though her eyes remained sharp. “Then come back out. A stylist from Newbury Street is currently speeding through our gates under armed escort, and three tailors are waiting downstairs with racks of evening wear. If you’re going to be paraded in front of the municipal gala this Friday as Victor’s intended, you are not going to look like you spent the night sleeping on a crime scene.”
“A gala?” I whispered, feeling the room tilt slightly on its axis. “Friday? That’s three days away!”
“Correct. Which gives us approximately seventy-two hours to turn a girl who smells like lemon bleach into a syndicate queen capable of smiling at district attorneys while their sons smuggle contraband through the container ports.”
She didn't wait for my answer. She turned and tapped another command into her tablet, leaving me standing alone in the center of a multi-million-dollar bedroom suite, trapped by a debt I hadn't asked for and a man I couldn't possibly understand.
Thirty minutes later, standing under a shower head that sprayed water with the pressure of a fire hydrant, I stared at my reflection in the fogged glass.
My skin was pale, my hair was a tangled mess of bleach-damaged brown, and the raw fear in my eyes looked pathetic.
What am I doing? I asked myself, pressing my palms against the cold marble wall. I should jump out that window. I should run down the stairs, steal a car, and drive straight to the police.
May you like
And then I remembered Liam. My brother, sitting in a dark concrete holding cell in the basement, waiting to find out if Victor Hayes was going to shatter his kneecaps or make him a shipping magnate.
If I ran, Liam died. If I stayed, I was trading my soul to a monster in exchange for a golden cage.
