Not the heavy, blood-soaked silence of the house. This was different. This was a sterile, humming quiet, the kind you find in a hospital after visiting hours. The air was cool and smelled faintly of lemon and something else… something clean and metallic.
My eyes fluttered open. I wasn't in my bed. I wasn't in a bed at all. I was on a long, cream-colored sofa, a soft blanket draped over me. The sofa was in the middle of a room so big it echoed. The ceiling was high, lost in shadows. One entire wall was made of glass, a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out not at a street, but at a sky. A sea of clouds, tinged with the orange and pink of a sunrise. We were high up. Too high up.
I sat up, the blanket pooling around my waist. I was still wearing the silk robe from last night. It felt slick and foreign against my skin. My head throbbed, a dull, persistent ache behind my eyes. I looked down at my hands. They were clean. The blood was gone. My nails were no longer caked with it. Someone had washed me.
A wave of nausea hit me, hot and sharp. I scrambled to the edge of the sofa, my bare feet hitting cold, polished concrete floors. I leaned over, gagging, but nothing came up. My stomach was empty.
"Good. You're awake."
His voice. It came from behind me, calm and even. I didn't scream. I didn't have the energy. I just turned my head slowly.
He was standing in the doorway of what looked like a kitchen. He was wearing a different suit, this one a dark grey. He held a mug of coffee in one hand, steam curling up into the air. He looked like he lived here. Like he belonged.
"Where am I?" My voice was a croak, my throat dry and raw.
"My apartment," he said, taking a sip of his coffee. "Top floor of the Sterling Tower. Best view in the city."
He walked further into the room, his steps silent on the concrete. He didn't come close, just stopped by a massive, black stone fireplace that wasn't lit. "Your clothes are in the bedroom. The closet is full. Everything should be your size."
I just stared at him. My brain was struggling to catch up, to process the sheer normalcy of the scene. The coffee, the view, the clean clothes. It was all so civilized. It was a lie.
"Why?" I whispered.
He set his mug down on the mantelpiece. "Because you're a mess. And I prefer my assets to be well-maintained." He gestured vaguely around the room. "This is your new home, Chloe. For the foreseeable future."
He started to walk, pointing things out as if he were a real estate agent and not a man who had kidnapped me. "Kitchen. Fully stocked. There's a chef who comes in the mornings. Eat what he makes. The bedroom is through there." He pointed to a hallway. "Bathroom is en suite. There's a panic button under the sink. It won't call the police. It will call me. Don't press it unless you enjoy disappointment."
He stopped by the wall of glass. "The windows are triple-paned, bulletproof glass. They don't open. The door has a biometric lock. My thumbprint, and my thumbprint only. The elevator requires a keycard, which I have." He turned to face me, his grey eyes unreadable. "You are not a prisoner, Chloe. You are a guest. A guest who has forgotten how to leave."
My blood ran cold. It wasn't a cage with bars. It was a cage with a view. A beautiful, expensive, inescapable prison.
He walked back towards me, stopping a few feet away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, silver object. My phone. My old phone, the one I thought was lost.
"Your sister has been trying to reach you," he said, his voice casual. He tossed it onto the sofa cushion next to me. It felt like a live grenade. "She's left about thirty messages. Hysterical. Crying. Asking where you are."
I stared at the phone, my heart hammering against my ribs. Elara.
"You can listen to them," Damien said, his voice a low murmur. "Or you can delete them. Your choice."
It wasn't a choice. It was a test. Listening to them would be torture. It would break me. Deleting them would be an act of betrayal, a severing of the last tie I had to her. He was watching me, his expression neutral, waiting to see which kind of person I was. The kind who clung to pain, or the kind who was strong enough to cut it away.
My hand trembled as I reached for the phone. My thumb hovered over the screen, over the notifications. I could see the preview of her messages. *Chloe, please call me.* *Where are you? I'm so sorry.* *I'm going to the police.*
I looked up at Damien. His eyes were on me, intense, calculating. He wasn't just offering me a choice. He was forcing me to perform for him.
I took a deep breath. My thumb moved. I didn't play a message. I didn't delete them. I held down the power button until the screen went black. I set the phone back down on the cushion, face down.
A flicker of something—surprise? approval?—crossed his face before it was gone.
"Good," he said. "You're a faster learner than I thought." He picked up his coffee mug from the mantelpiece. "Breakfast is in ten minutes. Don't be late."
He turned and walked back towards the kitchen, leaving me alone in the vast, silent room with the dead phone and the beautiful, terrifying view of a city I could never touch.