Chapter 2 #2
"I didn't ask for an explanation," Arthur interrupted. He stood up, walking around the desk. He was shorter than me, but he held the power in the room. He leaned against the edge of the mahogany, crossing his arms.
"I've spent twenty years trying to control this girl," Arthur said, gesturing carelessly to Aurelia like she was a piece of furniture. "Boarding schools. Therapists. Nannies. Bodyguards. She breaks them all. She acts out, she embarrasses the family, she creates... messes."
"I'm right here, Dad," Aurelia snapped, her voice raspy.
"Quiet, Aurelia," he said. He didn't even look at her.
He looked at me. He looked at me with a strange intensity. Calculation.
"You stopped her," Arthur said. "She was hysterical, drunk, and dangerous. And you... neutralized her. With one hand."
I didn't answer. I didn't know where this was going.
"I looked into your file, Atlas," Arthur said. He picked up a folder. "Impressive stats. Highest hits-per-game in the league. Academic All-American. But... financial instability. A mother in and out of state-funded rehab facilities in Ohio. A debt of four thousand dollars due on Friday."
My head snapped up. I looked him in the eye. "That’s private."
"Nothing is private when you're poor, son," Arthur said coldly.
He dropped the folder. It landed with a slap that echoed the sound in the video.
"I have a proposition."
"I'm not interested in your money," I lied. I was desperate for his money.
"You are," Arthur corrected. "Unless you want your mother on the street."
He walked over to the window, looking out at the snow.
"Aurelia has been suspended from the semester for the stunt on the balcony. Public intoxication. Liability issues. The Dean wanted to expel her. I convinced him to let her take an 'academic sabbatical' to prepare for finals remotely."
He turned back to me.
"She is going to our cabin in the Northeast Kingdom. Three hours north. Isolated. No cell service. No parties. Just books, snow, and silence. She needs to pass her finals, and she needs to stay out of the press until the New Year."
"Okay," I said slowly. "Hire a nanny."
"She eats nannies for breakfast," Arthur said. "I need someone she can't manipulate. Someone she can't buy. Someone who..." He paused, looking at the video still playing on the tablet. "Someone who isn't afraid to enforce boundaries."
My stomach churned. I saw where this was going, and it was a train wreck.
"You want me to babysit her," I said flatly.
"I want you to be her warden," Arthur corrected. "Three weeks. You live in the cabin with her. You ensure she studies. You ensure she doesn't drink. You ensure she doesn't leave."
"No," I said immediately. "Absolutely not."
"I'll pay off your mother’s rehab," Arthur said. "In full. For the year."
The air left the room.
For the year.
That was fifty thousand dollars. That was freedom. That was my mother safe, clean, alive.
"And," Arthur added, the sweetener, "I'll make sure the scouts from the Bruins and the Rangers are at the home opener next month. Personal invitation."
It was a deal with the devil. It was selling my soul.
I looked at Aurelia.
She had lowered her sunglasses completely. She was staring at me with a mix of horror and... curiosity. She wasn't protesting. She wasn't screaming "Daddy, no!"
She was waiting to see if I would take it.
She was testing me again.
If I took this job, I would be trapped in a cabin, snowed in, with the one girl who made me lose control. The girl whose skin felt like silk and whose attitude felt like a challenge.
I looked at the scar on her father’s face—no, not a scar. A wrinkle of disdain. He thought he was buying a dog to watch his sheep.
He didn't know the sheep wanted to be eaten.
I took a breath. I thought about the $42 in my bank account. I thought about my mom.
"What are the rules?" I asked.
Arthur smiled. It was the smile of a predator who had just trapped its prey.
"Simple. Keep her alive. Keep her sober. Keep her inside." He paused, his eyes gleaming. "Do whatever you have to do to make her behave. You have my permission."
Do whatever you have to do.
The words hung in the air, heavy with implication.
I turned to Aurelia.
She was chewing on her lower lip. Her leg was bouncing nervously. She looked at me, and for a second, the mask slipped. I saw the loneliness. I saw the fear. And beneath it all, I saw that same dark hunger I felt in the parking lot.
She wanted to be contained. She was begging for it.
I walked over to the desk. I didn't shake Arthur's hand. I just nodded.
"I'll pack a bag," I said.
Arthur slid a set of keys across the mahogany. "You leave in an hour. Take the SUV. The roads are getting bad."
I picked up the keys. The metal was cold against my skin.
I looked at Aurelia one last time.
"Go get your stuff, Princess," I said, my voice dropping to that command tone again.
She shivered. Visibly.
"I hate you," she whispered. But she stood up. She didn't argue. She didn't fight. She stood up because I told her to.
"Get used to me," I said. "Because for the next three weeks, you belong to me."
I turned and walked out of the office, the keys clenched in my fist.
I had saved my mother. But as I walked back into the cold, gray light of the campus, I knew I had just walked into a trap I might not be able to chew my leg out of.
Three weeks. Alone. With her.
I wasn't just her warden. I was about to become her obsession. And she was already mine.