Chapter 10 Coco
TEN
Coco
Creole vs. Cajun Cuisine: Creole cooking, influenced by European and African flavors, often uses tomatoes, while Cajun cuisine, rooted in French Acadian traditions, is known for its smoky, spicy dishes cooked in one pot.
The lights have dimmed to a soft twilight, mimicking the end of a day I can’t actually see. It doesn’t soothe me the way unwinding after a long day should. It instructs. Another reminder that even time is managed for me here.
Under different circumstances, I might admire the precision.
Right now, it only reinforces how far underground I am. Layers of earth and concrete separate me from the rest of the world. This is a place designed to absorb a person without leaving a ripple behind.
I’ve been alone for hours. Ridge left sometime after two, long enough ago that the quiet has shifted from neutral to invasive. I’ve done everything I can think of to keep from counting the minutes.
I worked out first. Movement helped at the beginning. My body needed it after being confined to that small bedroom at the cabin.
But there’s only so much enthusiasm I can summon for a Peloton before it starts to feel like another form of compliance forced on me.
Sweat still dampens my shirt, cooling slowly along my spine. I’m hyperaware of it. Of every place fabric clings. Of the weight of my own skin. Being locked down here strips away distraction and leaves my body front and center, whether I want it there or not.
That awareness didn’t start today. It’s been lingering since last night, refusing to settle back into something neutral.
I move on to the kitchen. Every cabinet, every drawer, everything is clean and orderly, stocked with intention.
Grabbing an apple, I take a bite and lean against the counter as I look around for the hundredth time. It isn’t much, but it’s better than coffee and cheese crackers, which is a low bar I’m grateful to clear.
Normal things. Domestic things.
They unsettle me more than the restraints did, like comfort offered where it doesn’t belong.
It was only yesterday morning that I woke up tied to a bed in a strange place. My sense of time hasn’t caught up to that yet. Neither has my sense of scale.
A night shouldn’t change that much. And yet my body holds onto details I’d rather file away and never revisit.
Heat, weight, uninvited pleasure. The fact that I slept deeply after he left me in that room, after what we did, and without dreaming irritates me more than it should.
I wander the bunker, restless energy pulling me from room to room. I pause at the edge of the pool, tempted for half a second, then step back. The idea of water pressing in around me down here feels less like luxury and more like being swallowed.
Maybe tomorrow.
I try one of the movies Ridge mentioned. The voices grate almost immediately. Every line sounds too crisp, too artificial. I shut it off halfway through, irritated by how dependent I’ve become on constant noise and endless choice.
I plop on the sofa in the personality-less living room. The place is definitely more comfortable than being tied to a bed in a single bedroom, but it’s definitely not warm.
I tell myself this is temporary. A holding pattern while Ridge handles whatever forced us out of the cabin. The longer I sit with that thought, the less convincing it becomes.
My attention drifts to the study door.
He told me it was off-limits, the only room that stays locked. He had been clear about that, firm in a way that did not invite negotiation.
I respect it, partly out of caution and partly because I understand what lines looked like in a place like this.
Still, something about it keeps pulling me there.
I shift on the couch and really look at the door for the first time instead of just acknowledging it. The seam where it meets the frame is not flush. It is subtle, the kind of thing you would miss if you were not already restless.
The door is closed, but not pulled all the way in.
I cannot stop wondering if there might be something inside that explains any of this. The urgency. The rules. The way he watches everything without ever seeming distracted.
I tap my fingers against my knee and scan the space out of habit. Cameras. There have to be cameras. Even if nothing streams out of here, the possibility presses in. Being watched is a different kind of restraint than being locked in.
I spot one in the kitchen. Another near the main entrance. Their placement is deliberate and obvious, like he wants people to know where not to linger.
I do not see any in the hall. There appears to be nothing aimed at the study door.
Restlessness tips into decision.
I move down the hallway softly, as if tiptoeing won’t alert anyone to my approach. Everything has a place, yet nothing is personal. A house designed to operate, not to settle into.
I stop in front of the room.
I tell myself I am only checking the door, confirming it is locked, and then walking away. That noticing something does not obligate me to act on it.
I wrap my fingers around the knob, and it doesn’t turn. It stays firm under my palm, locked like he said it would be. But the door shifts anyway.
It moves an inch, then another, gliding inward with a faint scrape of wood against frame. No click. No resistance. Just the quiet give of something that was never pulled fully shut.
I stop breathing.
He locked it. He just didn’t make sure it latched fully when he closed it.
The gap opens into darkness, narrow but unmistakable. Enough to see the edge of a desk. Enough to know this isn’t a mistake I imagined.
This is the moment I should step back. Instead, I ease the door open the rest of the way.
The desk dominates the room, dark and heavy, and unlike the rest of the bunker, it isn’t pristine. Papers sit scattered across its surface, as if someone left in a hurry. That alone draws me closer.
I start with what’s on top. Expense logs.
Delivery schedules. Mundane on the surface, even if I don’t know what half of it means.
I’m sliding one sheet back into place when something about the bottom drawer catches my attention.
It’s slightly ajar. Dust rims the edge, disturbed just enough to suggest it wasn’t meant to be.
I crouch and pull it open.
My fingers brush against something stiff and crinkled beneath loose papers. When I draw it out, my pulse kicks harder than it has since I entered the room.
A thin ledger. Old. Faded. Tucked so far back it feels deliberate.
I flip through it, then stop when I notice the photos slipped between the last pages. My hand stills. The room feels smaller all at once. I glance toward the door, then slide the photographs free.
Each one is sharp and focused, the subjects caught mid-conversation, unaware. Men in bars. Men at tables. Men leaning close to speak. None of them looks at the camera.
Every image has at least one man in it circled in red ink.
I flip through them again, slower this time, paying closer attention to try to understand what they are.
Two men across from each other at a table, their shoulders angled stiffly, conversation caught mid-stream. Another man stands alone in a dim corner, sharp-featured, his expression closed in a way that makes it hard to tell what he’s reacting to, or if he’s reacting at all.
One image holds my attention longer than the rest.
The man is broader than the others, heavier through the shoulders. There’s a dark mark along the side of his neck, curling upward toward his jaw. A birthmark, maybe.
I tilt the photo slightly, studying it, trying to decide what about it draws my eye. It isn’t attractive or dramatic. It’s just distinct enough that I know I’d recognize it again.
In that photo, the red marker circled him multiple times, pressed thicker. It wraps around both men at the table.
There are no notes. No dates. No explanation.
Someone cared enough to single these moments out, then cared enough to hide them. Did Ridge hide them, or are they hidden from him, too?
I keep going, slower now, flipping through the remaining photos. The man with the mark on his neck appears again, this time by himself. The shot isn’t clean. It’s slightly blurred, as if whoever took it moved too quickly or didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the angle to settle.
That alone catches my attention.
The rest follow the same pattern. Different locations. Different men. Always candid. Always circled. No notes. No names. Nothing to tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at.
I don’t understand what I’m looking at. But I know enough to recognize when something has been collected deliberately.
This isn’t a hobby nor is it curiosity for curiosity’s sake. Someone took the time to document these moments, then hid them where they wouldn’t be stumbled across.
That matters.
I think of my father without meaning to. Of the way information is currency in his world, even incomplete information. Especially incomplete information. Sometimes all it takes is a detail that refuses to line up cleanly.
I don’t know if these photos would mean anything to him. Maybe they wouldn’t. But I know he’d want to see them before dismissing them outright.
I gather the stack together, careful not to bend the edges. I don’t feel scared so much as focused. If I ever walk out of here, I want to leave with more than questions.
I return everything else as carefully as I can. The ledger goes back into the drawer, and the drawer eased shut. I move quietly through the bunker, heart beating hard enough that I’m aware of it in my throat.
In the bedroom Ridge designated as mine, I lift the mattress just enough to slide the photos between the fabric and the frame. My hands aren’t steady, but I force them to be precise. If I ever get out of here, I want these with me.
I smooth the sheets, step back.
The sound of a lock turning cuts through the air.
The click is sharp and sudden, and heat rushes up my spine. I was in the office seconds ago. If I’d hesitated even a few seconds longer, he would have caught me.