Chapter 6 — The Glass Tower #2
“This is the common area,” Ethan said, gesturing to the vast room. “You can be here whenever you want, except when I’m in meetings. If there are people in suits here who aren’t me, you go back to your room. Understood?”
Maya didn’t respond. He didn’t wait.
They passed a metal sculpture that looked like a dead tree. Maya instinctively reached out to touch the cold iron.
“Don't touch.” Ethan's voice cracked like a whip.
Maya pulled her hand back as if she'd been burned.
“Human skin oils are acidic,” Ethan explained without breaking stride. “They degrade surfaces over time. These pieces are centuries old. They've survived wars and revolutions. I won't let them be corroded by your fingerprints.”
“I'm not acidic,” Maya mumbled, offended.
“Everything that lives is destructive, Maya. It's the nature of biology. We consume and corrode. My function here is to prevent that. To preserve beauty in stasis.”
He stopped in front of a dark wood double door, the only break in the monotony of glass and stone on that side of the penthouse. A keypad sat beside the handle.
“This is my office,” he said. His voice dropped an octave, becoming solemn.
“This door stays locked. You never come in here.
Not to clean, not to hide, not even if the building's on fire.
What's inside is none of your concern. If you cross this threshold, the contract will be revised in a way you won't like.”
Maya looked at the door. It seemed like a closed mouth guarding terrible secrets. She remembered the office downstairs, where her life had been sold. If that was the “public” office, what did he keep in the private one?
“I don't want to go into your office,” she said. “I don't want to be anywhere here.”
“Great. Then we won't have any problems.”
He continued the tour. The kitchen was a culinary operating room: stainless steel, empty black granite counters, built-in appliances that looked like spaceship panels.
There was no smell of food. No crumbs. A fruit bowl held green apples so perfect and shiny that Maya was certain they were wax, until she spotted a small imperfection on one.
“The staff comes every morning at ten,” Ethan said. “Elena is the head housekeeper. She'll take care of your needs. Breakfast, laundry, cleaning. You don't need to do anything domestic.”
“I like doing things,” Maya said, remembering how cooking was her therapy in the cramped little apartment. Chopping vegetables, the smell of sautéed garlic. Real things.
“You weren't hired to be a domestic servant,” Ethan said, cutting off her nostalgia. “Your hands weren't made for scrubbing floors.”
He looked at her hands for a second—a strange look, almost hungry—before turning away.
They crossed a long hallway lined with black and white photographs of desolate landscapes—deserts, glaciers, ruins. No humans in the photos. Just the empty world.
“And here,” Ethan said, stopping in front of a white door at the end of the hallway, “is your room.”
He opened the door and gestured for her to enter.
Maya hesitated on the threshold. Stepping inside felt like an admission of defeat. Like accepting that she was going to stay. That she was going to sleep here.
But physical exhaustion was winning the war against her will. Her legs felt like molten lead. Her head throbbed with the pressure of altitude and crying.
She went in.
The room was… beautiful.
There was no other word. It was spacious, decorated in shades of cream, sand, and pale gold.
A king-size bed sat like a cloud anchored to the floor.
Floor-to-ceiling windows offered the same stunning view of the city, but from a different angle, showing the dark mountains in the distance.
A velvet chaise longue sat near the window.
A plush rug where her bare feet sank deliciously.
It didn't look like a cell. It looked like a seven-star hotel room.
But then Maya saw the closet.
The closet doors stood open, revealing a lit interior. And it was full.
Maya walked over to it, drawn like a moth to light. She ran her hand—forgetting the “don't touch” rule—over the hanging fabrics. Silk dresses. Cashmere coats. Tailored pants. Blouses in fabrics she didn't even know how to name.
She pulled out a simple black dress. Looked at the tag.
Size 4.
Her size.
She looked at the shoe shelves. Rows of heels, boots, flats. She picked up a pair of pristine white sneakers. Looked at the sole.
Size 7.
Her size.
A chill ran down her spine, colder than the penthouse air conditioning. She dropped the sneaker, which fell on the carpet with a dull thud.
She turned slowly to Ethan. He was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching her.
“How?” she whispered. “How did you know?”
The negotiation had happened less than an hour ago. Kyle had signed the contract in the basement. They'd come straight up. There was no time to buy clothes. No time to set up a room.
That meant the clothes were already here.
“You said it was a bet,” Maya's voice trembled, horrified comprehension dawning. “You said Kyle lost the money and you proposed the deal. On the spot.”
Ethan didn’t move. His face was unreadable, but there was a shadow in his eyes—something dark and calculating.
“I told you I collect beautiful things, Maya. And a good collector does his research before acquisition.”
“You planned this,” she said, stepping back and bumping into the hanging clothes that surrounded her like silk ghosts. “The game. The debt. Everything. You knew he was going to lose. You knew he was going to hand me over.”
“I knew Kyle was a weak man with a strong addiction,” Ethan corrected, his calm voice a stark contrast to her panic. “I merely provided the environment for his nature to run its course. Gravity did the rest.”
“And the clothes?” She pointed at the closet, her hand trembling. “How did you know my sizes?”
“Observation,” he said. “When you observe something with enough attention, the dimensions become obvious.”
It wasn’t an answer. It was a terrifying evasion. It meant he’d been watching her long enough to know her shoe size just by looking. Or that he had access to information far deeper than she’d imagined.
“Who are you?” she asked, sensing she was facing something far worse than a loan shark. She was facing an obsession.
Ethan pushed off from the doorframe.
“I’m the man who’s going to give you the best night’s sleep you’ve ever had, because for the first time in years, you don’t need to worry about rent, or the future, or an idiot boyfriend. All of that is over.”
He placed his hand on the doorknob.
“There’s a bathroom in the suite. The tub is deep. Use it. Wash off the smell of the casino. Wash off the smell of him.”
“You can’t lock me in here,” Maya said, stepping forward.
“The door doesn’t have a lock on the inside, Maya. But the security system for the elevator and stairs requires my biometrics. You have the bedroom, the bathroom, and the closet. The rest of the penthouse is accessible, but the exit… the exit doesn’t exist for you tonight.”
He began to close the door.
“Ethan!” she shouted, running toward him.
He stopped with the door ajar, looking at her through the gap. The hallway light illuminated half his face, leaving the other half in shadow.
“Rest, Maya. Tomorrow we begin polishing the rough stone.”
He closed the door.
Maya threw herself against the solid wood, turning the handle. It turned freely. The door wasn’t locked. She pushed.
The door didn’t move.
There was a soft electronic sound. Zzzzzt-Click.
A magnetic lock. The same kind that secured bank vault doors. Invisible, silent, and unbreakable.
Maya pounded on the wood with her open palm.
“Open up! Open this door!”
No one answered.
She pressed her ear to the wood. Footsteps receding down the stone corridor. Calm, rhythmic. Then silence.
She was locked in a golden box at the top of the world.
Maya slid down the door to the floor, feeling the plush carpet beneath her bare legs. She looked at the luxurious room, at the bed that looked like a cloud, at the closet full of clothes that fit her perfectly.
It was a cage. The most beautiful cage in the world.
She looked at the window. Las Vegas glittered outside, indifferent. Millions of lights, millions of people, and she was completely, absolutely alone with a monster who knew her shoe size.
Exhaustion finally won. Maya pulled her knees to her chest, buried her face in her arms, and for the first time since entering the casino, allowed herself to crumble in the airtight silence of her new prison.