Chapter 30 — No Way Out #2
“Did you think I'd spend three years watching you, half a million dollars buying you, and months molding you to fit into my life… just to open the door and say 'thanks, it was fun, go back to Ohio'?”
He shook his head.
“The contract was for Kyle. It was to give him an out, a justification for his conscience. 'It's only for six months, she'll come back.' It was to get you to accept, thinking there was an end in sight.”
He took a step forward, trapping her against the bookshelf.
“But there is no end, Maya. There never was. The contract was just paper. A formality to ease the transition.”
“But it's legal…” she stammered. “It has a date…”
“I am the law in this building,” he said. “I am the law in this city. That contract is worth whatever I say it's worth. And I say it's perpetual.”
Maya felt the air leave her lungs.
“You're going to keep me prisoner? Forever?”
“I'm going to keep you with me,” he corrected. “As my wife. As my partner. As the mother of my children, eventually.”
He raised his hand and caressed her face. Maya tried to turn away, but he gripped her chin firmly.
“Don't you see? We're perfect. You need me. You need the security I provide. You need the intensity. And I… I need your light so I'm not swallowed by my own darkness.”
“I don't love you,” she lied, desperate. “I hate you.”
“Hatred is passion,” he said. “Hatred is better than indifference. I can work with hatred. I can transform hatred into desire, like I did last night.”
He brought his face closer to hers.
“You're going to stay, Maya. The first will come and go. And you'll still be here. And in a year, or two, or ten… you'll stop fighting. You'll realize this is the only life that matters.”
It was the final sentence.
There was no way out. There was no deadline. The hope that had sustained her—the countdown—was a lie. He never intended to free her.
The panic, which until now had been a mental thing, became physical. Pure adrenaline flooded Maya's veins. The fight-or-flight instinct, suppressed by months of luxury and manipulation, roared to life.
She couldn't stay. If she stayed, she would die. The Maya she was would cease to exist, replaced by a hollow doll who loved her creator.
She had to get out. Now.
She looked at the door. Ethan was blocking the way.
But he was close. Too close. And he was confident. Arrogant. He thought she was broken.
Maya looked at the table beside her.
There was a paperweight. A solid cube of faceted crystal, heavy, with sharp edges. The kind of object that could have decorated a CEO's desk or served as a weapon in a game of Clue.
Ethan's hand was still on her chin. He was looking at her mouth, thinking about kissing her, thinking about sealing the new “perpetual agreement” with a kiss.
Maya didn't think.
Her right hand shot to the side. Her fingers closed around the cold, heavy crystal.
She saw the change in Ethan's eyes. The pupil contracting. The belated recognition that the prey still had teeth.
He tried to pull back.
Too late.
With a cry that was half sob, half war cry, Maya twisted her body and brought the paperweight down with all the force she had.
She aimed for his head.
The crystal cut through the air with a hiss.
Ethan raised his arm reflexively to protect himself.
CRACK.
The sound of crystal hitting bone was nauseating.
The paperweight struck Ethan's forearm, near the elbow. There was a snap.
Ethan grunted in pain, recoiling, clutching his injured arm. The shock on his face was total. He hadn't expected physical violence from her. Screams, tears, maybe a slap—not an armed attack.
The path to the door was clear.
Maya didn't wait to see the damage. She dropped the crystal—it hit the floor with a dull thud, unbroken, stained perhaps?—and ran.
She ran to the office door.
“Maya!” Ethan roared behind her. His voice was no longer calm. It was the voice of a wounded monster.
She launched herself into the hallway. Her bare feet slipped on the polished stone floor, but she regained her balance.
She ran toward the elevator.
The biometric panel.
She needed his hand. Or a code.
No, the elevator was locked. He'd said so. Miller's at the door.
But Miller wasn't there. Miller was downstairs, dealing with Kyle.
The fire exit.
The kitchen.
The lighter.
The plan to burn the cage.
She ran to the living room.
Behind her, she heard Ethan's heavy footsteps leaving the office. He was coming. And he was furious.
“You can't run!” he shouted. His voice echoed through the vast penthouse. “There's no way out!”
Maya reached the kitchen island. She yanked the drawer open, silverware flying to the floor with a metallic clatter.
She found the lighter.
She ran to the living room, to the heavy velvet curtains covering the glass wall.
Ethan appeared in the hallway. He was holding his left arm against his body. His face was pale with pain, but his eyes… his eyes were pure fire.
“Put that down, Maya,” he warned, stopping in the middle of the room.
Maya flicked the lighter. The blue flame appeared.
“You said the fire system unlocks the doors,” she said, her voice trembling but loud. “Let's see if you're as meticulous about safety as you are about my life.”
She touched the flame to the hem of the velvet curtain.
The fabric, synthetic and heavy, caught fire almost instantly. Flames licked up the curtain, climbing fast, hungry.
Black smoke began to rise.
Ethan's eyes widened.
“You're insane!”
“I'd rather burn than stay here with you!” she screamed.
The fire alarm went off.
brEE-brEE-brEE!
The sound was deafening. Strobe lights began flashing on the ceiling.
And then she heard the mechanical sound she'd been praying to hear.
Click-Clunk.
The magnetic locks on the exit doors. The service door in the kitchen. The elevator door. The emergency stairwell doors.
Everything opened.
The security system prioritized life over property. Ethan hadn't managed to reprogram that particular law of physics—or building code.
“No!” Ethan lunged forward, ignoring the fire beginning to spread to the carpet.
Maya ran.
She didn't go to the elevator. He'd catch her there.
She ran to the service door in the kitchen, the one Elena came through.
She passed through the door and entered the gray concrete stairwell. The air was hot, stifling, but it smelled like freedom.
She began to descend.
Fifty floors.
She heard the stairwell door open on the floor above.
“MAYA!”
She didn't look back. She flew down the steps two at a time, barefoot, her heart pounding louder than the fire alarm.
She was descending. To the real world. To the gutter. Away from the sky and the false god who'd tried to swallow her.
The hunt was over. The escape had begun.