The moment the bathroom door clicked shut behind Arnulfo, the sound of the shower started-a heavy, aggressive spray.

Erline moved.

Adrenaline cut through the fog of the drugs. She scrambled to the foot of the bed where a grey dress lay folded. It was modest, high-necked, the color of wet pavement. She didn't care. She pulled it on, her hands shaking so badly she fumbled the zipper twice.

She grabbed the tablet. It was her only link to the outside world.

She ran to the bedroom door. Her hand gripped the cold brass handle. She held her breath, expecting it to be locked. She pushed down.

It clicked open.

Hope, wild and desperate, surged in her chest. She slipped into the hallway.

The corridor was vast, lined with dark wood paneling. The art on the walls was disturbing-abstract faces twisted in silent screams, painted in violent reds and blacks. It felt like walking through a nightmare.

She ran toward where she assumed the stairs were. She turned a sharp corner and slammed into a wall of solid flesh.

Erline bounced back, falling onto the runner carpet. She looked up.

A woman stood there. She was in her fifties, wearing a stiff, black housekeeper's uniform. Her hair was pulled back so tightly it pulled at the corners of her eyes. This was Mrs. Higgins.

Higgins looked down at Erline, her lip curling in a sneer. "This one is trying to run already?"

Erline scrambled to her feet, trying to sidestep the woman. Higgins reached out, her fingers like talons, and clamped onto Erline's wrist. Her grip was bruising.

"Mr. Bond is bathing. You are not permitted to wander."

Erline pulled back, panic rising. She couldn't speak. She couldn't scream. She opened her mouth and, in a fit of desperation, snapped her teeth toward Higgins' hand.

Higgins yelped and let go, but the reaction was immediate. She swung her hand, a heavy, open-palmed slap aimed at Erline's face.

Erline ducked. The hand missed her cheek but caught her shoulder, sending her stumbling back into the wall.

"Enough."

The voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a gavel strike.

Erline froze. Arnulfo stood in the doorway of the master bedroom. He was wearing a white bathrobe, open at the chest. His hair was wet, dripping water onto the dark wood floor.

Higgins' demeanor changed instantly. She bowed her head, her voice dripping with false subservience. "Sir. The Madam was lost."

Arnulfo ignored the housekeeper completely. He walked toward Erline, his bare feet silent on the carpet.

He didn't look angry. He looked bored. He pulled a smartphone from his robe pocket.

"Watch," he said.

He tapped a single button on the screen. It was red and labeled LOCKDOWN.

A mechanical whirring sound filled the hallway. At the end of the corridor, heavy black titanium shutters began to descend over the floor-to-ceiling windows. Clang. Clang. Clang. The sound was final. The daylight was choked out, replaced by the artificial glow of the sconces.

A red light pulsed above the stairwell door.

The estate hadn't just been locked. It had been sealed. It was a fortress. A prison.

Erline stared at the shutters, her chest heaving.

Arnulfo stepped closer, backing her into the wall. He smelled of cedarwood soap and rain.

"There are no exits, Verity."

He held up his phone again. He swiped to a photo. It was grainy, taken from a distance. A woman in a hospital gown sat on a bench, staring at a blank wall. Her back was to the camera.

"That was number eight," Arnulfo said casually. "She liked to run, too. Now she resides in a facility in Zurich. She drools on herself mostly."

He swiped the screen off and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

"You are number nine. I would prefer not to send you to Switzerland. The paperwork is tedious."

Erline's legs shook. This wasn't a threat of violence; it was a threat of erasure. He could make her disappear, and the world would thank him for paying her medical bills.

"Go to the dining room," Arnulfo said. "Don't make me say it twice."

Higgins stepped aside, gesturing to the stairs with a mock-polite sweep of her arm, a cruel smile playing on her lips.

Erline pushed herself off the wall. She kept her head down, sliding past Arnulfo. She felt the heat radiating from his body.

As she passed him, he reached out. She flinched.

He adjusted the collar of her grey dress, smoothing a wrinkle with his thumb.

"Grey suits you," he murmured. "Insignificant. Like dust."

Erline ran. She took the stairs two at a time, fleeing the monster and his keeper.

Erline didn't go to the dining room. She found a guest bathroom on the first floor and threw herself inside, locking the door with trembling fingers.

She slid down the door until she hit the cold tile floor. She hugged her knees to her chest, trying to stop the shaking.

She saw her suitcase, a small leather weekender, tucked beside the vanity. Her things. They had at least given her that. She scrambled over and unzipped it. Inside, nestled amongst a few changes of clothes, was the small, beaded clutch she had carried the night before. She fumbled with the clasp and dumped the contents onto the tiles. Lipstick. A mint. She ran her thumb along the silk lining, found the hidden seam, and pulled. The false bottom came away, revealing a slim, black smartphone.

It wasn't the phone Arnulfo had given her. It was her burner.

She pressed the power button. The screen cracked to life.

It vibrated immediately. Incoming Call: Verity.

Erline stared at the name. Hate, hot and pure, flooded her veins. She swiped to answer, pressing the phone to her ear. She didn't make a sound.

"Good morning, little sister," Verity's voice purred. "Did you enjoy your wedding night?"

Erline bit her lip so hard she tasted copper.

"Don't think about running," Verity continued, her voice hardening. "And don't think about telling Arnulfo the truth."

"If you speak, or if he returns you like a defective product..."

A sound came through the speaker. A high-pitched, rhythmic beeping. Beep... beep... beep...

"Switch to video," Verity commanded.

Erline pulled the phone away and tapped the camera icon.

The screen filled with the sterile white of an ICU room. Aunt Meredith lay in the bed, looking small and frail. Tubes ran from her nose and arms. The rhythmic beeping was her heart monitor.

A hand-manicured, with perfect red polish-came into the frame. It hovered over the power cord of the ventilator.

"Aunt Meredith's care costs five thousand dollars a day," Verity said. "If you aren't Mrs. Bond, who pays that bill? Dad is broke. I'm broke. You're broke."

Tears spilled over Erline's lashes. She stared into the camera and mouthed the words: Don't touch her.

Verity laughed. It was a light, tinkling sound. "Then play your part. Be the mute little doll. As soon as the Bond transfer hits the family accounts, I'll pay the hospital for another month."

The screen went black.

Erline dropped the phone. She buried her face in her hands, a silent scream tearing at her throat. She slammed her fist into the tile floor. Once. Twice. The pain in her hand grounded her.

She hated Verity. But she hated her own helplessness more.

She sat there for five minutes, breathing through her nose. In. Out.

Then, her eyes changed. The fear receded, replaced by a cold, hard resolve.

She picked up the phone again. She didn't call anyone. She opened a hidden partition in the operating system. Her fingers flew across the tiny keyboard, accessing a secure node.

The screen turned into a black terminal with green text.

LOGIN: THE_GHOST

ACCESS GRANTED.

She wasn't just a mute antique restorer. She was the forensic accountant the SEC hired when they couldn't find the money. She lived on the dark web.

She didn't perform a search; she initiated a diagnostic on a ghost protocol she'd embedded in Bond Industries' network six months ago, part of her ongoing investigation for the SEC.

STATUS: DORMANT. UNDETECTED.

If she was going to survive this, Verity's money wasn't enough. She needed leverage. She needed a weapon. And in the Bond house, money was the only ammunition that mattered.

She would find the skeletons in Arnulfo's closet. She would find the illegal accounts, the bribes, the blood money. And she would hold it over his head.

Footsteps approached the bathroom door. Heavy. Deliberate.

Erline killed the screen and shoved the phone back into the hidden lining of her clutch.

She stood up. She looked in the mirror. Her face was pale, her eyes red. She splashed cold water on her cheeks. She smoothed her hair.

She put the mask back on. The scared, mute girl.

She unlocked the door and stepped out. She wasn't running anymore. She was infiltrating.

The dining room was a cavern. A mahogany table, long enough to seat twenty people, dominated the space.

Arnulfo sat at the head of the table. He was dressed in a charcoal suit now, crisp and immaculate. He looked like a king on a throne.

He didn't look up as Erline entered. He was reading a newspaper, a cup of black coffee steaming near his hand.

"Sit," he said.

A place was set for her at the complete opposite end of the table, five meters away. The distance was intentional. It was a canyon.

Erline sat. The silverware was heavy, pure sterling silver. It felt cold against her fingers.

The double doors to the kitchen swung open. A short, round man in a chef's uniform bustled out pushing a cart. He was sweating. This was Chef Pierre.

"Madame," Pierre murmured nervously. He placed a plate in front of her.

It was foie gras. A large, fatty lobe of liver, seared, sitting in a pool of dark reduction. Truffles were shaved over the top.

The smell hit Erline instantly. Rich, oily, and metallic. Her stomach, already churning from the stress and the residual drugs, lurched.

She stared at the plate. She saw the pink veins in the liver.

She didn't pick up her fork.

At the other end of the table, Arnulfo lowered the newspaper. The rustle of the paper was deafening in the silence.

"Not to your liking?" he asked. His voice carried effortlessly across the distance.

Erline shook her head slightly. She picked up the fork, her hand trembling. She tried to cut a piece, but her hand wouldn't cooperate. She put the fork down.

Arnulfo slammed the newspaper onto the table.

"I don't like waiting," he said. "And I don't like picky eaters."

He turned his gaze to the chef. Pierre was wringing his hands in his apron.

"Is this your Michelin standard, Pierre? Food that makes my wife look like she's going to be sick?"

Pierre went pale. "Monsieur Bond, it is the finest grade, flown in this morning from..."

"Shut up," Arnulfo said. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.

"You're fired. Get out."

Pierre's eyes widened. "Sir, please. My mortgage... my daughter is in university..."

Arnulfo snapped his fingers. Two security guards materialized from the shadows of the hallway. They grabbed Pierre by the arms.

"No!" Pierre cried as they dragged him backward. "Please, Mr. Bond!"

Erline stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. She reached out a hand, her mouth opening to protest. She couldn't let a man lose his livelihood because she was nauseous.

Arnulfo looked at her. His eyes were ice.

"Sit down."

Erline froze.

"If you don't eat it," Arnulfo said, gesturing to the plate, "the trust that pays for your Aunt Meredith's care will find itself under... immediate review. For fiscal irresponsibility."

The threat hung in the air. Collective punishment. It was the tactic of a dictator.

Erline slowly sank back into her chair. She looked at the foie gras. She thought of Aunt Meredith, helpless in that hospital bed.

She picked up her knife and fork. She cut a large piece. She stabbed it.

She put it in her mouth. The texture was soft, coating her tongue in warm grease. She chewed once and swallowed. It felt like swallowing a stone.

Arnulfo watched her, his chin resting on his hand. He looked fascinated by her misery.

"Good," he said. "Lesson one: Your actions have costs. Usually for other people."

He stood up and buttoned his jacket.

"I'm going to the office. I'll be back this evening to inspect your... performance."

He walked out without looking back.

The moment the front door slammed, Erline bolted from her chair. She ran to the nearest decorative trash can in the corner of the room and retched.