Gold Cage

by Francesca Baez

  I don’t bother knocking, or even turning the knob. I know her bedroom door will be locked. I lean my shoulder against the door and shove once. That’s all it takes. The oak itself is sturdy enough, but I’ve seen stronger locks in the projects. The people who reside behind those doors are used to living in fear, after all.

  Selina gives a little shriek as the lock cracks open and I enter. She’s sitting on her bed, and she shrinks back against the headboard in an instinctive attempt to get away from me, panicked hands fisting white sheets. God, the things she makes me want to do are undeniable, but my cock will have to wait.

  My princess’s eyes are wide and furious despite a new touch of sallowness in her cheeks. I doubt the rich girl tends to eat much to start with, but she’s not used to being totally deprived. Maybe I should feel bad about it, but I didn’t do this to her. She did it to herself.

  “What, did you get tired of watching me in your cameras, had to get a look at the real thing?” she snaps, and if the look in her eyes had matched the edge in her voice, I would have had to punish her. But she’s fronting, that much is obvious, merely delaying the inevitable. She knows her place, feels the call to submit. I can see it in the quiver of her bottom lip as she dares to meet my eyes. She’ll tire of pretending eventually, but I’ve waited long enough.

  “I’ve had enough of this hunger strike of yours,” I tell her, taking a step closer to the bed. “You’re going to make lunch. And then you’re going to do everything else that is expected of you. No more bullshit.”

  “Or what?” she says, and the forced bravado in her shaking voice only pulls me in closer. “You’ll shoot someone? You’ll shoot me?”

  “I don’t have to hurt anyone,” I say, leaning over the bed, sinking my hands into the lush mattress. She tries to shrink back further, but there’s nowhere left to go. This close, she could reach out and slap me. I almost wish she would. If she dared touch me, I would grab that pretty little waist and—

  “What does that mean?” she asks, and this time I can tell that she’s finally learning exactly who she’s dealing with.

  “When you fight me, you’re only hurting yourself,” I tell her, pushing up from the bed and watching the way her lithe body bounces in my wake. “If you don’t eat, they don’t eat.”

  It takes a moment for realization to reach her eyes, and then they go big. I can practically see inside her head, see her counting the days that she’s been starving her own people, the ones that she’s been trying so hard to protect. Then she blinks away the emotion and turns back to me with that mask of infuriating defiance firmly back in place.

  “Fine,” she snaps, arms crossed tightly. “I’ll make you a goddamn sandwich.”

  * * *

  I’ve never made a sandwich in my damn life.

  It’s not my fault. I’ve never had to. Mom and Dad always had the nannies do everything for us, and after they died, it’s not like anyone was going to ask us to do anything. And after Max, well, all I’ve been making since then is cocktails.

  Vega is watching me snidely as I fumble around the pantry looking for bread. He’s glistening a little, in a sweaty tank top and a towel around his neck. It’s unfair, the way the muscles in his tattooed arms twitch when he leans across the kitchen island. It’s unfair that he doesn’t stink of boyish B.O., even after what was clearly an intense workout. It’s especially unfair that I can’t stop noticing.

  What the hell is wrong with me? This is the man who is torturing me, torturing others in my name. It would be one thing if he were only taking my money. I don’t understand why he’s insisting on taking my dignity, too.

  I slap the loaf of bread angrily down on the granite counter and swing the fridge door open. What do people put on sandwiches? Kate always made me the best cucumber and cream cheese tea sandwiches, but I can’t imagine the criminal across from me daintily munching on that. Instead, I grab some lunch meat, sliced cheddar, and dijon. That seems right. It helps that there’s not much else to choose from in the fridge. Has it always been this empty-looking?

  The mental image of Kate sitting in a dank room somewhere, starving because of my idiotic attempt to stand up to our tormentors, haunts me already. Why didn’t Vega tell me from the start what would happen if I refused his orders? I don’t understand his mind games. While I was locked up in my room the past two days I did nothing but dream of escape, which would have proven to be a touch more challenging now that Vega’s installed those damn cameras everywhere. Now, however, it’s become painfully obvious that there will be no escape for me, not as long as Kate and the others are in his grasp.

  I find a couple plates and put together two sandwiches. Vega watches me the whole time, with the intense fascination of a man who is watching a dog learn to read. When I’m done, I slide his sandwich across the island and eagerly sink my teeth into mine. Fuck, I’m starving. So much for my little hunger strike. My very first sandwich isn’t half bad, either, although at this point I’d gladly eat just about anything.

  Chewing as fast as possible, I glance up to watch Vega eat his lunch. He’s taking delicate bites, savoring it, like some kind of sandwich sommelier. He raises an eyebrow at me noncommittally.

  “Are you rethinking this stupid idea of turning me into your maid?” I ask, licking a bit of mustard off my thumb. He watches the movement hungrily for a moment, making me shift uncomfortably, but then he just shakes his head and smiles kindly at me, which is somehow worse.

  “I’ll buy you a cookbook.”

  Hernando gives me my iPad back, albeit with some pretty rigid parental controls installed. This little favor, of course, is so I can access the most humiliating genre of YouTube tutorials: how to run a vacuum, how to mop, how to make a bed, how to boil water. I can’t believe this is what my life has been reduced to. More than that, I can’t believe I’m just letting it happen. Logically, I know I don’t have much of a choice, not if I want any chance at freeing myself and my people from under Vega’s thumb. I can’t keep provoking him, can’t keep fighting the ever-tightening chains he’s bound me in. No, my best bet is to play along for now, make him think I’m a docile captive, until I find a way out. Unfortunately, playing along means spending the larger portion of my days lugging cleaning supplies around my oversized home, sweating through my clothes by noon. I don’t know how Kate did it, especially with her bad knees. Maybe this is how she got the bad knees.

  I’m dutifully returning the iPad when the date on the home screen catches my eye. I do a double take. In the chaos of my captivity, I’d lost complete track of time. It was a Thursday when they took over my home, maybe a Friday. Now, it’s Tuesday.

  “I have to go somewhere tomorrow,” I tell Vega, leaving no room for argument in my tone. “It’s a baby shower in Buckhead. I already missed a charity thing Sunday, and I bet I’ve got a lot of missed calls on my phone. People will start to notice if I just drop off the face of the planet.”

  Vega and Miel glance at each other. Surely they’ve thought of this. They’ve certainly thought of everything else. Maybe they thought they’d have longer to tame me before they had to return me to the public eye. I might seem fairly unpopular, a bit of a social hermit, but I just prefer to keep a bit of a low profile these days.

  “Do you have a calendar of these events?” Vega asks, turning back to me.

  “On my phone.”

  Vega nods at Brock, who runs off to wherever they’ve locked my shit away. In a moment he returns with my smartphone, which Vega hands over.

  “No bullshit,” he says, as I tap in my password. “Just open the calendar.”

  I roll my eyes at him. It would take a real idiot to try and call for help while surrounded by her armed captors.

  I do as I’m told, then hand the phone back. Vega has Miel share the calendar with herself, then the phone disappears into his pants pocket, and I fight to keep my eyes from following its trajectory.

  “Alright,” Vega says with finality, crossing his arms. “Miel will escort you to this
event tomorrow. Make an excuse as to why you’ve been MIA, a good one. From now on, excuse yourself from these things. We don’t have time for this bullshit.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll need a gift. All the good shit on the registry is long gone, I’m sure. And Miel will need a new outfit, unless I’m supposed to tell all my friends that my plus-one is my kidnapper, or maybe a biker I picked up off the street.”

  The guys all turn to look at Miel, who defensively crosses her arms over her faded t-shirt and skin-tight leather leggings.

  “Find her something from your closet,” Vega instructs me, sighing in defeat. “Brock, take a look at the registry and buy a gift. Figure out the rest of the details amongst yourself. I’ve got better shit to do than keep talking about a fucking baby shower. Selina, bring me lunch in the study in fifteen.”

  Could it really be this easy? He’s just letting me go? I twist my hands in my lap to hide the thin tremor of hope in my fingers, watching Vega turn toward the door. Maybe escape isn’t so far out of reach, after all.

  “Don’t get it twisted, princesa.” And suddenly, Vega’s big hand is wrapped around my arm, and I’m gasping. Miel and the guys cast their eyes away from us, and my instinct is to do the same, but Vega cuts me off. Grabbing my chin, he lifts my head until I’m forced to meet his icy glare. He sees right through me, and as his fingerprints press into my flesh, I can’t believe there was ever a moment I thought I could be free from his possession. He doesn’t need to say it, but he does, running the calloused pad of his thumb over my bottom lip in a way that is both tender and threatening. “If Miel loses sight of you for even a moment, I start breaking fingers. And if you breathe word of this to anyone, well, I start breaking necks.”

  * * *

  Miel is dead silent as she drives us to Buckhead. She insisted I sit in the front passenger seat, as opposed to the backseat, which I instinctively slid into. “I’m not your fucking chauffeur,” she’d snapped. She then started playing a country radio station, and when I complained that just because we live in the South doesn’t mean we have to pretend to like this shit, she gave me a death scowl. Maybe she’s saving all her good vibes for the shower.

  “What am I supposed to tell people?” I ask as we take our exit off 85. “I mean, about you. Are you a new blue blood who just moved to Atlanta? My adult nanny? A journalist shadowing me for a thrilling tell-all?”

  Miel exhales loudly. I don’t know what her problem is. I found my suggestions charming.

  “Keep it simple,” she says, glancing at the maps app on her phone as we near our destination. “Say I’m your personal assistant, or whatever you people call it.”

  “Adult nanny,” I chirp, grinning at the sullen woman. She scares me slightly less than Vega, and that makes me brazen. Plus, being off the estate for the first time in days is giving me some kind of natural high, even if I am still on a tight leash, to say the least. I force myself to shake the mental image of what could happen if I step out of line, even accidentally. “At least, that’s what Karena Jennings calls hers. I’m not even kidding, it’s ridiculous.”

  “If I hear the words ‘adult nanny’ one more time, you’re not making it back alive,” Miel snaps, and I can’t help but laugh. It’s probably born from hysteria, but it still feels good. Out of the corner of my eye I see her cracking a small smile. “We’re here.”

  I tell Miel to leave the car with the valet, despite her protests, then take a deep breath and put my game face on. As the elevator slowly rises, my heart beats faster in my chest. Somehow, this return to my old life feels more challenging than the Cinderella role I’ve been playing at home. How do I act like the same Selina these high society women have always known, with the invisible press of a gun between my shoulders the whole time? I feel like a pig being led to slaughter, even as the chrome doors slide open and reveal a luxurious scene of champagne, silk, and fresh flowers. I hear Miel inhale sharply beside me. I bet she was picturing a bunch of homely ladies sitting around playing games with toilet paper and clothes pins, munching on pigs-in-a-blanket. But no, if I have to get used to her world, she has to get used to mine.

  “Selina!” A perfectly round Ginny Lott, the star of this little shindig, flings herself into my arms for a hug. “I wasn’t sure you would make it. The party planner said you didn’t RSVP, and I didn’t see you at the St. Jude’s brunch Sunday. But I’m so glad you’re here! And who’s this?”

  She gestures at Miel, who smiles awkwardly from behind our big gift box. I can see her moving to hand the gift over and I quickly lay a hand on her arm to stop her.

  “This is my new personal assistant, Miel,” I say. “Miel, this is Ginny Lott, our guest of honor. Her husband is a VP with Turner.”

  “Don’t tell anyone, but we’re losing the V by the end of the year,” Ginny says in a conspiratorial whisper, with a little wink. “Anyway, thanks so much for coming out. Grab some champagne and enjoy it while you can!”

  The woman points down at her swollen belly and makes a dramatically pained face, then disappears back into the crowd before I have time to fake a chuckle. I point out the gift table to Miel, then grab a champagne flute from a tray as it glides by.

  “This is fancy as fuck,” Miel hisses to me when she returns empty handed.

  “I thought you said this life was what y’all wanted,” I point out snidely, taking a long sip of bubbly. “Better get used to it.”

  Miel just glares at me silently, then gives the half-drained champagne flute in my hand a pointed look. “Don’t drink too much. The last thing we need is you getting buzzed and chatty.”

  “Don’t worry, I can handle myself,” I say with an eye roll, then gasp as I see another friend approaching. “Isla!”

  I do the mandatory air kisses with my neighbor, then the proper introductions. Isla del Rey and her husband own a massive publishing conglomerate, having combined the companies they each inherited from a long line of publishing royalty. Their estate is down the road from mine, and probably twice as large.

  “What do you need a personal assistant for?” Isla teases, in that trademark half-joking-half-genuinely-cruel style of hers. “Was your busy schedule of day drinking and lounging by the pool getting to be too much for you to handle?”

  I laugh mirthlessly and give Miel a subtle told-you-so look. There’s absolutely no reason an unemployed heiress like me would need a personal assistant, but it’s not like they gave me a better cover story.

  “Actually, do I know you?” Isla asks Miel, giving her a slow up-and-down. “You look familiar.”

  With her dark, tight curls loose around her face, the sharp eyeliner scrubbed away, and in an old Chanel tea dress of mine, this Miel looks nothing like the Miel who broke down my door. Still, her shoulders square at Isla’s probing glance, and I can suddenly see in her narrowed eyes that there’s definitely a gun in that Coach crossbody I lent her.

  “I doubt it,” I step in quickly, before Miel’s naturally badass aura gives too much away. “I got her from up North. She’s new to Atlanta.”

  “Hmm,” Isla says, taking a long sip of champagne. “If you say so. I’ll see you around, Selina. Good luck with this one, she’s a real troublemaker.”

  Isla gestures at me with that last bit, winking at Miel showily. We both force a laugh and watch Isla strut away.

  I mingle for a little longer, snacking on chocolate-covered strawberries and working my way through as much champagne as Miel will let me get away with. Maybe it’s for the best that she’s holding me back. I’d drain every bottle in this building if I thought it would make me forget my predicament for even a moment. I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, trapped in a mental nightmare while floating through this pastel daydream. It’s almost time for us to make a sly exit when Pennilyn Hunt approaches us.

  “Miss Palacios,” the older gentlewoman says, shaking my hand delicately. She must instinctively sense that Miel is “the help,” because she doesn’t acknowledge my companion at all. “I haven’t been able t
o reach you lately. Is everything alright?”

  “Yes, of course,” I say, smiling brightly. “I’ve just been doing a digital detox.” At the woman’s blank expression, I go on. “It’s when you take a break from social media, electronics, all that stuff. It’s supposed to be good for your mental health.”

  “Sounds like the first two-thirds of my life,” Mrs. Hunt huffs, and I giggle a little, but she just gives me a humorless look. “That’s all well and good, dear, but I desperately need to be in contact with you about the gala in September. What am I to do, fax you?”

  This time Miel is the one who chuckles, but this also turns out not to be a joke.

  “Of course, sorry for the inconvenience, Mrs. Hunt,” I say. “You can contact my personal assistant here, and she’ll make sure I get the message. Miel, this is about our upcoming anti-gang violence fundraiser. You know, our big push to clean up Atlanta’s streets once and for all.”

  Miel glares at my snide smile and gets her phone out and turns back to the older woman. “Of course, how wonderful. Can I get your contact info, Mrs. Hunt? I’ll be in touch.”

  As we wait for the valet to bring our car back around, Miel adjusts her purse strap and shifts on the kitten heels I lent her. “Not that I need to explain anything to you, but we’re not the bad guys you think we are.”

  Sure,” I say, raising my eyebrows doubtfully. “Of course not. You’re just kidnappers, blackmailers, torturers, but not bad guys.”

  “You’re right,” Miel says after a beat, and her face shifts back into an unreadable mask. Whatever brief camaraderie we shared here today is over. “I guess we are all those things.”

  I can hear the unfinished nature of the sentence hanging in the air between us, but I don’t dare press for more. What does this mean? Is there more to my captors than meets the eye? Is this about more than money? But no, I remind myself, as the valet pulls the car around and we step in, leaving the palatial penthouse party behind. Nothing is ever about anything other than money. And none of them, especially not Vega, are anything more than the villains of my story.