Glass Cage

by Francesca Baez

  “What did he look like?”

  “Um,” Annie hesitates, eyes flickering toward the hall as if she’s regretting this whole exchange, wishing she’d just handled the potential explosive herself.

  “What did he look like, Annie?”

  “Kind of like you, sir.”

  Fuck. It’s vague and maybe a little racist, but it leaves no question who the sender is. I rise and march out to the front desk, Annie following behind me nervously. She’s right that the unmarked package is suspicious, but I don’t hesitate to grab it and rip the cardboard open. My former employer doesn’t deal in bombs or booby traps. Whatever this is, it’s going to be a message, and hopefully not the kind that comes in the form of a severed limb. Messages are meant to be seen by the living, not by the recently blown-to-bits. That’s what I tell myself as I confidently tear the box open, and Annie shrinks against the wall.

  It’s just a mask.

  A black ski mask, like the one I’d wear on kills.

  Like the one I wore when I was sent to kill Selina.

  It’s a reminder, or a threat, or both.

  I almost wish he’d just sent his new hit man. At least then we’d be cutting straight to the chase, instead of dealing in all this cryptic bullshit. I crumple the ski mask into a ball and toss it into the garbage bin next to Annie’s desk, unable to swallow the groan of frustration that accompanies the motion.

  “Sir?” the woman says from behind me.

  “What now?”

  “I… I think I quit.”

  * * *

  As if the trauma of the engagement party wasn’t enough, Isla insists on throwing me a bridal shower. Well, I talked her down to that, her original pitch was for a bachelorette party. Javier would never let me go on a weekend trip to Vegas, even if I wanted to. So, bridal shower it is. That can’t be worse than penis-shaped cakes and male strippers, right?

  After the expense of the wedding gown and the dress for the engagement party, Vega wouldn’t let me buy a new outfit for this. I find something in the back of my closet that I bought last spring and never ended up wearing. It’s out of season, but it’ll have to do. Simple and elegant, just my style. The white A-line dress has gold sequined vines and blossoms curving down the bodice, and the signature fabric hugs my hips the way I like. I pair it with my nude red-bottoms and swipe on some crimson lipstick at the last minute. I’ll need it to face down the room full of vipers I’m about to walk into.

  “Is that what you’re wearing?” Miel asks when I meet her in the foyer. My babysitter for the night is wearing a black Chanel dress out of my closet, and her usual razor-sharp eyeliner. “Isn’t that dress kind of… plain?”

  “It’s Valentino,” I snap, jerking my coat over my shoulders. Evenings are finally starting to get a little chilly.

  “Whatever,” Miel says, throwing her hands up in mock defeat. Recently, things have been warmer between us than they’ve been in months. But not that much warmer, apparently. “Let’s go, we’re late already.”

  “You know we’re just going down the street, right?” I ask, following her out to the car.

  “Your whole driveway is a street, and so is theirs,” Miel gripes. She’s right. By the time we get to the del Reys’ place, drop the car with the valet, and climb up their obnoxiously ornate front steps, we’re pretty much the last ones there. Which usually I wouldn’t give a shit about, but tonight, everyone turns to stare as I walk in. Isla shrieking and running in my direction doesn’t particularly help.

  “Wifey in the house!” she crows, waving her arms at me as if to direct any remaining stray eyes. She’s wearing a dramatic dress, with crystals dripping down the neckline and wide split-sleeves that give the appearance of a cape. Why is she wearing white? Aren’t bride rules in effect? And why do I suddenly give a shit?

  “Not a wifey quite yet,” I lie through gritted teeth, forcing a smile as she grabs my hand and leads me into the center of the room.

  “Oh, I know,” Isla chirps, sitting me down and somehow immediately handing me a flute of pink Veuve Clicquot, before settling down in the armchair right next to mine. “You’re not ready yet. But after tonight, you’ll be an expert.”

  “Oh my god,” I breathe, looking up at the gaggle of women milling around the room. Some are distracted by the bubbly and their own little conversations, but too many are still looking at me. I’d rather be assaulted by male strippers in whatever costumes suit Isla’s particular fancy—sailors, maybe?—than have to listen to a word of marital advice from these bitches. If a single one of them says to never go to bed angry, I’ll find the gun Miel inevitably has on her and shoot myself.

  “But we’ll get to that later,” Isla says, with a syrupy voice that sets off alarms in my head. “First, you have to tell us everything. Oh my god, how’s the sex? I’ve seen your man’s tats, I bet he likes it rough.”

  My stomach falls as the room snickers as one. My eyes land on Miel’s. Her face is stony and expressionless. I don’t know how much she knows, but judging from the way she reacted to finding out we’re sleeping together, in the most literal sense of the word, I don’t think she would approve of the truth. Well, not that the truth is much more exciting than that. Despite the touches that last a little too long, and the lingering glances that bear more heat every day, we have yet to even kiss since that night we fucked in my bathroom, so long ago.

  “I don’t,” I begin, fighting the urge to down the whole flute of champagne and then reach for the bottle. “We haven’t—”

  “Oh, come on,” Isla says, giving the room a goofy can-you-believe-this-bitch look like this is some kind of comedy special. “We all know you’re not saving yourself for marriage. That ship sailed a long time ago.”

  Fucking bitch. Just because your husband hasn’t touched you in years doesn’t mean you get to live vicariously through my sex life. It’s on the tip of my tongue, right next to, As far as I know, my husband may never touch me again, either. And if I’m being honest with myself, I really, really fucking want him to, even though I still hate his guts.

  Instead, I smile demurely at the crowd. “A lady never tells. Not until after a few more glasses of champagne, anyway.”

  Isla shrieks with delight, and the other women giggle. I can’t make myself look at Miel, though I desperately need her approval.

  “Get the DeLeón!” Isla shouts at no one in particular. “We’re doing shots until this slut tells us every dirty detail.”

  “I can’t—” I begin, but she’s cutting me off with a hand on my forearm.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she says in a low voice, leaning in close so the other women can’t hear us. “Of course we’re not doing shots.”

  “What?” I ask, as servers bring out trays of what definitely looks like shots, which the guests swoop in on eagerly.

  “Come with me,” Isla says, grabbing my arms and pulling me out of the room. With the crowd swarming and screaming over the tequila shots, we somehow slip past Miel’s watchful eyes and into the empty hallway.

  “What are you doing?” I ask nervously, feeling unmoored without my keeper. Not to mention, Isla’s acting weird as hell, pulling me in way too close for comfort.

  “You can tell me,” she says, her face more earnest than I’ve ever seen it, her voice a couple octaves lower than her usual screech.

  “Tell you what?”

  “The truth,” she says. “Selina, something is weird with you. I know you and Javier, if that’s even his real name, got married weeks ago, way before the engagement party. It was the day after you called me in a panic, asking weird questions. There’s something off about this guy, your fiancé or husband or whatever. He came out of nowhere and now he’s everywhere. Are you in trouble? You can tell me, I’ll help you.”

  Fuck. I don’t get this woman. I thought I knew her—she wasn’t that hard to pin down, with the shallow insecurity, endless need for attention, and all that—but this is someone I’ve never met before. Someone… nice?

  But I don
’t get to decide if I would have told her, if I would have trusted her, because Miel joins us in the hall just then.

  “You should come back out here,” she says, barely a hint of faux politeness in her tone. “Your guests are waiting.”

  “Selina,” Isla insists, grabbing my arms tighter. “Is she in on it? I can call my security. Seriously, tell me.”

  Miel’s eyebrows rise, and I nod my head at her. I know what I have to do.

  “Isla, everything is fine,” I say, pulling myself out of her hold. Damn, this sucks. “It all happened so fast because we’re in love. And maybe you can’t recognize that, because your own marriage is so loveless, but it’s true. And maybe you need to turn everything around you into some crazy drama to fill a sad little void in your own life, but leave me out of it. I’m absolutely fine.”

  “Selina—”

  I march back into the party without waiting for a response, blinking back tears in my own eyes. Maybe I didn’t need to be so cruel about it, but this is the only way to ensure she won’t keep prying. She won’t care about me anymore, because she’ll hate me. It’s for her own protection.

  I grab two shots before Miel can stop me and down them both, one after the other, the sharp burn of the alcohol making fresh tears spark in my eyes. The worst part is, I know I didn’t just do it to protect myself or Isla from Javier’s wrath. I did it to protect him, not because I felt forced, but because I wanted to.

  I wanted to help him over myself.

  * * *

  Something happened at the bridal shower.

  I can tell as soon as the women get back, the silence between them even more awkward than usual, a hint of tequila on Selina’s breath. And maybe I should just leave it alone, at least until I get the full story from Miel in the morning, but with my wife in that perfectly fitted dress and lush scarlet lips, I can’t help myself.

  “Did you have fun?” I ask Selina, watching her as she plucks the pearls from her ears, abandoning the expensive studs haphazardly on the vanity. Is she going to ask for help with her dress again? I would kill—literally—for a chance to help her slip out of her clothes again.

  “Nope,” Selina snaps simply, taking a wipe to her face. I watch the blush, the smoky eyeshadow, the lashes disappear, but then she reaches toward those red lips, and my heart sinks. I want to watch those a little longer, watch them work nothing but words, if that’s all I get tonight. She hesitates too, as if sensing my feelings. “Why are you staring at me? What do you want?”

  “Just trying to make a little conversation, find out how your night went,” I reply, not dishonestly, leaning against the bedpost.

  “Well, it sucked ass,” Selina says, sounding a bit more like Miel than usual. “You’re welcome.”

  You’re welcome? What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  “What happened? Was Isla a bitch?” I press, standing up and moving closer. “Tell me, princesa.”

  “Don’t pretend to give a shit,” my wife says, and her face is reflected back at me in the mirror, a mess of emotions I’m not sure I know how to identify on her yet. “You just want to know if I did anything stupid, anything to betray you.”

  Well, that too, but Miel would have told me already if that was the case. I close the distance between us and rest my hands on her shoulders, an unfamiliar gesture of comfort that probably feels as wrong to her as it does to me. “I’m not pretending, I do care. I’m your husband—”

  “Why do you do this?” she interrupts in a voice nearing a hysterical scream, spinning on her red soles to face me. Her face is furious, more violence in it than she should be brave enough to show around me, but perhaps it’s the champagne and tequila coursing through her veins that has brought out this foolish bravado. “You act like it’s about the money, or the vengeance, or whatever sad little backstory you refuse to talk to me about, but it’s not. It’s about me, and your obsession, and this sick sense of ownership you feel over me. Believe it or not, just because you blackmailed me into marrying you doesn’t change anything between us. I’m still your hostage, and you’re a killer, and I will never feel anything more than Stockholm Syndrome for you, no matter how much you pretend to care about me.”

  Fuck, her words hit me like a slap. Not because my feelings are hurt, although her words cut deeper than I’d ever admit, but because she triggers such rage in me. She’s right, and I know that, I always have. What she doesn’t understand is that I do these things for her, I play at gentleness for her. When she throws those gifts back in my face, it makes me want to throw her down on the bed and show her that no matter how hard her mind tries to fight it, her body wants me as badly as I want her.

  It’s what I’ve been dying to do since the first night I met her, what has become increasingly difficult to fight with each passing day that she continues to resist me.

  “That’s not what I want,” I tell her, pushing my fists into my pockets in an attempt to suppress the dark urges flooding me. “If you think I don’t own you, princesa, you’re sadly mistaken, but that doesn’t mean this can’t be good for you, too.”

  I don’t necessarily mean sex, honestly. I mean that she can keep her life of sin and luxury, of ballgowns and diamonds, but the flash in my captive’s eyes tells me her mind goes directly to the dirty night we spent together in her bathroom. Selina spits out a harsh, humorless laugh, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh, typical man. Just because we fucked once and yeah, I happened to cum, you think you’re hot shit? Guess what, you had nothing to do with that. I could’ve been riding anyone, hell, even a dildo would suffice—”

  My blood was already running hot at her insolence, but even the briefest suggestion of her with another man is the flint that sets me on fire. Before I realize quite what I’m doing, my princess is against the wall, my hand at her throat. She whimpers slightly, her breathing heavy, but keeps her jaw set and doesn’t take her eyes off me. It reminds me of that first night we entered her home, the way she puts up a fight even when she knows the battle is already lost. She does it as a defense against me, but it only serves to make me want her more.

  Damn it. I really did just want to know how her night went. And now, she’s unleashed something that neither of us can control.

  “You think that’s how it is?” I breathe to her, the pressure of her heaving breasts against my chest drawing my body closer to hers, pinning her harder against the wall. “Or do you push my buttons on purpose, Selina, so that I’ll be forced to prove you wrong?”

  She says nothing, for once, my captive, my wife, my salvation. Her eyes are wide in fear, or perhaps desire. Perhaps both.

  “Get on the bed,” I tell her, releasing my grip on her throat. She falls forward a little, but quickly recovers. Her eyes are somehow wider than they were before, but she’s not moving toward the bed yet. I take another step toward her, summoning every inch of my stature. “Now.”

  She gulps and scurries toward the bed, scrambling onto the silk sheets like a good girl. I may not have memorized all her minute facial tics yet, but I do know Selina well enough by now to know that if she didn’t truly want this, she’d be fighting me every step of the way, and that knowledge makes my cock strain against my pants. This might not have been her original intention in provoking me, just as it wasn’t my original intention in prodding her for conversation, but now that we’re here, she’s as hungry as I am. She wants me inside her again, and if she needs the pretense of force to get us there, well, that’s a service I’m happy to provide.

  I’m not a man in the habit of keeping rope in the bedroom—yet—and this stupid suit isn’t worn with a belt, so I’m left to improvise. I shrug out of my jacket, watching the way Selina’s eyes follow my every move, then tear my white shirt off, not bothering to unbutton the damn thing. She gasps as the tiny buttons scatter across the room, then again as I rip a long strip off.

  “That’s Gucci,” she breathes, as if I give a damn. As if she gives a damn. She has so much money—we have so much money—a warehouse ful
l of our cash could burn down and we wouldn’t even notice.

  “Lay down,” I tell her, and she instantly obeys, the worrying of her bottom lip, still red as blood and just as delicious, the only sign of hesitance. “Give me your left hand.”

  “What?” she asks, but her hand is already reaching out to me, uncertain. I grasp her wrist easily and wrap the thin strip of fabric around it, tying a tight knot. It’s not the strongest of binds, but it will suffice for tonight. Selina whimpers quietly at the movement, but doesn’t protest. The other end I tie to the bedpost, then rip another strip from the shirt. “What are you doing?”

  “What you want,” I say, moving to the foot of the bed and reaching for her thin ankle, slipping the stiletto off her foot. I see her shudder at my touch, instinctively trying to pull away, but I don’t let her. In a moment, her ankle is tied to the bedpost too. “What you asked for.”

  “I didn’t ask for this,” Selina says sharply, but still doesn’t fight me. Her right wrist is bound now, stretching her arms wide. Her thinly quavering fingers grasp the ties for support, but don’t pull at them.

  “You want to cum?” I say, tilting my voice up like a question, but not waiting for an answer. “This time I’m leaving you no room for arguing who might have gotten you there.”

  I emphasize my point by pulling the last bind extra tight, jerking her right foot wide and making her yelp. She’s completely spread out now, her body erotically inviting even with all her clothes still on. Fuck, I cannot wait to find out what my wife’s pussy tastes like.

  “It doesn’t have to be like…” Selina begins, but trails off as I climb onto the bed with her, making her eyes go wide and her body slant toward me. It doesn’t matter what she was going to say. It was a lie, and we both know it.

  First, I straddle her, not putting my full weight on her slim hips, but just enough so she can feel how hard she’s made my dick. She makes a tiny sound, maybe a moan, and I lean in for a kiss. At the last moment she turns her face away, the only part of her body she has any control over anymore. Fine. It stings more than it should, but it doesn’t matter. I can prove my point without a damn kiss.