She slid her phone out of her coat pocket, not surprised at the lack of signal. She was so tempted to sneak a few photos, but she was sure St-Pierre would know right away and demand her phone. Other than her pride, her phone was the other thing she’d never let go of for anyone or anything.
She settled back into the comfortable couch and wondered about an escort business that basically owned a multi-house estate. And not just any houses, but authentic replicas.
She’d passed four or five gated driveways, but she’d had a glimpse of a castle tower on one property, and then the Spanish-style palace she’d stopped at. The gate had magically opened as she’d approached, and St-Pierre seemed to know exactly what was going on, right down to her poached pass card. So… a high-tech surveillance system. What was she getting herself into? And why didn’t they just send her, a dowdy-looking college student, on her way?
She heard a whomp-whomp sound. It grew louder, leveled off, and then stopped.
A faint buzz drew her attention, and she saw St-Pierre answer his phone.
“We’re on our way,” he said, standing.
She stood as well, knowing the manager had arrived. And by helicopter, if the sound was any indication.
“Through here,” St-Pierre instructed, walking to the wall beside her. Instead of swiping, he pressed a panel and an invisible door opened inward.
This hallway was a dark maze of oak-paneled walls. He paused and she heard a click. A second later, she followed him into another room that felt like stepping back in time. But this one was the opposite of St-Pierre’s office.
Every surface, from floor to walls to ceiling, was made of white panels marked by silver moulding. Tall windows showed the same scenery of rolling hills, glowing a vibrant green in the surreal sun, but somehow they cast sunlight to the floor in hazy beams.
The floors were breathtaking. A bleached oak, smooth and worn in a way that only seemed possible after centuries of use. The planks creaked with every step.
The wall to her left was lined with paintings that reminded her of the dreamy Monets she’d seen in galleries. The frames hung on an ivory damask wallpaper that her fingers wanted to touch.
The high ceiling was a series of arches and curves that made her mouth drop open. The same paneling that was above her continued down to all the walls, with the odd decorative roses and leaves here and there. She shut her mouth and her teeth clicked, unsure when it had dropped open.
Centered on the far wall was a desk that matched the paneling, also white and looking like it weighed as much as the Ferrari she’d driven here. Close to the same size as well.
St-Pierre walked to the middle of the room and gestured to one of the three Victorian-style chairs that faced the heavy desk. The top was clear except for a silver tray with a handful of black folders in it.
She sat in the high-backed chair in the middle, surprised at how comfortable the cushions felt. Her hands naturally curved around the rounded ends of the pale wooden arms.
She thought she did a good job at appearing calm, but inside, a low-grade panic rose. Every minute was more surreal than the last, as if she’d fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole. She focused on keeping her breathing even, knowing it would still her racing thoughts. She’d meet with St-Pierre’s manager, find out she wasn’t qualified, possibly sign some NDA document, and leave.
Her shoulders had just started to relax when a click sounded behind her. She twisted in her seat before she could stop herself.
A tall section of the wall that held a beautiful oil painting of a bridge over a pond of water lilies pivoted, and in walked the most striking human she’d ever seen.
She was impossibly tall and wore a white three-piece suit with a thin pin stripe. It fit her like a glove, the vest hugging her waist and pushing up small but perfect breasts that were visible through a sheer white shirt. A silver pocket watch chain swung from one vest pocket to the other, and her hands were tucked into her pleated pants, forcing the open jacket behind her.
Her white-silver hair, though, was the showstopper. It was pulled back and cascaded past her waist, swinging side-to-side as she walked. Her bangs hung in an even line, just kissing the top of silver iridescent glasses that revealed nothing. As the woman walked past her and St-Pierre, she noticed the glasses wrapped around, hiding her eyes from the side as well.
The woman stopped behind her desk, and Anya noticed for the first time that there was no desk chair. Everyone in the room was still. She kept her eyes fastened on the woman’s glasses, her nervousness giving way to curiosity.
The woman held out a hand toward St-Pierre but seemed to keep her gaze on her. He stepped forward and placed Trevor’s access card in her hand, returning to stand beside her chair. The woman turned it over and over in her hand, still watching Anya.
“How did you get this card?” the woman asked in a crisp voice that might have had a British accent buried in it. Maintaining her stare, she tapped the glass-topped desk with the card. The desktop emitted a bluish glow. She tapped and slid a finger across the glass, moving illuminated panels into some kind of array.
Anya straightened in her seat, more interested in the technology she was using than the information that might be showing up.
“Anya Wilcott, correct?” the woman asked, snapping Anya’s attention away from the desk she worked on.
“Yes. Anya Wilcott. Trevor doesn’t know I have his card. I took it when he was in the shower,” she explained, watching the woman tap the desktop a few more times. “How do you…?”
“Trevor Dinsmore, twenty-four,” the woman interrupted, “dropped out of university. Pre-med. You’re his roommate, correct?”
“I was his roommate, until last month.”
“Ah,” she said and tapped the desk again. She dropped Trevor’s card into her pocket and leaned forward to type on the glass. “Anya Wilcott, twenty-four, pre-med graduate of University of Washington. Accepted to UW Medical School.” She paused to look up at her. “Competitive school for a non-resident of the state. Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” she replied automatically, hearing her voice rise on the last word. She opened her mouth to ask how she knew that, but the woman kept speaking.
“Immigrated to Canada from Western Russia at six years old with your paternal grandmother, Ulyana Tkachenko, changed last name to middle name and added surname of Wilcott. Registered for elementary school in Buffalo—”
“Excuse me,” Anya interrupted. The woman stopped speaking and looked at her. “How do you know all this? And what’s your name?”
“Of course. My name is Yuki. I’m President of Cavendish International.” She walked from the back of the desk to lean against the front, folding her arms. “I don’t shake hands, but it’s nice to meet you.” Instead, Yuki inclined her head in a stiff greeting.
With the hulking figure of St-Pierre standing beside her chair, and the slim Yuki looming in front of her, she felt dwarfed. But she had a mission, and focusing on it stilled her discomfort.
Anya laced her fingers on her lap and nodded back, waiting for Yuki to answer her first question.
“Everyone who is part of Cavendish is extensively interviewed. And background checked financially, legally… basically in every way a person can be checked.” She paused to recross her feet, which Anya noticed were wearing sleek, pearl-colored ankle boots. Jenn would die if she saw them.
“That seems illegal, since you did it without my consent.”
“Everything about our business is legal. Anything that isn’t is untraceable.” Yuki uncrossed her arms and took out her pocket watch, opening and closing the face with quick clicks. “Why are you here, Anya?”
“I was interested in a job,” she answered, relieved they were finally getting to the purpose of her visit.
“In what capacity?”
“Something similar to what Trevor is doing.”
“Or what Trevor was doing. I haven’t decided if he’ll stay on as a consultant.”
“My taking h
is card, that wasn’t his fault. I took it out of his wallet. He didn’t leave it lying around. Or tell me… anything.” She hoped the lie came across smoother than she delivered it.
Yuki replaced the watch and pulled the card out of her pocket, holding it toward her.
“You knew enough from this card to find our estate and think you could get a job here. That means, at the very least, Trevor didn’t secure his pass card. But knowing what we know about Trevor, he probably said something to you. Those are unbreakable rules of being a consultant.”
Anya had nothing to say to that. It confirmed what Trevor had told her. And he was a dumbass. She should have seen it at their first study session, but she’d been relieved to find someone who shared her goals and was attractive to boot. Her efficient mind had ticked off Future father of my children and didn’t look back until he dropped out.
Yuki stood and walked back behind the desk, tapping on the glass again. Anya slid forward in her seat, thinking this would be where they had her sign an NDA and escort her back out. She was wrong.
“Do you really speak Russian?” Yuki asked, her arms folded again and one hand cradling her chin in thought.
“Yes,” she answered, feeling a subtle change in Yuki’s demeanor. An eagerness.
“And do you also speak Chukokto?” Yuki asked, her voice dropping and her body becoming absolutely still.
The hair on Anya’s neck stood up and her mouth clamped shut. A lifetime of her grandmother’s warnings flooded back.
For the first time since handing Yuki the card, St-Pierre moved, adjusting his stance.
“Ona ne dostatochno umna, chtoby osvaivat’ slozhnyy yazyk, takoy kak ruskiy,” came his gruff voice, the tone neutral but the words questioning her intelligence and ability to master the language.
She knew it was a test, and a goading one at that, but she replied, because the truth was, she spoke fluent Russian.
“Russkiy - tol’ko odin iz neskol’kikh yazykov, na kotorykh ya govoryu,” she replied, not answering Yuki’s question about Chukokto.
Yuki looked at St-Pierre, her eyebrows lifting.
“She can speak Russian, along with other languages,” he translated. “But she didn’t say if Chukokto was one of them.”
Yuki nodded, her finger moving from her chin to tap her lips.
“Good,” she said and turned to walk to a window. She pressed a button on the sill and the sunny, rolling hills disappeared to show the dismal, rainy scene Anya and St-Pierre had driven through.
“Cavendish is a place where the ultra-affluent come to live out their fantasies. Usually, they are sexual, but not always. I have three clients who have expressed an interest in someone like you. Female, intelligent, someone with or on their way to getting a doctorate, and who has the ability to converse in different languages.”
Anya waited for her to say more, but Yuki just stood facing the window, the fingers of one hand thrumming methodically against her other wrist.
Anya glanced at St-Pierre. Though he stared straight ahead, something twitched on his face, and she interpreted that as “wait.” So she did, and eventually Yuki continued.
“We screen our consultants in many ways. There’s a psychiatric interview, a written survey, and a bio test. The survey alone is fifty pages long. We need to be thorough, because our clients are paying massive sums of money for the exact experience they want.” She turned and faced her, not moving. But something in the gray light from outside, the real light, made it possible to see her eyes behind the glasses, and Anya saw they were fastened on her with a strange intensity.
“All right,” she answered, because she seemed to want an answer.
“If you make it through the screening process, you’ll gain a knowledge of yourself and your body that less than a quarter of a percent of people on Earth ever gain. I’m sure, as an academic, you’ll find it fascinating to learn more about yourself and human nature in general than most people on the planet. But the very first qualifying question is this.”
Yuki walked back to the desk, her eyes never leaving Anya’s.
“Are you capable of having sex for money?”
Anya’s mind flashed to the handful of times she’d had sex with Trevor, one of only a few partners in her life. The first time, she’d satisfied her attraction to him, but after she’d gotten to know him, she’d had sex twice, because she knew he’d let her get away with skipping rent for that month. That qualified, didn’t it?
“Yes, I’m capable of that,” she answered.
Yuki nodded, continuing to stare at her without saying anything. It stretched two minutes before she finally spoke. “Good. The process starts with you thinking it through for a few days.” Yuki reached down to open a drawer and take out a card. It was thick with rounded corners and only had a name and a phone number. “Call Lorna in two days if you’re still interested.”
Anya had a few questions that surged to mind, namely if she could skip the two days and start the testing right away, but Yuki was already striding away.
“Take her out and see me after,” the woman called back to St-Pierre and disappeared from where she’d entered.
4
Dimi looked down at Anya, who glanced from where Yuki had disappeared to the card in her hand. She turned it over to check the blank back side and then looked up at him.
“That was interesting,” she said, a smile in her words but not on her face.
He liked her.
He made it a policy to not have any feelings about the consultants, clients, or his business partners. Feelings and emotions had always derailed his goals, so those were two things he kept on lockdown.
But Anya… well. There were a few things he liked about her, the easiest being that she spoke Russian. He missed hearing it, and so he allowed himself one last treat, since he’d probably never have a reason to see her again.
“Ty gotov idti?” he asked, stepping back and gesturing to the wall where a quicker exit to the parking lot was hidden.
“Da, dumayu, mne luchshe uyti,” she responded, standing.
They were simple words. Are you ready to go? And her reply, Yes, I guess I’d better. But they pleased him.
The other thing he liked was her directness.
She was smart, but she didn’t show it off with rambling statements or a complicated vocabulary. Other people told elaborate stories about why they joined Cavendish, as if justifying it to themselves, but she didn’t. She needed a job, she’d simply said.
“Through here,” he said, pressing a panel on the far wall and watching her as she observed the hidden door recess and then disappear into the wall. A narrow hallway with white tile appeared as the fluorescents overhead came to life. She stepped inside without hesitation.
Absurdly, that was the other thing he liked. Absurd, because he was wary of people who trusted quickly. She’d just met him, but she didn’t question him. Her slim body in her raincoat was maybe an inch taller than his shoulder.
He could subdue her with one hand, yet she didn’t flinch when he stepped close to her, nor did she watch him warily. She’d looked him over head-to-toe in the driveway with those analytical eyes and told him to get in the car.
Yes, he liked Anya Wilcott. Which gave him some relief that he wouldn’t see her again.
“Here we are,” he said as he swiped his wrist near the gray box and pushed the door open to step outside. “There’s your car.”
They were on the opposite side of the parking area, and he gestured to the black sports car that remained the lone vehicle on the far side of the gravel expanse.
“Thank you, St-Pierre. I guess we won’t meet again,” she replied, looking back down at the card she held.
“Probably not. Good luck, Ms. Wilcott,” he said.
“Dyakuyu I udachi, St-Pierre,” she told him in Ukrainian, giving him one more surprise. She’d recognized his subtle accent and responded in his native language.
She inclined her head without any expression and climbed the steps to
walk across the gravel, not even pulling up her hood as the rain fell.
He watched until she climbed in the sports car and closed the door. Then he turned and made his way to the top floor and Yuki’s private office. Only the five of them—the founders—ever met there.
“She’s gone,” he announced when he entered.
The office was a tiny attic room, with a modern office feel compared to the rest of the manor. Yellow walls, oak hardwood with area rugs, and four desks against each wall with a meeting table and five chairs in the middle of the room—it was cozy, considering the massive Cavendish empire they ran here.
His travel to the other Cavendish locations meant he attended most meetings via video conference, so he didn’t have a desk here. He pulled out his normal chair at the meeting table and sat down.
“I can’t fucking believe it,” Yuki called from the small bathroom at the back. “After all this time, I still can’t fucking believe it.”
His heart sank a little as the reason why Anya was on Yuki’s list became clear. It wasn’t for a perceived wrong that Yuki wanted petty retaliation for, or a prank on one of the team. This was bigger. The biggest. The one they’d started the company for, but never thought would happen.
“She’s part of your revenge plan,” he said. He laid his phone and walkie on the table.
“She’s not part of it. She is it. She’s the key to getting to my father.” She’d stopped muting her accent, her emotion letting her upper-crust British accent sharpen.
“I thought you’d given up on that,” he replied. “We never talk about it.”
“I’ll never give up,” she said, walking out of the room with her white tuxedo half in a garment bag. She tucked it in the rest of the way and zipped it up, hanging it on a coat rack near the door.
She’d changed into an Oxford sweatshirt and shorts, and her long hair—shorter now that she’d removed the extensions—was wrapped into a bun at her neck.
“You’re too thin. And your hair has gone completely white. I wonder if this revenge is eating at you more than the reason for it.”
Disciplined Page 4