Chapter 3 - The Golden Cage
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The words hung in the air, heavy and impossible.
“You... you felt them?” Lena asked, her voice a fragile whisper.
“On my left thigh,” Dante said, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the armrests. “Just a spark. A burning sensation. But it was there. My doctors told me the nerve pathways were entirely dead. They told me I would never feel anything below my waist again.”
Lena looked down at the towels. They were cooling now, the steam dissipating into the dim room.
“Do you want me to call your doctor back?” she asked, taking a hesitant step forward.
“No.” Dante’s answer was sharp, laced with sudden paranoia. “Dr. Sterling is the one who told me the nerves were dead. If he lied, or if he missed this, I don't want him near me.”
He looked at Lena, his dark, calculating eyes scanning her face, analyzing her reaction. He was a man who survived by trusting no one, sitting at the top of a criminal empire where weakness was a death sentence.
“How much do they pay you downstairs?” Dante asked abruptly.
Lena blinked, thrown off by the question. “Seventeen dollars an hour, sir.”
“I’ll pay you three thousand a week,” Dante stated, his gaze unyielding.
Lena’s jaw dropped. Three thousand a week. It was a fortune. It was enough to pay for her father’s dialysis, his medication, and rent for the entire year in a matter of months.
“I don't understand,” she stammered. “To do what?”
“To be my personal aide,” Dante said smoothly. “You don't clean rooms anymore. You don't take orders from the housekeeping manager. You answer only to me. You stay in the suite next to mine. You become my shadow.”
“Mr. Vale, I’m a maid. I don't know how to be a personal assistant to... to someone like you.”
“I don't need an assistant, Lena. I need someone I can trust. Tonight, you dropped a towel and triggered a nerve that highly paid specialists swore was dead. I need to find out why. And I need to do it without the rest of the syndicate knowing my body is changing.”
Lena thought of her father, lying in a cramped hospital bed, looking paler every day. She thought of Vivian’s threat. This was dangerous. This was crossing a line into a dark, violent world she didn't belong in.
But she had forty-three dollars to her name.
May you like
Lena stood a little taller, smoothing the front of her apron. “When do I start?”
“You already have,” Dante said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “Now, pick up those towels. We’re going to try it again.”
