Dean Walsh was happy with his new life, his job, his girlfriend. Until his boss, billionaire Salomon Ellis, discovers his darkest secret. From then on, he will hold Dean hostage to his whims in exchange for his silence.
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The Uber driver accepted to wait, in case I couldn't access campus. The magnetic strip of the company badges included our schedules along with our names, so I didn't expect mine to grant me access on a Friday night. Yeah, I could try ringing the unicorn in the West Wing to be let in and spend the night at the guesthouse, but I'd decided I wouldn't. I'd try my badge, and if it didn't work, I'd find a cheap hotel for the weekend.
The green light blinked the moment I slid the badge through the slot, opening a regular door in the fence, between the gates and the security booth, where a guard nodded hi at me. The driver saw me wave, so he honked and motored away.
The park was empty and quiet, the Square all lit up past the lanes and trees up ahead, and I enjoyed the night stroll to the guesthouse. It was so weird. I'd always pictured that if we ever broke up and Steph left me, I'd be devastated. The alternative of me leaving her had never even crossed my mind. Yet the cool night breeze didn't find burning tears rolling down my face, and my heart felt far from breaking to pieces and going into a fatal arrest. Nothing hurt, nothing weighted me down. I took step after step down the solitary lane in some kind of autopilot that kept me numb and light. Like none of this was happening to me and I was just watching a movie.
My thumb and my code worked like a charm. The guesthouse door clicked open, a couple of lights came to life when I walked in.
Hard to believe, but it'd be the first time in my whole life I'd spend a whole weekend completely alone. Well, save my couple of visits to solitary confinement. Else, I'd always had people close by: my folks, Steph, my cellmates.
The bedroom was the first door I tried upstairs, on the right, so I didn't bother to see what was in the two rooms across the hall. It made me think of a three-star hotel room, comfy and wealthy without being overly luxurious. White walls, a long window opening opposite the door, closed with heavy curtains in dark red that matched the two area rugs. On one of the rugs sat a king size bed, made of dark, heavy wood with three-foot-tall bedposts, the headboard against the wall on my right, covered by a fat white comforter with a bunch of white throw pillows. The nightstands were made of the same dark heavy wood, like the seats on the other side of the room, and the side lamps were like white balloons that reminded me of the ones along the lanes. Opposite the bed, on top of the other area rug, was a set of armchairs and a loveseat, with big fat cushions of the same dark red, around a coffee table, in front of a flat TV on the wall. The bathroom door was in the corner of the TV and the window walls, and the built-in closet covered the whole wall to the right of the door, a few feet away from the bed.
That night, after seeing it for the first time, all I could think was, "Nice." I dropped my bag on the bed and headed straight to the bathroom. The floor and wall tiles were of a light gray, like the marble of the two-basin counter, with a big mirror against the wall. The toilet was in a closed cubicle, and on my way there, I noticed the shower was apart from the tub, which was actually a square jacuzzi.
