The private elevator toAlgerone's penthouse at Spade Tower required three separate access codes, a biometric scan, and a security key that only four people in the world possessed. I entered them all without conscious thought, my fingers moving through the sequence I'd performed every morning for the past five hundred and thirty-two days.
Not that I was counting.
The elevator rose silently through forty-one floors of the empire I'd helped build, the empire I now ran alone while its creator healed from injuries that should have killed him. My reflection in the polished steel doors showed a man in a perfectly pressed charcoal suit, not a thread out of place despite having already been at the office since four AM.
The grocery bags at my feet contained the specific organic vegetables his nutritionist had prescribed, the grass-fed beef from the specialty butcher across town, the supplements Dr. Pierce insisted would speed nerve regeneration. The medical bag in my left hand held today's injections: anti-inflammatories,pain management, the experimental neural treatment that came with an astronomical price tag.
It'd been eighteen months since Xavier had forced me to confess everything. Eighteen months since Algerone had looked at me with such devastation that I'd wanted to die on the spot. Eighteen months since he'd said "Get out" with such finality that something fundamental inside me had shattered beyond repair.
Yet here I was every morning because even in his hatred, Algerone needed someone to manage his recovery. And I would take whatever scraps of his presence I was permitted, even if those scraps were cold silence and professional necessity.
The elevator opened directly into the penthouse's foyer. I'd overseen the renovation myself, ensuring every doorway could accommodate a wheelchair, installing hidden grip bars that looked like architectural details, replacing the beautiful but treacherous marble with non-slip surfaces that still maintained elegance. All during those first terrible months when we didn't know if he'd ever walk again.
"Good morning, sir," I called out, the same greeting I'd used for thirty-two years was now reduced to formal politeness. My voice echoed through the space that had once been our shared sanctuary. Now I was merely the help, permitted entry only for necessary services.
No response. There never was.
I moved to the kitchen, unpacking groceries mechanically. Everything had its exact place: proteins organized by date on the left side of the refrigerator, vegetables in humidity-controlled drawers, supplements arranged in the cabinet I'd had specially installed at exactly the right height for someone using a cane. Or a wheelchair during the darker days.
I straightened the framed ace of spades on the stand near the French doors. The card sat at a precise forty-five-degree angle to the kitchen table. I knew because I'd measured it the first time,then adjusted it every morning since until the position became automatic. The bullet hole through the center had saved his life once. He liked seeing it when he had his breakfast, a reminder that luck, eventually, runs out for everyone.
Coffee next. Ethiopian single origin, medium roast, ground exactly fifteen seconds in the burr grinder. He took it black now. The medications had altered his taste. One of the thousand small changes I'd noted over these months of forced intimacy.
I prepared his breakfast according to Dr. Pierce's specifications. Egg white omelet with spinach and tomatoes. Whole-grain toast, no butter. Fresh fruit arranged in the exact pattern he preferred. Strawberries at twelve o'clock, blueberries at three, blackberries at six. The familiar ritual of service that had once brought me joy now felt like swallowing ground glass.
"Your breakfast is ready, sir," I announced to the empty kitchen.
Still no response, but I caught the sound of movement from the master suite. His cane tapped against the hardwood. One, two…three. I frowned. His hip was bothering him more than usual. I made a mental note to spend extra time on that area during today's massage.
There was a time I would have looked forward to any opportunity to touch him. Now, I thought of the massage as forty-five minutes of medically necessary torture where I would touch every inch of his damaged body while he stared at the ceiling and pretended I didn't exist.
I prepared his medications while waiting. Three pills for nerve damage. Two for inflammation. One was for the phantom pain that still plagued him. The injection had to be administered directly into the muscle of his thigh. I arranged it all on the silver tray in the order they should be taken, with a glass of filtered water at exactly room temperature.
When he finally emerged, my breath caught as it did every morning. Even diminished by injury, Algerone Caisse-Etremont commanded attention. He wore dark pajama pants and nothing else, revealing the topography of scars I knew better than my own body. The explosion at the mill had left a starburst of damaged tissue across his lower back. The surgery scars ran parallel to his spine like railroad tracks.
He was thinner than before, muscle mass lost during months of limited mobility. But his eyes remained the same green ice that looked through me rather than at me. He moved to the breakfast table without acknowledging my presence, lowering himself carefully into the chair. A controlled exhale revealed more pain than he'd ever admit.
I placed the medication tray beside his plate. "Your nine o'clock doses, sir. Dr. Pierce adjusted the anti-inflammatory dosage based on yesterday's blood work."
He took the pills one at a time without comment, his hand steady despite the slight tremor I'd noticed developing over the past week.
I busied myself cleaning while he ate, maintaining the illusion of purposeful activity. In truth, the penthouse was already immaculate. I'd seen to that yesterday, and the day before, and every day for eighteen months. But standing still meant enduring the weight of his silence, the deliberate way he existed in the same space while denying my existence.
"The Journal called again," I said, wiping down already clean counters. "They're pressing for a statement about when you'll return to active leadership."
Silence.
"I've held them off with the usual responses, but the board is growing restless. Patterson especially. He's been making noise about emergency succession protocols."
Still nothing, though I caught the slight tightening of his jaw. He cared about Lucky Losers, even if he no longer cared about me.
"I've managed to maintain control, but your presence would..."
"Prepare the massage," he demanded.
"Of course, sir. I'll prepare the table."
The massage table waited in what had been the penthouse's secondary office, now converted to a physical therapy room. I'd had it professionally equipped with parallel bars for walking practice, resistance bands, a full set of weights he wasn't yet strong enough to use. The massage table stood in the center, adjusted to the exact height that wouldn't stress his hip when climbing on.
