“Everything will be alright,” I tell my reflection. It doesn’t seem to help.
But when I climb into bed, a new feeling joins the others.
Momentary bliss.
The sheets are impossibly soft. The pillows are the right amount of firm, and the comforter is warm without being heavy. I must fall asleep instantly, because the next thing I know, my eyes are opening and my phone clock is saying it’s just after midnight.
I also need to pee something fierce.
I trudge to the bathroom. On my way back, I stop at the bedroom door and find myself examining the handle and the lock.
It’s a standard door lock. The kind with a button on the inside that you press to lock. Normal. Ordinary.
But there’s more. Above the handle, mounted into the wood, small and discreet.
I slowly open the door and check the outside. The keypad is on the wrong side of the door.
Not normal. Not normal at all.
Because a keypad on the outside means someone can lock this door from the corridor. Someone can seal this room while I’m inside.
My heart starts to race.
I try to justify it, cycling through the possibilities. It could be a security feature. In a house this size, with this much money, with the level of protection I’ve already seen, it could be a lockdown mechanism. In case of a breach, the system locks every room to protect the occupants. That makes sense. That’s the explanation a rational person would accept.
I’m a rational person.
I accept it.
My heart’s still running a marathon as I crawl back into bed and pull up the covers.
This time, sleep doesn’t come as easy.
9
ROLAN
I watch her through the cameras for a week.
I’m aware of how that sounds, that in any other context, a man sitting in his office reviewing security footage of a woman he hasn’t met would merit a phone call to the police. But this isn’t any other context. This is my home. My daughter. My operation. And every person who steps foot inside these walls is my responsibility to assess, monitor, and, if necessary, remove.
So, I watch.
Elizabeth Calloway arrives on Saturday morning in a car I sent, carrying one suitcase and a bag. People reveal themselves in what they carry. In what they think is enough. This woman’s entire life fits into two containers that my housekeeper could lift with one hand.
She’s small. The cameras confirm what I saw in the living room footage. The slight frame and narrow shoulders.
She talks with her hands and smiles at the guards who don’t smile back. She tries to make conversation with Dmitri, which is the same as trying to make conversation with a concrete wall, except the wall would occasionally grunt.
She’s beautiful.
The thought arrives unbidden. The security cameras in the hallways and common areas are high definition, installed so that facial recognition and threat analysis can function at maximum accuracy. And what that high-definition footage reveals is a woman with dark hair and hazel eyes that shift between green and gold depending on the light, and a face that is, objectively, a problem.
I set the observation aside. It doesn’t matter. She’s an employee.
I chose not to introduce myself, asking Mikhail to inform her I was on a business trip.
The last governess, the one who lasted nine days before resigning, went white in the face when I walked into the room to introduce myself.
