Page 62 of Santa Daddy
13
SECRETS BEHIND LOCKED DOORS
DANI
His side of the bed was pristine. No crease, no warmth, just an expanse of expensive linen that mocked the way he’d held me a few hours earlier.
Gone again. Story of my fucking life.
Pale winter light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, turning the room into a glass box. Outside, the city glittered under a skin of frost. Inside, it smelled like him. Like last night. Like mistakes you couldn’t unfuck with a shower.
Coffee.
The scent drifted in from the kitchen—dark, rich, the only reliable thing in this penthouse.
I forced myself out of bed, grabbed one of his shirts off the chair, and padded barefoot across the marble. The floor was cold. The kind of cold that made you feel how thin your skin was.
The apartment was too quiet.
No low Russian on a phone call. No ice clinking in a glass. Just the faint hum of vents and the soft tick of something high-end pretending not to be a clock.
His office door was closed.
The door to the weird almost-hallway with the camera blind spot was closed too.
My skin prickled.
Coffee first. Existential dread second.
I hit the kitchen and found a fresh mug already waiting, steam curling up like a peace offering.
The front door was next. I walked over and tried the handle even though I already knew.
Locked.
Of course.
Balcony?
Locked. Tiny red light on the alarm panel glowing smugly. Every window, every door, every possible way out: sealed.
I walked the perimeter, heart rate climbing with every pointless jiggle of a handle. It wasn’t just being trapped. It was the way this place was designed to make you forget there’d ever been another option.
You’re not a guest. You’re an object in climate-controlled storage.
The security cameras in the corners tracked my movement with tiny red blinks. All but one.
The blind spot.
The narrow slice of hall I’d clocked on my first night, where the cameras stuttered and there was a smooth stretch of wall that didn’t make sense in the layout.
The same wall with the door I’d rattled before. The one that didn’t open.
My pulse kicked.
You could just drink your coffee and watch Netflix on a TV that probably costs more than your loans. Or?—
Or you could stop pretending you aren’t dying to know what he thinks you can’t handle.
