Behind The Mask

Chapter 21: The Cold War

POV : Fiona

The New York mansion was exactly as I had left it two years ago.

It was massive, impeccably clean, and completely suffocating. The towering marble columns and the crystal chandeliers didn't look like a home; they looked like the bars of a very expensive, very beautiful prison.

The moment we stepped through the front doors, Maxwell handed his coat to the waiting butler and turned to me. His mouth opened, likely to issue another demand or perhaps to offer an apology.

I didn't give him the chance to speak.

I did not look at his face. I didn't acknowledge his presence. I simply walked right past him, my heels clicking sharply against the polished floor. I bypassed the grand staircase that led to the master suite and walked all the way down the long, empty corridor of the East Wing.

I chose the very last guest bedroom at the end of the hall. It was the furthest possible point from his bedroom. I walked inside, dropped my small leather bag onto the floor, and firmly shut the door behind me. I turned the lock until it clicked loudly.

I had made him a promise in that motel, and I was going to keep it.

For the next four days, I turned Maxwell Jordan into a ghost in his own house.

When we happened to cross paths in the kitchen, he would stop and stare at me with a mixture of hope and desperation. I would pour my coffee, looking right through his chest as if he simply did not exist, and walk back to my room in absolute silence. When he tried to sit across from me in the dining room, I stood up, took my plate, and ate on the patio.

I did not yell. I did not cry. I gave him absolutely nothing. The silence was a weapon, and I was wielding it with precision. I could see it driving him completely insane. The arrogant billionaire who controlled everything could not figure out how to control a woman who refused to acknowledge he was alive.

But I wasn't just sitting in my room feeling sorry for myself.

Maxwell had forced me back to New York by threatening Gabriel Lawson's charity. He thought he had trapped me, but he had underestimated me. I couldn't fly to Southeast Asia to physically carry medical supplies, but I still had my laptop, and I had an untraceable, encrypted email account.

If I was going to be a prisoner, I was going to be a productive one.

I sat at the small desk in the guest room, the glowing screen of my laptop the only light in the dark room. I had reached out to Gabriel the morning after we landed. I told him I was grounded in New York, but I still wanted the logistics job.

Gabriel had agreed. For the last three days, I had been secretly routing shipping manifests, coordinating doctors' schedules in remote villages, and managing the supply chains for The Horizon Initiative. It was an exhausting, tedious work, but it was a lifeline. It reminded me that I was still Fiona Caldwell. I was still capable of helping people, even from inside a golden cage.

It was 11:00 PM on a Tuesday. I was wrapping up a complicated shipment route for a batch of malaria medication heading to a clinic in Cambodia.

An urgent, red-flagged message from Gabriel popped up on my screen.

Gabriel: Fiona, we have a problem. The local warlord is demanding a transit tax to let the trucks through the border. We need to wire three thousand dollars to a secure third-party vendor to clear the bribe, or the medicine rots on the tarmac. Our main NGO account is frozen pending an audit. Can you cover it temporarily? I will reimburse you by Friday.

My heart skipped a beat. Three thousand dollars was literal pocket change in this house. Maxwell probably spent that much on vintage wine with his dinner. But to those vulnerable people in Cambodia, the medication was life-saving. Time was of the essence; I could not let corrupt warlords stop this shipment.

Fiona: Give me the vendor link. I will take care of it right now.

I opened my wallet and pulled out my credit card. It was a card tied to an account I had opened in my own name during my time in Paris, though the initial funds had come from the original divorce settlement Maxwell had legally transferred to me.

I typed the card number into the secure payment portal. I hit 'Confirm'.

A small blue loading circle spun endlessly on the screen.

Then, a glaring red error message flashed across the display.

TRANSACTION DECLINED. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR FINANCIAL INSTITUTION.

I frowned. I must have typed the three-digit security code in my haste. I carefully deleted the entry, re-entered the numbers, double-checking each individual digit, and clicked the confirmation button again.

TRANSACTION DECLINED. ACCOUNT SUSPENDED.

A cold, uneasy feeling started to creep up my spine.

I opened a new tab and logged directly into my private banking portal. My eyes scanned the dashboard, and in a single second all the air completely rushed out of my lungs.

My checking account: FROZEN.

My savings account: FROZEN.

My Paris credit lines: SUSPENDED.

Every single penny I owned to my name had been locked down.

I sat frozen, staring blankly at the glaring screen, my blood beginning to boil hot in my veins. I didn't need to call the bank's customer service line to know what had happened. The horrifying truth was glaringly obvious.

Maxwell owned the bank. He owned half the financial institutions in the city. He had used his corporate leverage to freeze my personal accounts.

He did not do it to steal the money. He did it because he knew I was ignoring him. He did it because he wanted to force me out of this bedroom. He wanted to back me into a corner so tightly that I had absolutely no choice but to go downstairs, look him in the eye, and speak to him.

I slowly closed the laptop, my hands shaking with a fresh, explosive wave of pure fury.

I stood up from the desk and unlocked the bedroom door.

Every step I took away from the guest room fueled the inferno in my chest.

How dare he? The thought echoed violently.

He wanted a reaction? He was going to get one.