Moving In
1203 Words
The black SUV pulled up to the curb outside Elena’s building at 6:15 p.m. sharp.
She hadn’t packed.
There was nothing worth taking.
A small duffel bag sat at her feet—containing only the essentials she’d managed to shove inside in the frantic hour after Damian’s text arrived on the tablet: *Be ready at 6:00. Carter will collect you. Bring only what you cannot live without.*
She had stared at the message for ten full minutes.
What she could not live without turned out to be very little.
Her mother’s old recipe book, the one with yellowed pages and coffee stains from nights they’d spent baking together before the hospital bills started piling up. A worn paperback of *Jane Eyre*—the only book that had ever made her believe a woman could escape a cage. A single framed photo of her parents on their wedding day, smiling like the future was still kind. Three changes of underwear, a pair of jeans, an old hoodie, her ancient laptop, and the charger.
That was it.
Everything else—furniture, clothes, the life she’d scraped together—could stay behind. She’d already emailed her landlord a resignation notice for the apartment. Thirty days’ notice. She wouldn’t be coming back.
Carter opened the rear door without a word. Same charcoal suit. Same earpiece. Same expressionless face.
Elena slid inside.
The leather was cold against her bare legs—the same midnight silk dress from dinner clung to her like a second skin. She hadn’t been allowed to change. Damian’s instructions had been explicit: *Wear what you wore to dinner. Nothing else.*
No coat. No scarf. Just the dress and the stilettos that made every step feel like walking on knives.
The drive was silent.
Manhattan blurred past the tinted windows—neon signs, yellow cabs, people hurrying home to lives that weren’t controlled by contracts and whispered threats.
When the SUV descended into the private underground garage beneath 78 East 72nd Street, Elena’s stomach clenched.
The elevator ride up was worse.
No buttons. Just a black panel that Carter pressed his thumb to. It lit green. The car rose smoothly, soundlessly, until the doors parted on the penthouse foyer.
Damian was waiting.
He leaned against the marble console table, arms crossed, still in the same dark suit from dinner. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone now, revealing a sliver of tanned skin and the edge of that tattoo she’d glimpsed earlier—black lines that looked like shattered glass crawling up his collarbone.
He didn’t speak at first.
Just watched her step out.
Watched the way the silk shifted against her thighs with each hesitant movement.
Watched her clutch the duffel bag like a shield.
Finally, he straightened.
“Carter,” he said without looking away from her. “Take her bag to the room.”
Carter reached for it.
Elena’s grip tightened instinctively.
Damian’s eyes narrowed—a flicker of something dark and amused.
“Let go, Elena.”
Her fingers opened. The bag disappeared down the hallway.
Damian extended a hand—not to take hers, but in a gesture that clearly expected her to place her palm in his.
She didn’t move.
He waited.
The silence stretched until it hurt.
Then, slowly, she laid her hand in his.
His fingers closed around hers—firm, warm, unyielding.
He led her through the penthouse, past the dining room where they’d eaten in tense silence only hours earlier, past the grand piano, past walls of glass that showed the city glittering like a promise she no longer believed in.
Up the spiral staircase.
Past the door to the room she’d been shown that morning.
To a different door—one she hadn’t noticed before.
He opened it.
The suite beyond was twice the size of the first room.
Same black-and-silver palette. Same cold elegance. But this one had no separate sitting area.
It had a single, massive bed.
Black silk sheets. Black pillows. A black velvet headboard that rose almost to the ceiling.
A single chair faced the bed—like a throne for watching.
No desk. No television. No escape.
Damian released her hand.
“This is your room now,” he said.
Elena’s throat closed.
“Where’s the other one?”
“You won’t need it.”
She turned to face him fully.
“I’m not sleeping here with you.”
His smile was slow. Dangerous.
“You’re not sleeping with me,” he corrected. “Yet. But you will sleep where I decide you sleep. Tonight, that’s here.”
He stepped closer.
She backed up until the backs of her knees hit the mattress.
He didn’t touch her.
He didn’t need to.
The air between them crackled with the promise of it.
“Rules,” he said softly. “You sleep here. You wake here. You dress here. You wait here when I’m not with you. The door locks from the outside. There is no key for you.”
Her breath came shallow.
“And when you’re… here?”
“Then you obey.”
She searched his face—looking for cruelty, for l**t, for anything she could fight.
What she found was worse.
Control.
Absolute. Patient. Certain.
He reached past her, opened the nightstand drawer.
Inside: a slim black key fob, a new phone—already set up, no apps except one labeled *D*—and a thin black leather cuff.
He lifted the cuff.
It was soft. Supple. Lined with silk. A small silver ring at the center, engraved with a single initial: *D*.
He fastened it around her left wrist.
The click of the clasp was quiet.
Permanent.
She stared at it.
“You can shower. Change into whatever you find in the wardrobe. There’s a nightgown on the bed.”
He stepped back.
“Or you can sleep in what you’re wearing. Your choice.”
He turned toward the door.
“Damian.”
He paused.
She swallowed.
“How long until you…?”
“Until I take what’s mine?” He looked back over his shoulder. “When you stop asking that question like it’s a threat. When you start wanting the answer.”
He walked out.
The door closed.
She heard the lock engage from the outside.
Elena stood frozen for a long moment.
Then she crossed to the bed.
The nightgown was black silk—short, sheer, held up by thin straps.
She didn’t put it on.
Instead, she kicked off the stilettos, crawled under the covers in the dress, and curled into the smallest ball she could manage.
The sheets smelled like him—cedar and rain and something darker.
She pressed her face into the pillow to smother the sob that rose in her throat.
The cuff on her wrist felt heavier than iron.
Outside the door, she imagined him standing in the hallway, listening.
Satisfied.
The lights dimmed automatically.
The city lights beyond the windows never went out.
Elena didn’t sleep.
She waited.
For morning.
For escape.
For the moment he decided the waiting was over.
And in the silence of the locked room, she wondered how long she could hold out before the cage started feeling like home.
- Writer
