When The Tables Turned

4. The First-aid

The heavy oak door of her bedroom clicked shut, locking out the hollow echoes of the cavernous house. The silence that followed wasn't peaceful; it was suffocating, heavy with the weight of a decade's worth of unspoke grievances and self-inflicted wounds.

Danika walked over to her vanity table, her movements heavy and mechanical, and pulled open the bottom drawer to retrieve the worn metal first-aid tin. It was battered around the edges—a permanent fixture of her private sanctuary, tucked away between high-end cosmetics and expensive jewelry. Nobody else in this house knew it was there. In a mansion staffed by servants and funded by a multi-million-dollar empire, taking care of her own physical ailments was a solitary ritual she had mastered long before she was old enough to drive.

She sat down on the edge of the mattress, the plush duvet sinking beneath her weight. Under the harsh light of the vanity mirror, she looked down at her right thumb. The small, neat cut from the shattered champagne flute had stopped bleeding, leaving a bright red line across her skin, but it stung fiercely against the cool air.

With practiced, almost emotionless efficiency, she pulled out a bottle of antiseptic wipes, tore one open, and pressed it against the wound. A sharp hiss escaped her lips, her eyes squeezing shut for a brief second as a shudder ran through her frame, but she didn’t pull away. There was no one to cry to. There had never been anyone. Her parents had given her credit cards with limitless balances, designer wardrobes, and a European sports car for her sixteenth birthday, but when she skinned her knees as a child or fell sick with a fever, they had simply handed her a check or called a doctor to the gates, never once offering a comforting hand or a soft word to soothe the ache.

“You have everything money can buy, Danika. Stop acting so dramatic,” her mother’s voice echoed hollowly in her memory, spoken years ago when Danika had cried over a lonely birthday dinner.

Muscle memory took over. She reached for a strip of sterile gauze and a roll of medical tape, wrapping the injury with tight, precise movements. Her fingers didn't tremble anymore; they moved with the cold, resigned competence of someone who had bandaged her own scraped knees, her own bruised knuckles from punching walls in frustration, and the invisible scars of a neglected heart for most of her life.

She didn't feel angry at Elliot anymore. As she finished taping the gauze and dropped the medical supplies back into the tin, the sharp realization settled over her bones like frost. Elliot was just another casualty of the Viona family legacy—a boy pulled into a dysfunctional, loveless machine and forced to survive it, just as she had. The only difference was that she had chosen to become the monster to keep from drowning, while he had quietly learned how to swim until he owned the entire ocean.

Tossing the tin back into the drawer, Danika stood up and walked over to her bed. She didn't bother turning off the vanity light. She simply crawled beneath the heavy silk covers, curling her knees to her chest in the dark, staring blankly at the opposite wall as the quiet hours of the night ticked slowly by—left entirely alone with the wreckage she had made, waiting for a sunrise that she knew would demand everything she had left.

***

The morning sun cut through the heavy silk drapes of the bedroom, casting sharp, brilliant slashes of light across the ruined floorboards of the hallway outside.

Downstairs, the atmosphere was chillingly pristine. The shattered glass, the ruined cake, and the debris of the night before had completely vanished, as if the violent tantrum had never occurred. The living room was spotless, the mahogany mantelpiece polished to a mirror shine, and the air smelled faintly of lemon disinfectant and black coffee.

At the head of the long, formal dining table, Elliot sat in a tailored charcoal suit, a crisp white shirt buttoned to the top without a tie. A single porcelain cup of black coffee sat before him, alongside a thick stack of corporate restructuring reports. He didn't look up as the soft, hesitant footsteps of bare feet padded down the grand staircase.

He took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee, his eyes fixed on the financial spreadsheets, waiting for her to arrive.

After her settled down.

Elliot didn’t look up from his papers immediately. He let the silence stretch between them for three agonizing beats, the only sound in the cavernous dining hall being the faint clink of his spoon against the saucer.

When he finally raised his head, his dark eyes were flat, analytical, and entirely devoid of the boy who used to shrink away from her glare. He took his time looking her over—noticing the pale, washed-out complexion of someone who had spent the night staring at the ceiling, the slight shadow beneath her eyes, and the neat white gauze wrapped securely around her right thumb.

"Good morning, Danika," Elliot said, his voice level and devoid of sarcasm. It was worse than mockery; it was the tone of an executive addressing an underperforming asset.

He slid a single piece of heavy cardstock across the polished mahogany table toward her. It stopped right beside her empty, untouched place setting.

"Your badge and your office keys," Elliot continued, resting his forearms on the table, his fingers laced together. "Human Resources processed your transition to the marketing division at 8:00 AM. Your desk is on the third floor, right next to the copy machine and right in the middle of an open-plan bullpen. No private office. No assistant. And certainly no special treatment."

He paused, letting the reality of her new, humiliating station sink in before leaning slightly forward.

"You have ten minutes to finish your coffee, if you want any. Then we drive to the office together. My car. My schedule. Don't keep me waiting."