Page 27 of Ruthless Daddy
“Why? Why do you need to stay?”
“Because I am responsible for you. I will not risk your safety even for a moment.”
“But—”
“There’s no discussion about this. It is non-negotiable.”
He said it with such flatness that I almost believed it. I did not reply.
Non-negotiable.
Well, I wouldn’t negotiate, then.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking at the marble and the stainless steel and the absence of anything personal—no fridge magnets, no notes, no mess. It looked like no one had ever lived here.
He hesitated, then walked halfway down the hall and opened another door. Stepped back so I could see in.
The light from the hallway fell across a sheepskin rug, the back of a wooden rocking chair, an upright piano against the far wall. The room was small, cozy, almost childish in its proportions, but there was nothing in it for a child. No toys, no books, no crib. Just the piano, the rug, the chair, a low basket of throws.
I stayed outside the door. “What is this room?”
He looked at it for a moment. “Whatever you need it to be,” he said.
I did not know what I needed.
We stood in silence, the two of us in the hallway, not quite looking at each other, the door open between us and the smell of polished wood and clean laundry drifting out.
After a while, he said it again: “Whatever you need it to be.”
*
He told me the terms in the kitchen.
“You can leave at any time,” he said. “The door is not locked from your side. If you leave, I cannot keep you safe. The choice is yours every day.”
He said it all at once, a set of bullet points, nothing for me to respond to. Just the rules of the house:
The door was not locked from my side. The panic button by the bed was red, plastic, the kind meant for old people or the very rich. The second exit was through the laundry, a fire stair thatlet out to a parking garage two floors down. His number was to be saved under a name he specified, not his own. I was to text him when I woke up and when I was turning in for the night. I was to eat three times a day. I was not to open the front door for anyone. If someone knocked, I was to go to the interior hall and text him before I did anything else. I was not to go near the windows after dark. I was not to use my own phone to call anyone I knew. I was to tell him if I felt unwell, even a little. I was to tell him if I felt afraid, even of nothing. He would not come into my room unless I asked him to. He would not ask questions I didn’t want to answer. He would not touch me.
“If you need me,” he said, “I am ten feet away.”
I nodded, once. He did not smile, but the side of his mouth did something, a micro-expression I didn’t know how to translate.
“One more thing—while you’re here I don’t want you googling yourself. You understand? Don’t google Halberd, either. No names from the trial—nothing. Understood?”
My heart pounded. I knew that googling myself calmed me down, helped to set my mind at rest during times of panic. But hew was probably right—it was safer not to leave those kind of digital footprints.
“Not through TOR?”
“Not through nothing.”
I sighed. “Fine. I get it.”
“Good.”
With that, he went into the living room and closed the door behind him.
I stood in the kitchen for a long minute, watching the way the light fell in from the windows. The city outside was full of noise and traffic, but in here there was nothing. Triple-glazed silence. I tried to remember if I’d ever been in a place so insulated from the outside.
