Day one in the cage felt like drowning in slow motion.
Elara woke to find her wing of the penthouse transformed into something that looked like luxury but felt like a tomb. The bedroom was unchanged—silk sheets, designer furniture, art that cost more than most people's houses. But the door to the hallway now had an electronic lock that clicked ominously whenever she approached.
Protocol seven. This is what protocol seven means.
She'd tried the door anyway, pulling at the handle with increasing desperation until her palms were red and her breath came in ragged gasps. The lock didn't budge. Didn't even register her attempts.
I'm locked in. Actually, literally locked in.
The sitting area was small but functional—a sofa, armchair, coffee table, windows that offered the same view of the city forty-three floors below. Beautiful people living free lives, unaware that someone was watching from a gilded prison.
The bathroom was her only refuge—the single space without cameras, though she suspected even that privacy was conditional on his mercy.
He's watching. Somewhere in this penthouse or from his office or wherever he is, he's watching me realize exactly what I've lost.
Breakfast arrived via a slot in the door she hadn't noticed before—a mechanical system that delivered covered dishes without requiring human contact. The food was perfect, as always: fresh fruit, warm croissants, coffee exactly how she liked it.
She let it sit untouched, a small rebellion that felt pathetic even as she committed to it.
I won't eat his food. Won't accept his care. Won't give him the satisfaction of compliance.
But by evening, hunger overrode pride. She ate the cold croissants and lukewarm coffee, hating herself for the weakness, hating him for reducing her to this.
No one came. No staff, no Viktor, certainly not Kael. Just silence and luxury and the terrible understanding that she could scream until her voice gave out and no one would hear.
This is what he meant. This is the cage when the illusion of freedom is stripped away.
Day two brought the weight of true isolation.
She'd slept badly, dreams fractured by the sound of electronic locks and Lucien's evidence. Woke to find another meal delivered through the slot—eggs, toast, orange juice that mocked her with its freshness.
How long can he keep me here? How long until someone notices I've disappeared?
But she knew the answer: as long as he wanted. Her mother thought she was busy with wedding planning. Sarah thought she was on romantic getaways. The world beyond this cage had been systematically convinced she was exactly where she wanted to be.
No one is coming. No one even knows I need rescue.
She tried to occupy her mind—read books from the small shelf he'd left her, watched the city through windows she couldn't open, counted the hours between meals like they were life rafts in an ocean of time.
The silence was the worst part. Not peaceful quiet, but oppressive absence of sound. No footsteps, no voices, no evidence that anyone existed beyond the walls of her prison.
I could die in here and no one would know for days.
She spoke out loud just to hear a human voice, even if it was her own: "This is insane. He's insane. This is—"
But the words echoed in the empty space, absorbed by expensive furnishings that turned her prison into an acoustic coffin.
He's breaking me. Systematically, deliberately breaking me until I'm grateful just to see another human being.
Day three brought the first cracks in her resolve.
She found herself watching the door, hoping for—what? Kael's arrival? Viktor's check-in? Any sign that she still existed in someone's awareness?
I'm starting to crave his presence. That's what he wants. That's the entire point of this.
The meals continued their mechanical arrival—lunch appearing through the slot with the same impersonal efficiency. Chicken, vegetables, bread that smelled like heaven and tasted like ash.
She ate because not eating felt like letting him win, even though she knew eating was its own form of surrender.
Every bite is acknowledging he controls even my basic survival.
She tried exercising—pushups, situps, pacing the small space like a caged animal. But the designer clothes weren't made for movement, and exhaustion brought its own problems: too much time to think, to remember, to replay every moment that had led to this.
I should have told him about Lucien's message. Should have brought him the evidence instead of going behind his back. Should have chosen trust over truth.
But even as she thought it, she knew that was the Stockholm syndrome talking. The part of her brain that wanted to rationalize his behavior, to make his abuse into love, to transform her prison into protection.
This isn't love. This is punishment. This is what happens when you defy someone who thinks he owns you.
Day four brought desperation.
She woke with a plan—find something, anything, that could get a message out. But her wing had been stripped of anything useful. No phone, no computer, no way to communicate with the world beyond her walls.
Even the books were carefully selected: fiction, nothing that might give her ideas about escape or rebellion. The art was bolted to walls. The furniture too heavy to move.
He thought of everything. Every possible tool I might use to free myself.
She tried the windows, running her hands along the frames looking for weaknesses. But they were sealed shut, probably reinforced, designed to keep her safe from falls or escapes.
Safe. He keeps using that word. But I've never felt less safe in my life.
Lunch came and went. Dinner arrived with the same mechanical indifference. She ate because the alternative was starving, and starving felt like giving up entirely.
How long until I start talking to myself? How long until I forget what other voices sound like?
She tried to remember the last real conversation she'd had—Lucien, telling her about Kael's manipulation, about her father's death, about engineered desperation. The memory felt distant now, like something that had happened to someone else.
Was it real? The evidence, the bank records, the proof that he planned everything? Or was it manipulation from a different master?
But she couldn't ask. Couldn't verify. Couldn't do anything but sit in her luxury prison and wonder if the truth was worth the cost of seeking it.
Day five brought the beginning of surrender.
She woke hoping to see someone—anyone. Found herself counting the hours until meals arrived, just for the evidence that time was still passing, that the world beyond her walls still existed.
This is pathetic. I'm becoming grateful for food delivery.
She tried to maintain routines: morning exercises, afternoon reading, evening by the windows watching a city that felt increasingly unreal. But the structure felt hollow, performed for an audience that wasn't watching or didn't care.
Maybe this is permanent. Maybe this is just my life now—existing in three rooms while the world forgets I ever lived in it.
She found herself talking to imaginary Kael, explaining why she'd gone to meet Lucien, justifying her choices to someone who wasn't there to hear them.
I had a right to know about my father. Had a right to understand how we really met. Had a right to truth even if truth was dangerous.
But the imaginary Kael in her head just smiled that cold smile and said: You had a right to survive. Every other right is negotiable.
I'm losing my mind. Five days and I'm already losing my mind.
She pressed her forehead against the window, watching people forty-three floors below living normal lives. Going to work, meeting friends, making choices about their own existence.
I used to be one of them. Just a week ago, I was someone who could walk outside, who could talk to people, who could—
The thought broke off as she realized with horror that she couldn't remember what freedom felt like. The sensation of leaving a building without permission, of talking to someone without fear of consequences, of existing without constant surveillance.
He's erasing me. Five days and he's already erasing the person I used to be.
Day six brought numbness.
She woke without hope or despair, just flat acceptance of her new reality. This was life now: three rooms, mechanical meals, silence that pressed against her eardrums like physical weight.
I should fight more. Should be angrier. Should be—something other than this hollow thing that eats and sleeps and exists without living.
But anger required energy, and energy required purpose, and purpose required believing anything she did would matter.
Maybe this is what he wants. Not my rage but my resignation. Not my rebellion but my acceptance that this is all there is.
She tried to remember what she'd been fighting for—autonomy, truth, the right to make her own choices. But those concepts felt abstract now, like words in a language she used to speak but had forgotten.
Was it worth it? Meeting Lucien, learning the truth, discovering that Kael had engineered everything? What did knowing cost me?
Everything. Knowing had cost her everything.
Dinner arrived through the slot—pasta, salad, bread that smelled like the outside world she was beginning to forget. She ate mechanically, tasting nothing, feeling nothing.
This is what a cage truly is. Not the restriction of movement but the erosion of self. Not the lack of freedom but the forgetting what freedom felt like.
She was sitting by the window, watching the city lights blink on as evening fell, when she heard it.
A sound. An actual, honest-to-God sound that wasn't her own breathing or footsteps or the mechanical delivery of meals.
Voices. Male voices, sharp with urgency.
Someone's out there. Someone's in the penthouse.
She pressed her ear against the door to her wing, straining to hear through the electronic lock and heavy wood.
Shouting. Definitely shouting. And was that—a struggle? The sound of something heavy hitting the floor?
What's happening? Is it Kael? Is he—
More voices, urgent commands she couldn't quite make out. Then a sound that made her blood run cold: gunfire. Muffled by distance and doors, but unmistakable.
Someone's attacking. Someone's attacking the penthouse.
Her first instinct was relief—someone had found her, someone was breaking in to rescue her, someone would end this suffocating isolation.
But then reality crashed over her: if someone was attacking Kael's fortress, if they'd made it past all his security, if they were shooting inside the penthouse—
They're not here to rescue me. They're here to kill him. And if they kill him—
More gunfire. Closer now. And shouting that was definitely Viktor's voice, sharp with commands.
Then silence.
Terrible, absolute silence that was somehow worse than the violence.
Elara stood frozen at the door, her ear pressed against the wood, heart hammering so hard she thought it might burst from her chest.
Move. Do something. Find a weapon, barricade yourself, prepare for—
But prepare for what? If Kael's security had been breached, if whoever was out there had gotten past Viktor and his team, what chance did she have locked in a wing with no weapons and no escape?
This is how it ends. Not with Kael's control but with his enemies finding me in this cage he built.
She backed away from the door, looking around desperately for anything that could serve as a weapon. But the room had been stripped of everything dangerous—no sharp objects, no heavy implements, nothing that could be used for defense or offense.
He protected me so thoroughly that he left me defenseless.
More sounds from beyond the door—footsteps, rapid and purposeful. Multiple people, moving through the penthouse with the efficiency of professionals who knew exactly what they were doing.
Then voices, closer now, just outside her wing:
"Check the east wing. He's got her locked in there somewhere."
Her. They're looking for me.
"Door's sealed. Electronic lock, reinforced frame. We'll need—"
"We don't have time. He's got backup coming. We take her now or we don't take her at all."
Take her. They want to take me. Lucien's people? Dmitri's? Someone else from Kael's long list of enemies?
The sound of something mechanical—tools, maybe, or equipment designed to breach the lock that had kept her prisoner for six days.
Elara pressed herself against the far wall, as far from the door as her small prison would allow, and realized with crystalline clarity that she was about to find out whether being Kael's captive or his enemy's prize was worse.
The lock clicked.
The door began to open.
And she understood that the cage she'd been desperate to escape was about to become the protection she desperately needed.