004

Aurora’s POV

I went back to that house the next morning and prayed I would not see Callum.

It was my first day. I still did not know what a personal assistant to Gideon Vale was supposed to do. Follow orders. That was the only instruction I trusted.

The maid opened the door with the same polite face as before. Then I saw him.

Callum was coming toward me in his baseball gear, bag slung over one shoulder, cap in his hand. The second he recognized me, the softness he used to save for me was gone.

Anger filled the space where it had been.

“What the hell are you doing here, bitch?” His voice carried down the hall.

“I told you never to come back and beg. We’re done, Rora.”

“I’m not here for you. I—”

“She’s here for me.”

Gideon came down the stairs like the house belonged to his footsteps. Callum stopped. Confusion crossed his face first. Then something uglier.

He looked at me. “Have you no shame? You came to see my father? For money?”

He turned toward Gideon without waiting for my answer.

“Dad, what are you thinking? She’s a cheap slut. She only came here to ask for cash. You don’t need to waste time talking to her. I’ll throw her out.”

His hand closed around my arm. He started to pull.

Gideon’s hand closed over his.

“Take your hand off her.”

“Dad—”

“I said let go.”

The words were quiet. They still cut the air in half. Callum’s fingers opened. The place where he had held me stung.

“She did not come here for you,” Gideon said. “She is my business now. Leave.”

Callum looked at me one last time.

There was no confusion left. Only hate. Then he walked out with his bag and did not slam the door, which somehow felt worse.

The hall went still.

I could not look at Gideon right away.

My arm still remembered Callum’s grip. My face still remembered the word slut.

“Come with me.”

He led me to the same office as yesterday. The desk that made everything on it look small.

“Sit.”

I sat.

“I assume you read the letter,” he said. “I assume you also received the money.”

“Yes, sir. I read it. But… there is still one thing I don’t understand.”

He did not help me. He only watched, waiting, as if silence was part of the job.

“The Friday schedule only says Red Room. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do there.”

The corner of his mouth moved. It was not a kind smile. It was not even a full one. My heart picked up anyway.

“In two days,” he said, “you will know what is inside the Red Room.”

That was all. He sat back.

“I still have four days to decide if you are serious about working for me. If you disappoint me in those four days, I can end the contract. And they can take you.”

The reminder landed colder than the smirk.

“I promise I will do everything you ask,” I said. “I won’t disappoint you, Mr. Vale.”

He looked at me and said nothing. I wanted that silence to mean he believed me. I was not sure it did.

I hoped I would not regret the promise.

The day stretched longer than the clock admitted.

He did not send me into anything strange. He gave me files. Dates. Names I did not recognize.

He told me to sort, to label, to bring coffee when the cup went empty. He spoke in short sentences and expected me to move before he repeated himself.

I did.

My hands stayed busy. My mind kept drifting to Friday and then forcing itself back to paper.

If this was the work for a whole year, I could survive it. Coffee. Files. Quiet. I almost let myself believe that.

At seven he spoke without lifting his eyes from the document in front of him.

“You can go home.”

I stopped with a folder still open.

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me. Come to the place written on Friday. Wear a black dress.”

I stood there too long.

“I… I don’t have a black dress, Mr. Vale. Is there an important event on Friday?”

“Yes. So make sure you wear one. Go.”

He still did not look at me. I gathered the last of the files, set them straight, and left before he could change the order into something sharper.

The apartment felt smaller after that house. I opened my wardrobe and pulled everything out anyway.

Shirts from work. Old jeans. A cardigan with a loose thread. Almost no dresses. I had never needed one.

Fast-food shifts did not ask for black fabric that touched the floor.

Then I remembered.

My mother had owned one.

I had not gone into her room in a long time. Every time I did, the missing got louder. The air still smelled faintly like the soap she used. I stood in the doorway first, as if she might tell me to come in.

I opened her wardrobe.

Most of what was left I could not wear. At the back, wrapped in a thin cloth, I found it. Black. Simple from far away.

Not simple when I held it up to the light. The neckline sat lower than anything I owned. The waist was cut to follow a body I was not sure I still had.

I changed.

The zipper caught once. Then it closed.

I looked at myself in the mirror she used to use and heard my own voice before I meant to speak.

“Is this too much?”

The dress did not answer.

Friday would.