Chapter 5: The Madame

Ava

~~~

Evelyn hurriedly stuffs my little box to its limit, clothes spilling out in a way that tells me the cheap contraption isn’t going to be able to shut well.

“Leonel Sinclair?” She demands for the fifth time, “You slapped, splashed and kissed the Leonel Sinclair?”

Even through my worry, I glance up from the cardboard box I was throwing my kitchen appliances into, “Splashed?”

She waves it off, “it’s a word I use for throwing drinks in people’s faces.”

“And you need this word regularly why?”

Evelyn huffs out, “Ava! That’s not the point. You assaulted a billionaire. No, scratch that. You assaulted the billionaire who makes other billionaire’s look like… like us!”

“You mean pretty?” I joke innocently, even though I feel my hands shake from fear. I clench them into fists.

“Broke!” She throws her hands up, “He makes them look poor cause he’s that damn rich.”

I know she’s taking this seriously, and I want to as well, but I need to get out of this apartment first, before The Madame finds me and demands the rent I very clearly don’t have.

I’d only allowed myself to think about Mr Sinclair on the sprint back here last night. As my red hair had whipped behind me and my heart hammered at a pace that wasn’t normal. It was the first time in a long time I didn’t think of some escape plan from a desperate situation. My brain could only zero in on his name.

Sinclair.

Sinclair.

Sinclair.

It was all that played in my head even when one of my heels broke and I had to make the rest of the journey here barefoot. The moment I entered the building, I collapsed in exhaustion.

Only when I woke up this morning did it hit me that I had to move. To make my next smart decision. My rent is due, and The Madame has promised me she wouldn’t be so kind with my payments this time.

I’ve dealt with strict landlords before, but last time someone didn’t pay their rent to The Madame, his screams haunted us through the night before he “went away.” When I asked The Madame where, she gave the cruelest smile I’d ever seen and said, “ Be late with your rent next time and you’ll see for yourself.”

So yeah, she has some punishment waiting for me if I don’t pay off my rent. A punishment I plan to never suffer.

That’s why Evie, my only friend since coming to New York, is in my cramped space with me, dodging little droplets from the ceiling and packing my entire life into a few little boxes, intent on helping me run away.

I can’t stay with Evelyn because she already has 3 brothers to feed and is barely scraping by. Plus, even if she offered me a room I’d never live with anyone ever again. The Incident has given me the good sense to be independent, and no one is breaking down those walls anytime soon.

“I don’t care who Sinclair is or how much money he has.” I tell Evelyn, throwing my box with the other packed things, “All I care about right now is evading The Madame.”

Evelyn stops zipping up my box completely, fixing her dark blue eyes on me.

“Ava.” She begins, and a chill runs down my spine as her tone leaves no room for jokes, “I don’t know a lot about your past, but I do know a lot about your present. You run and hide whenever you face some crazy situation. This is the third time I’ve helped you escape a landlord. But you can’t run away from Leonel Sinclair. Where will you go in this world that he wouldn’t find you?”

I let her words sink in, feeling them penetrate my guarded heart, and as much as I want to tell Evie I’ll figure it out, I know her words hold too much truth.

Will I escape in a world that Leonel Sinclair can own?

I shake my head, clearing my thoughts of any panic threatening to seep in.

“I can’t think about that now.” I state, carrying my last set of paintbrushes. All I own now sits haphazardly in two boxes, “I want to believe after last night a billionaire would want nothing to do with me.”

Evelyn’s eyes darken, “You may have some faith in him, but I don’t. Don’t you remember his divorce?”

At last a shot of panic goes through me, not just because she brought up the divorce, but because of who I was when it was happening.

I was bright. Beautiful. Betrayed.

Now I’m shady, hopping apartments and hoping I’m never caught by the last person who housed me.

“Of course I remember,” I warble out, angry at the shake in my voice, “His ex-wife Madison will never let anyone forget.”

When I got my first apartment with a man who let me stay if I waitressed for free at his diner, and I was no longer too miserable from The Incident to watch tv, Madison’s account of the divorce was the first thing that showed on the old tv set.

She looked worse than I did, crying on The Garrish Late Night Show about how Leonel had been a serial cheat and drunk throughout their marriage. The guy sounds awful, and the Sinclair I met at that art show only further proves that.

Still, there was the fact he protected me from Mr Riggs, even if selfishly, and how he bought my paintings, even if just to get me off stage. Something about those two acts doesn’t seem to align with the rest of his character.

“Look,” I state, “I know I’m in some sort of trouble, I do, but I can’t worry right now. When I get out of here Evie my first priority will be fixing this mess. I promise.”

Her blue eyes soften, and she anxiously runs a hand through her strawberry blonde ponytail.

“Okay.” She concedes, “Let’s just get you out of here.”

I nod, relief flooding me, and together we rush out with my two boxes and load them into her run-down car.

It’s only as I’m about to step inside that I fold my hands over my chest and realize with horror that my pendant is missing.

“Shit,” I say, closing the car door behind me as Evelyn calls out to me.

If it was anything else I’d have let it go, but that necklace is the last thing of my mother that I own.

I run into the bedroom and desperately feel under the springy mattress until my fingers loop around cold metal.

Bingo.

Relief floods me as I pull out the Jade-colored butterfly necklace, but right now looking at it makes my heart flutter with guilt. I wonder what mum would think if she saw me today. Would she be able to understand what I’ve become?

I don’t have too much time to think about it because the door of the apartment creaks open.

My heart jolts, and on reflex I reach into my pocket and grab my knife.

“Ava, Ava,” I hear the familiar tsk of The Madame as a chill through me.

“Why don’t you come to the living room? Oh, and leave your knife. It wouldn’t do much good against me.”