Maya's POV
Maya's foot caught on the front step, and she nearly fell flat on her face.
She grabbed the door frame just in time, her bag swinging off her shoulder and hitting the stone wall with a loud thud. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. She'd survived a silent forty-five-minute car ride with a driver who hadn't said a single word, and now she was going to trip and break her nose before she even walked through the door.
She straightened up and fixed her bag strap. No one had seen that. She was fine.
"Careful, dear."
Maya spun around. An older woman stood in the open doorway, one hand already reaching out like she'd been ready to catch her. She had kind eyes and a warm smile, the kind of smile that made you feel like you'd known her your whole life, even though you definitely hadn't.
"I'm Mrs. Winters," the woman said. "I look after the house. You must be Maya."
Maya blinked. "How did you know I was here? I didn't even knock."
"The cameras." Mrs. Winters nodded toward a tiny black lens above the door that Maya had completely missed. "Mr. Blackwell likes to know when guests arrive."
Guests. Maya almost laughed out loud. She wasn't a guest. She was a transaction. A line in a contract her father had signed without even looking at it.
"Right," Maya said flatly. "Of course, there are cameras."
Mrs. Winters took her bag before Maya could protest and stepped aside to let her in. "Come out of the cold. Dinner is at seven. You have time to settle in first."
Maya walked inside.
The warmth hit her immediately, and she hated how good it felt. She'd been cold for months. Their apartment heater had been broken since October, and the landlord kept promising to fix it and never did. She'd gotten so used to sleeping in two pairs of socks that she'd almost forgotten what warm felt like.
She didn't want to feel comfortable here. She wanted to stay angry. Anger was useful. Anger kept her sharp.
But the warmth was very, very hard to be angry at.
She followed Mrs. Winters through the hallway. Maya kept her eyes forward, refusing to be impressed. She noticed the Christmas decorations everywhere, green garlands twisted around the staircase railing, small white lights blinking softly along the walls. It looked like a magazine photo of what Christmas was supposed to look like. The kind Maya had seen in store windows growing up, and she always walked past quickly because wanting something you couldn't have was a waste of energy.
Don't get comfortable, she reminded herself. This is not your home. You are here because your father sold you. You will do your job, send money to Lily, and get out.
"Up here," Mrs. Winters said, starting up the staircase.
Maya followed. On the second-floor landing, she noticed something she hadn't expected. A row of framed photographs. Not fancy art, not the kind of expensive paintings she'd seen downstairs. Regular photographs. A mountain at sunrise. A dog sleeping in a patch of sunlight. A little boy was laughing so hard his eyes were scrunched shut.
She stopped without meaning to.
The little boy in the photo looked familiar in a way she couldn't explain. Something about the angle of his jaw, the shape of his smile. Like someone she almost recognized but couldn't place.
"Maya?" Mrs. Winters had paused at the end of the hall.
She pulled herself away from the photo and kept walking.
Mrs. Winters opened a door near the end of the hallway and stepped back. "Your room."
Maya walked in and stopped.
The room was massive. That was the first thing. Big enough that her voice would probably echo if she talked too loudly. There was a bed with more pillows on it than she'd owned in her entire life, a wooden desk by the window, a bookshelf already stocked with books, and in the corner, a tiny Christmas tree strung with warm yellow lights.
Someone had put a Christmas tree in her room.
Maya stood very still and said nothing for a long moment.
"The bathroom is through that door," Mrs. Winters said gently, pointing. "Extra blankets in the chest at the foot of the bed. If you need anything at all, my room is at the end of the hall. You just knock."
"Why is there a Christmas tree?" Maya asked.
Mrs. Winters tilted her head. "It's December."
"I know what month it is. I'm asking why someone decorated my room. I'm staff. I'm not" Maya stopped. She didn't know how to finish that sentence without sounding bitter, and she was very tired of sounding bitter. "I just didn't expect it."
Mrs. Winters looked at her for a moment with an expression Maya couldn't read. "Mr. Blackwell asked me to make sure you felt at home."
"That's a strange thing for someone who bought my time to say."
"Perhaps." Mrs. Winters smiled slightly. "Dinner at seven, dear. Don't be late. He doesn't like waiting."
She left, pulling the door shut quietly behind her.
Maya dropped her bag on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress was incredibly soft. She immediately stood back up because that was dangerous. If she sat on that mattress for more than thirty seconds, she was going to lie down, and if she lay down, she was going to fall asleep, and if she fell asleep in this ridiculous, comfortable bed, she was going to wake up confused about where her life had gone wrong.
She already knew where it had gone wrong. It had gone wrong the night her father opened their apartment door to a stranger and sold her for a briefcase full of cash.
She moved to the window instead. Outside, the mountain stretched down into a dark forest. Snow covered everything. There were no other houses, no lights, no signs of life anywhere below. Just white and black and silence. The nearest town was forty-five minutes away. She'd counted.
She pulled out her phone. Two bars of signal, barely. She typed a message to Lily.
Arrived safe. The job is fine. How's school?
She stared at it for a second, then sent it. A lie wrapped in normal words. She'd gotten good at those.
Lily's reply came thirty seconds later, which meant she'd been waiting.
Finally!! I've been worried. Is the director nice? Is the house big? Are you eating?
Maya smiled despite herself. Lily always asked if she was eating. Ever since their mom died and Maya had gone two weeks barely touching food, Lily, who'd been sixteen and terrified, had started asking that question every single day.
The house is big. Eating fine. Don't worry.
She put the phone in her pocket and started unpacking. She didn't have much. Two changes of clothes, her camera, her laptop, a few books. She lined them up on the desk with the same care she always used, making things organized because organized meant in control, and in control meant not falling apart.
She was unpacking her camera when she heard it.
A voice. Muffled through the wall. A man's voice, low and urgent. She couldn't make out words, just the tone. Tense. Like an argument.
She went very still and listened.
There were two voices. That was strange. Mrs. Winters had said Mr. Blackwell like there was only one. But there were definitely two voices coming through the wall, same low register, same rhythm, overlapping each other the way voices do when two people are speaking at the same time.
Then one voice got louder. Just for a second. Just long enough for Maya to catch five words through the plaster.
"She cannot find out yet."
Silence.
Then nothing.
Maya stood in the middle of her beautiful room with her camera in her hands and her heart beating faster than it should.
She cannot find out yet.
Find out what? Find out what?
She looked at the wall. Then at the door. Then back at the wall.
Dinner was at seven. She had two hours.
She set her camera down very carefully, walked to the door, and opened it without making a sound.
Somewhere in this house, someone was keeping a secret.
And Maya Chen had never in her life been able to leave a secret alone.