Page 51 of The Brutal Arrangement

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I’ll do better.” She curtsied and blushed.

“Oh, no.” I held my hand up. “I’m not saying you’re doing a bad job.” I tried again to smile as sweetly as I could. Maybe I was trying so hard to appear friendly and non-threatening that I was starting to freak her out. “I used to?—”

She flinched as I approached.

“I was—I’m a maid. Well, I used to be…” I hated how she looked at me like I was a threat. “Can I show you?”

After she handed over the duster, I demonstrated. “If you use a little flick of your wrist like that, it’ll sort of shake the particles into the fibers.”

She blinked, seeming so stupefied that I’d be giving her dusting advice.

Oh, give it up, Luce. Accept your fate and be alone until you can get out of here.I wasn’t on any fast track to befriending another maid. I wasn’t going to even have small talk with a single soul here.

I folded my arms over my stomach, patting my hand on my elbow, as I left the speechless maid.

I’d never realized how horribly lonely I was. As a maid, I’d have others to talk to on the staff. Joann was a sweetheart. And before that gig at the Kozlov house, I’d gotten along well enough with other maids, butlers, and other positions in big residences.

Here, I was subjected to the same dark-brown and black walls of Damon’s apartment, surrounded by nothing and able to connect with, well, no one.

Another heavy sigh left my lips and I furrowed my brow as I admitted that this listlessness and loneliness had really only cemented my sad fate when my mom received her diagnosis.

Thinking about her prompted me to remember how confused Damon’s father seemed, and I was curious whether he had similar care set up for him in this building.

It was bad enough that I was stupidly craving the submission Damon got out of me. I wasn’t going to soften toward him any further than that. Yet, not wishing someone to witness their parent losing their identity and mind was just simple decency.

I could check in on her, couldn’t I?

This was the longest I’d gone without checking in on my mom at the facility. She had so few “good” days that I never had a chance to speak with her, but it seemed like I was doing my duty when I called and spoke to the receptionist at the desk.

I got my phone and debated calling. Damon had warned me not to lie to him, and I hadn’t. It wasn’t a lie if he didn’t ask me about my mom or anything about my family. It was just a fact that existed outside of the orbit of his command on me.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I stared at the blank screen of my phone. I kept it off all the time now, so scared that Katerina could call it. It seemed safer that way. Because if Damon or anyone in this building knew that I was still in contact with Katerina, I bet that would apply as a reason for Damon to act on his warning.

What if the facility wanted to contact me about Mom?

What if something has happened and I’m unaware?

Deciding I could power it on long enough to check my messages, I glanced at the door and prayed that Damon or anyone else wouldn’t walk in right now.

The device booted on, and only one message showed. It was the debt collection place, the company in charge of where all my unpaid bills had gone when I couldn’t keep up with my mom’scare. The transcribed text from the recording confirmed that those bills were still out there waiting for me.

All twenty-one thousand dollars.

What the hell?

I worried that Katerina was reneging on me. She’d sworn she’d cover my mom’s expenses, and because I’d been so convinced that she was like a friend, I took her word for it.

Wait. Maybe this message is just older. If Katerina transferred money to cover it all recently, it might not show yet. That’s all.I’d only been here for almost four days now.

I wouldn’t dare call Katerina to check. I wasn’t comfortable to call the debt collectors or my mom’s facility, either. Any call or reach out would probably fall in the category of unallowed privileges, and that wasn’t something that I wanted to mess with.

Not with my husband’s death threat hanging over my head.

More worried than before, I powered down my phone and put it back where it had been sitting, on a side table. The fact that it was right there in the open felt like a test. Like Damon and his men were waiting to pounce on me for talking to someone they hadn’t approved of.

Because, yeah, I’m such an awesome undercover spy.

I flopped back on the bed and closed my eyes.

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