Chapter 3 Rules of His World

Nia POV

The gates opened without a sound.

Nia stood at the mouth of the driveway, duffel bag in one hand, phone in the other, and stared at a house that looked less like a home and more like a decision someone had made with a lawyer present. Stone columns. Glass panels. A fountain that ran silent, like even the water had been instructed not to make noise.

A camera above the gate tracked her. She felt it move.

"Ms. Vale."

She turned. A man stood six feet away, arms loose at his sides, dressed in black without a single wrinkle. Blond, sharp-jawed, quiet in a way that made her aware of every sound she wasn't hearing.

"Hayes," he said. "Head of security."

"Another Hayes?"

"No relation."

He didn't offer more. He didn't offer a hand. He turned and walked toward the house as she would follow, and she did, because standing alone at the gate felt worse.

"You'll be in the east wing," Hayes said without looking back. "Your key card opens your room, the main hall, and the garden. Nothing else."

"What's nothing else?"

"Everything you don't need."

The front door opened before they reached it. A woman in gray took Nia's duffel without asking and disappeared down a hallway. Nia's protest died in her throat.

"Staff don't speak first," Hayes said. "They won't answer questions unless you're introduced. Don't take it personally."

"I take a lot of things personally."

Hayes glanced at her, and something almost crossed his face. "Noted."

Inside, the silence was different. Thicker. The floors gleamed, the ceilings stretched, the light came from somewhere she couldn't locate. Every room she passed looked staged for a photograph-no clutter, no mail, no sign that anyone lived here at all.

"Where's Mr. Hayes?"

"Working."

"Where?"

"Wherever he is."

Nia stopped walking. "You're not going to tell me anything, are you?"

Hayes turned. His eyes were calm, patient, and completely unreadable. "I'm going to tell you what keeps you safe. That's the arrangement."

"I didn't agree to an arrangement with you."

"No," he said. "You agreed with Mr. Hayes."

He led her up a staircase that curved like it had been designed to make people feel small, and stopped at a set of double doors.

"Rules," Hayes said. "Don't enter the west wing. Don't touch the art. Don't wander after ten. If you need something, ask me. Not the staff. Not the family."

"The family?"

"Not the family."

He opened the doors. The room beyond was larger than Nia's entire apartment-bed, sitting area, windows that looked out over grounds she couldn't afford to imagine. She stepped inside and hated how quiet her footsteps sounded.

"Your clothes will be replaced," Hayes said. "The team will come at seven."

"I didn't ask for new clothes."

"Nobody does."

She turned on him. "Do you always talk in riddles, or is this a special occasion?"

Hayes met her eyes, and for a second, just a second, he looked almost human. "It's not a riddle, Ms. Vale. It's a system. You'll learn it faster if you stop fighting it."

He left before she could answer

Nia lasted forty minutes in the room before the walls started closing in.

She found the garden by accident-a courtyard with hedges shaped like geometry and a bench that looked older than the house. She sat, pulled her phone out, and found Ayana's number.

It rang twice. "Are you at the mansion? Tell me you're at the mansion and not in a trunk."

"I'm at the mansion." Nia exhaled. "There's a security guy who talks like a warning label and staff who won't look at me."

"That's rich people. They train them like that."

"It's not just the staff." Nia glanced back at the house. "Ayana, this is bigger than a job. There's a west wing I can't enter and rules I don't understand and a lawyer who smiles like a knife."

Ayana went quiet. "Did you sign?"

"Not yet."

"Good. Keep it that way until I read everything."

"I have to sign by midnight."

"Then I'll read faster."

Footsteps crossed the gravel. Nia looked up and her breath caught somewhere between her ribs.

Knox Hayes walked toward her as if the garden belonged to him, because it did. Tall. Dark suit, no tie. Hair cut close, jaw set, eyes that took her in with one sweep and gave nothing back. He was older than her by enough that she felt it immediately-not in years but in stillness. He didn't hurry. He didn't need to.

"You're in the garden," he said.

"I was told it was allowed."

"It is." He stopped a few feet away, hands in his pockets. "I'm Knox."

"I know."

"You shouldn't have come outside alone."

"Hayes said the garden was fine."

"Hayes says a lot of things." Knox's gaze moved past her, toward the hedges, then back. "You'll learn which ones matter."

Nia stood because sitting while he towered over her felt like losing. "Why am I here?"

"You signed."

"Not yet."

"Soon." He said it without arrogance, like he was stating a fact about the weather. "You have questions. You'll have more. That's expected."

"Then answer one."

"One."

"What am I to you?"

Knox's expression didn't change. Not a flicker. Not a twitch. He looked at her the way Hayes looked at cameras-checking for threats.

"Don't ask questions," he said quietly, "you're not ready to hear answers to."

The words landed cold. Not cruel. Worse than cruel. Careful. As he'd already calculated what the truth would do to her and decided she couldn't carry it.

"That's not fair," Nia said.

"Fair is a luxury. You'll find it doesn't live here."

He turned to go. She watched him walk back toward the house, and the silence came down again, heavy and complete.

Then she saw it.

Through the ground-floor window, on a table behind the glass, a framed photo. Knox in a tuxedo. A woman beside him-blonde, polished, smiling like she owned the frame. Her hand rested on his arm. His face, even in the photograph, gave nothing away.

Nia stepped closer. The woman's smile didn't waver.

"Ms. Vale."

She spun. Hayes stood at the garden's edge, watching her.

"Ten o'clock," he said. "Inside."

Nia looked back at the window. The photo was still there, the woman still smiling.

"Who is she?" Nia asked.

Hayes didn't follow her gaze. He didn't have to.

"Inside," he repeated.

Nia walked past him toward the house, and the whole way, she felt the photograph behind her like a door opening onto a room she wasn't supposed to enter.