Chapter 39: Broken Trust at Breakfast
EThe convoy of black SUVs crunched up the gravel drive, their headlights cutting through the sharp mountain twilight. The lodge loomed ahead, a monstrous silhouette of timber and glass against the snow-dusted pines, every window glowing like a promise. Doors thumped open, releasing a burst of laughter, chilled breath, and the expensive, crisp scent of wool and leather from winter coats. Briana climbed out last, her boots sinking into the pristine snow, her eyes wide as she took in the sheer scale of the place—it looked less like a lodge and more like a fortress of money
“Holy shit,” Lilly breathed beside her, linking an arm through Briana’s. “Robert actually outdid himself.”
Grant was already barking orders, his voice echoing in the thin, cold air as brothers began hauling bags toward the massive oak entrance. Tristan moved past them, his shoulder briefly brushing Briana’s as he grabbed his and Lilly’s luggage, his gaze catching hers for a loaded second before flicking toward the bustling entrance. Inside, the heat hit them first, along with the scent of cedar and beeswax polish, the main room a cathedral of exposed beams looking out over a dizzying cliffside view. A fire roared in a stone hearth large enough to stand in.
“Pick your rooms, but the master suite is mine,” Robert announced, already heading for a curved staircase. “The fun starts after everyone’s settled.”
Simon and Lee whooped, dragging their bags toward the wing with the giant walk-in showers, their laughter taking on a predatory edge. Briana felt a familiar coil of anxiety tighten in her stomach; the isolation tactic from the car ride was clearly just the opening move. Lilly squeezed her arm. “Stick with me,” she murmured, her usual confidence tempered with a wary glance at her brothers. “We’ll take the room at the far end of the hall.”
From the entrance, Carissa’s melodic laugh rang out as she ushered in a group of stunning, unfamiliar girls, their eyes bright with anticipation. The energy in the lodge shifted, charged and hungry. Grant clapped his hands together once, the sound like a gunshot. “Everybody in, doors closed,” he called, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Let’s get warm.” Briana followed Lilly upstairs, the weight of all that polished luxury feeling like a cage, her heart thumping a reluctant rhythm against her ribs.
The hallway seemed to stretch forever, each door a dark, polished slab. Lilly pushed open the final one to reveal a room with a vaulted ceiling and a vast window framing the jagged mountains, now indigo in the dying light. “Home sweet nightmare,” she sighed, dropping her bag onto the plush duvet.
Downstairs, Robert’s voice, sharp and carrying, sliced through the muffled laughter. “Grant. Tristan. A word.”
Briana pretended to examine the abstract art on the wall, her body still as she listened. The murmur of their conversation was a low rumble, only clear phrases rising up the staircase like shards of ice. “—flight in an hour. You’re in charge.”
“Understood,” came Tristan’s flat reply.
“Your sister stays pristine. The rest?” Robert’s pause was a physical thing. “Carissa handled the paperwork. No repercussions.”
A heavy silence followed, then the definitive thud of the massive front door closing. The lodge seemed to exhale, the atmosphere shifting into something looser and far more dangerous. Briana met Lilly’s wide-eyed glance; they’d both heard everything. From the great room below, Carter whooped, “Game on!” and the first bottle popped.
The distinct, rhythmic thump of music began to pulse through the floorboards. Lilly walked to the window, her reflection grim in the glass. “The NDAs,” she said softly, not turning around. “That wasn’t for a ski trip.”
Briana watched a group of Carissa’s girls, already in sleek silhouettes, filter toward the wing with the showers, their laughter a bright, deliberate melody. Grant’s voice, now cheerful and commanding, echoed up the stairwell. “Everybody gear up! The night’s young.” The cage, Briana realized, wasn’t made of polished wood or stone. It was made of permissions, signed away in advance. She hugged herself, the cold from the window seeping into her skin.
She hugged herself, the cold from the window seeping into her skin. Lilly finally turned from the glass, her posture rigid. “We’re not going down there,” she stated, a command for them both.
Their room was huge and beautiful, a fortress of quiet linen and soft light against the gathering chaos below. They got comfortable, or tried to, shedding coats and kicking off boots on the plush rug. Briana pulled a novel from her bag, its familiar weight a small anchor, while Lilly flopped onto the king-sized bed with a fashion magazine.
“Grant and Tristan agreed with me on that,” Lilly said, not looking up from a glossy page. “Keep our future wife upstairs.” The phrase hung in the air, foreign and heavy. “She doesn’t need to see what’s about to go down.”
Briana’s fingers stalled on her book’s pages. Wife. The word felt less like a promise and more like a sentence passed in that marble foyer back at Ivywood. A burst of raucous laughter, sharp and abrasive, punched up through the floorboards. It was followed by a shriek—playful, maybe, but edged with something desperate.
The thumping bassline was a constant, invasive pulse now. Briana tried to focus on a single sentence, but the words swam. Lilly pretended to read, but her eyes were fixed and unmoving. Another sound, a door slamming hard somewhere below, made them both flinch.
“They really did think of everything,” Briana whispered, the NDA Robert mentioned now feeling like a physical shroud in the room. Lilly finally tossed the magazine aside. “Thinking is their specialty,” she muttered, standing up to pace the length of the silent, opulent cage.
Lilly’s pacing wore a path in the plush carpet, her movements a silent protest against the walls that confined them. Briana watched her for a moment, the frantic energy doing nothing to quiet the rumble of bass and blurred shouts filtering up through the floor. With a deliberate breath, Briana unzipped her backpack, pulled out her sociology textbook, and settled into the armchair by the soft glow of a reading lamp, the crisp pages a tangible barrier against the noise.
“You’re actually going to study?” Lilly asked, pausing mid-stride.
“What else is there to do?” Briana replied, her voice steady as she traced a highlighted passage on systemic inequality. Lilly stared for a beat, then shook her head with a wry laugh, grabbing the remote. The screen flickered to life with the dramatic music of a fashion reality competition, its staged tensions a bizarre parallel to their own. Lilly curled on the bed, a sketchpad appearing in her lap as her pencil began flying across the page, capturing the exaggerated silhouettes on TV with sharp, angry strokes.
Downstairs, the thumping music dissolved into a wet, crashing sound followed by hysterical laughter. A female voice, shrill and slurred, shouted a challenge about body shots. Briana’s eyes stayed locked on her book, but the words—“coercive hierarchies”—blurred as another collective roar shook the crystal in the light fixture above them. The smell of chlorine and spilled vodka began seeping under their door, a sweet, chemical proof of the world outside their room.
Lilly sketched a gown with vicious, spiked shoulders. “They’re animals,” she muttered, not looking up from her work. Briana turned a page, the sound a small declaration of silence. For a while, there was just the murmur of the television, the scratch of graphite, and the rhythmic turn of pages—a fragile ecosystem of normalcy. Then a door slammed directly below them, and the distinct, sliding sound of a glass wall opening released a wave of colder air and louder, shrieking noises into the house.
“Pool’s open!” someone bellowed, and the symphony of splashes and screams that followed was unmistakably, skin-crawlingly naked. Lilly’s pencil point snapped. Briana finally looked up, meeting her friend’s wide, horrified eyes across the room, the textbook suddenly feeling like a useless shield in her hands. The last safe space had been breached, not by a person, but by the undeniable, cacophonous truth of what was happening.meanwhile d
The cacophony from the pool deck was a living thing, slithering up the side of the lodge and through the locked window. Lilly let out a slow, controlled breath, the kind meant to steady a racing heart. “Right,” she said, her voice forcibly bright as she pushed off the bed and marched toward the mini-bar nestled between two built-in bookshelves.
She pulled out a bottle of red wine, something expensive and dusty, and fetched two crystal tumblers from a shelf. “Screw glasses,” she muttered, popping the cork with a satisfying thwump. Lilly poured them each a generous measure, the glug of liquid a defiant sound against the backdrop of chaos.
Briana put her book down, the text now impossible to follow, and laid in the bed beside Lilly. They propped pillows against the ornate headboard, shoulders touching in silent solidarity. Lilly raised her remote, navigating to a new series, something bright and colorful with laugh tracks. “My brain needs cotton candy,” she declared, taking a long sip.
They continued binge watching, the manufactured crises on screen a welcome, simple distraction. Briana held the cool tumbler, letting the wine’s dark fruit taste bloom on her tongue, a small anchor to the present. A particularly loud shriek from below made her flinch, sloshing the wine. Lilly didn’t comment, just reached over and turned up the volume.
In the blue glow of the television, their profiles were all elegant lines and deep focus. They were, hands down, the most beautiful ladies there, a fact that felt less like a compliment and more like a precarious condition. “He actually said that?” Briana asked during a lull, nodding toward the door, her voice barely above the show’s dialogue. “Future wife?”
Lilly’s jaw tightened. “Grant’s wording, not mine.” She kept her eyes on the screen. “But yeah, the sentiment is family policy.” Another collective roar from downstairs, raw and uninhibited, punched through their fragile bubble. Briana took another drink, the warmth in her chest doing little to melt the cold understanding settling in her bones.
Briana took another drink, the warmth in her chest doing little to melt the cold understanding settling in her bones. Downstairs, the chaos had crystallized into a sharper, more directed rhythm.
Meanwhile downstairs Carissa and Tiffany were sitting naked on Grant and Tristan’s lap by the pool. The heat of their skin fogged the chilled glass of their abandoned tumblers on the wet stone. Grant’s hand rested possessively on Carissa’s thigh, his laugh a low rumble against her back, while Tristan remained rigid, his gaze fixed on the black water as Tiffany traced nonsense patterns on his shoulder.
David’s girlfriend broke up with him right before the trip. This fact circled the pool deck like a bad rumor, evident in the vicious way he drained his drink and in the stretched-too-thin smile he offered Simon. “More for me, then,” David announced to no one, his voice slicing through the steam and laughter as he reached for a new bottle.
The other brothers, flanked by laughing girls, cheered him on with a performative gusto that felt like pity. Tristan finally moved, shifting Tiffany off his lap with a muttered, “Get me a drink,” his eyes flicking once, almost imperceptibly, toward the darkened upper window where a sliver of light betrayed Briana and Lilly’s vigil. Grant watched his brother’s retreat, his own smile not reaching his eyes.
“Don’t dwell, David,” Grant called, his fingers tightening on Carissa. “Plenty of volunteers here to improve your mood.” A chorus of giggles agreed, sharp and offering. David just stared into his glass, the pleasant numbness he’d chased all night finally failing him, his next words carried on a cloud of condensed breath into the freezing air. “Yeah,” he said, the word flat and heavy as a stone dropped into the deep end. “I see that.”
David’s flat acknowledgment hung in the chlorinated air, a punctuation mark to the night’s unraveling. Grant gave Carissa’s hip a slight, deliberate nudge. She slid from his lap without a word, the water beading on her skin catching the underwater pool lights as she moved.
She crossed the wet stone toward David, her movements fluid and purposeful. He watched her approach, his expression unreadable, the empty glass dangling from his fingers. She sank to her knees on the damp concrete in front of him, her hands going to his belt, and took him into her mouth without ceremony.
Grant smiled, a slow unfurling of satisfaction, and reclined against the lounger. He exchanged a glance with Simon, who smirked and took a long pull from his bottle. The other girls watched, their laughter softening into a watchful, understanding silence—this was the curriculum, the unspoken final exam where everyone knew their role to keep the brothers happy, to maintain the ecosystem.
The only sound was the filter’s hum and the soft, rhythmic lapping of pool water against the edges. David’s head fell back, his eyes closing, a sharp exhale leaving his lips. His fingers tangled roughly in Carissa’s hair, not a guide but an anchor, his earlier bitterness dissolving into something purely physical and consuming.
Upstairs, a different kind of tension stretched thin. The music had stopped, leaving a vacuum filled by the murmuring house. Briana stiffened, her wine forgotten. “What was that?” she whispered.
Lilly muted the television. The new silence was worse, pregnant with things they couldn’t see. Then, a low, guttural moan, unmistakable in its meaning, traveled up through the pipes in the wall beside their bed.
It was followed by a strained, ragged curse from David. Briana’s blood went cold. Lilly’s face was marble in the screen’s glow, her knuckles white around her tumbler. They were trapped, listening to the machinery of their world grind on without them.
They were trapped, listening to the machinery of their world grind on without them. A sudden, sharp slap of skin on wet stone echoed up, followed by a choked laugh that wasn’t David’s. Lilly finally exhaled, a shaky sound in the quiet room.
“They wanted this,” she said, her voice hollow. “Carissa’s girls.” She took a long drink, the wine dark on her lips. “They fought for these invitations.”
Briana understood. The NDAs, the curated selection, the fever-bright looks in the SUV. It wasn’t coercion; it was an auction. “For internships,” Briana whispered. “For introductions.”
“For a foot in the door of a future that doesn’t include student debt,” Lilly corrected, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. Another strained cry floated up, theatrical and pleased with itself. This was the deal, signed in perfume and ambition.
Briana thought of the polished foyer at Ivywood, the unspoken privilege humming in the air. This was the crude engine that made it all run. She finally took a sip, the wine tasting of iron and earth. Lilly turned her head on the pillow.
“They’re down to fuck for bright futures,” Lilly stated, the crude phrasing a brittle shield. “And everyone here knows the price.”
Downstairs, the festivities shifted again, a door slamming, more voices joining the fray. The machinery ground on, efficient and loud. Briana and Lilly just lay there, two islands in a rising, transactional sea.
The silence upstairs had become a thick, suffocating thing, pressed down by the weight of the noises below. Lilly suddenly swung her legs off the bed, the mattress groaning in protest. "Screw this," she muttered, her voice cutting through the oppressive quiet. "I'm starving, and I refuse to be a prisoner in this ridiculously expensive room."
Briana followed, a surge of gratitude cutting through her numbness, the decision to move feeling like the first truly autonomous choice she’d made all night. They slipped into the hallway, the grand staircase feeling like a descent into a different, quieter wing of the house, the raucous pool sounds fading behind a series of closed doors. The kitchen was a monument to stainless steel and dark granite, cavernous and mercifully empty, still smelling of new appliances and the pine cleaner the staff had used.
Lilly went straight for the commercial-sized refrigerator, pulling out eggs, bacon, and a block of sharp cheddar. "Omelettes," she declared, slapping the ingredients onto the counter. "The ultimate comfort food." Briana found a bowl and a whisk, her hands falling into the familiar, calming rhythm of cracking shells, the sharp tap-tap and the clean separation of yolk from white a soothing mantra.
"Okay, crucial question," Lilly said, dicing onions with a practiced, swift precision that made Briana raise an eyebrow. "Paul Mescal or Josh O'Connor?" She glanced over, a genuine smile playing on her lips for the first time that evening.
Briana laughed, the sound unexpectedly loud in the quiet kitchen. "Mescal, obviously. It's the chainmail skirt thing from Gladiator 2 trailer." She poured the beaten eggs into a sizzling pan of butter, the immediate hiss and bloom of aroma feeling profoundly normal.
"Solid choice," Lilly conceded, layering crispy bacon into a second pan. "I'm an O'Connor girl myself—it's the brooding, The Crown ruination vibe." They worked in seamless tandem, Briana flipping a perfect golden omelette while Lilly buttered toast, a silent ballet of comfort.
"Remember his turn in God's Own Country?" Briana asked, sprinkling cheese. "The sheer physicality of it?" She plated the food, the steamy, savory scent pushing the last of the chlorine and vodka from the air.
Lilly nodded, carrying plates to a vast kitchen island. "Absolutely wrecked me. I sketched for three days straight after that." They sat on stools, the first bites a quiet symphony of solace, the world outside the kitchen door held momentarily at bay.
"The only good thing about this trip is this bacon," Briana said, her mouth full. Lilly snorted, almost choking on her orange juice. "And the lack of parental supervision," she added, wiping her mouth."Small mercies."
They fell into an easy silence, the only sounds their forks on plates and the hum of the sub-zero fridge. For a few precious minutes, it was just two people who understood the assignment, who found a pocket of peace in the storm. Briana scraped up the last bit of egg, feeling the tight knot in her chest begin to loosen ever so slightly.
Lilly opened her mouth to speak, but the sudden, unmistakable sound of a glass shattering on hardwood floor in a distant room froze the words in her throat. They both looked up, towards the swinging kitchen door, the peaceful bubble thinning to a fragile film. Heavy, uneven footsteps stumbled down a hall, followed by a low, masculine groan that was decidedly not one of pain.
Briana’s fork hovered mid-air. Lilly didn’t even look up from her plate, deliberately taking another slow bite of toast. “Nope,” Lilly said finally, chewing with finality.
She pushed her empty plate away with a soft scrape. “We’re done.” Briana set her fork down, the last of her anxiety dissolving into a weary, wine-warmed resolve. They left the dishes right there on the granite, a small rebellion against the house’s implied order.
The walk back to their room was a march through a gauntlet of muffled thumps and faint, straining laughter. Briana kept her eyes on the patterned runner beneath her feet. Lilly hummed a tuneless song, just loud enough.
Their door clicked shut, sealing them in. Without a word, they moved to the enormous ensuite, where the jacuzzi tub, a monstrosity of porcelain and gold fixtures, took center stage. Lilly twisted the taps, and steaming water roared out, quickly fogging the mirrors.
They shed their clothes, leaving them in soft piles on the heated floor. The hot water was a shock and then a profound relief, swallowing them up to their shoulders. Briana sank back against the smooth curve, closing her eyes as the jets thrummed to life.
The pulsing water blurred every sound from the lodge into a distant, meaningless rumble. Lilly submerged herself completely for a moment, her dark hair floating like seaweed before she surfaced, slicking it back. “Better,” she sighed, her voice echoing slightly in the tiled room.
Briana nodded, the warmth seeping deep into her bones, the alcohol humming a soft, forgiving tune in her veins. They didn’t speak, just existed in the swirling heat, the world beyond the bathroom door finally, fully, tuned out.