Chapter 1: The ad and contract negotiations
The coffee was cold. The thirty-seventh job application of the week stared back from the laptop screen, a bland digital form asking her to regurgitate her life into little boxes. Jamie clicked submit and listened to the silent, digital void swallow her effort whole. No echo, no confirmation. Just the low hum of the refrigerator and the sound of her own breathing.
She leaned back on her second-hand couch, the springs groaning in sympathy. Outside her apartment window, the city was a smear of grey afternoon light and relentless motion. She’d been at this for months. Optimism had curdled into determination, which had then fermented into a sour, brittle frustration. Her bank account was a ghost town. Her degree in Communications felt like a pamphlet for a holiday she’d never taken.
“Entry level position,” she muttered to the empty room, scrolling through another listing. “Requirements: five years experience, a working knowledge of astrophysics, and the ability to sacrifice your firstborn.” She slammed the laptop shut. The sound was satisfying, but childish. It didn’t change anything.
She needed to move. To do something physical before the four walls of the studio apartment began to feel like a very nice coffin. She grabbed her phone and jacket, heading out into the crisp, dismissive air.
The walk was aimless. Past cafes where people typed importantly on sleek devices, past stores selling things no one really needed. The frustration was a live wire under her skin. She wasn’t asking for a corner office. She was asking for a start. A way in. A chance to stop the slow, sinking feeling that she was becoming invisible.
Stopping at a bus shelter to avoid a sudden spit of rain, she absently scanned the community board. Lost cats, guitar lessons, a couch for sale. The usual urban detritus. Then, a stark, clean white sheet stood out amongst the colourful chaos.
DOMESTIC SUPPORT POSITION. Immediate Start. Discretion Required. Excellent Compensation.
It was simple. Almost too simple. No company name, just a generic email address. A maid job. Jamie’s pride winced. She’d scrubbed toilets in college to get by. The thought of going back to it, after all the internships and the student debt, made her throat tight.
But the ‘Excellent Compensation’ blinked in her mind. The ghost town in her bank account echoed. It could be a stopgap. Just until something real came along. Something to keep the landlord’s texts at bay.
Back in her apartment, the rain pattering against the glass, she opened a new email. She kept it professional, brief. Attached her sparse resume, which suddenly looked laughably overqualified for cleaning. Dear Hiring Manager, I am writing to express my interest in the Domestic Support Position… She hit send before she could overthink it.
The reply was so fast it made her jump, the ping cutting through the quiet like a gunshot. That was… unusual.
She opened it.
The message was as stark as the ad. No greeting, no signature.
Thank you for your inquiry. Before we proceed to interview, please provide the following details to ensure compatibility with our client’s specific living environment:
1. Height and weight. A recent, clear photograph of yourself, full-length. Are you prone to anxiety or nervousness in unfamiliar settings? Do you have any phobias? (e.g., insects, confined spaces, dolls)
5. Please describe your natural scent, without perfume. What is your typical emotional state? (Please be candid.)
Jamie stared. The words seemed to pulse on the screen. This wasn’t a job application. It was a… profile. A spec sheet. A cold finger traced a path down her spine. Every instinct screamed to delete it, to block the address, to laugh it off as some bizarre joke.
Her eyes drifted to the window. The rain had streaked the glass, distorting the city lights into watery tears. She saw the reflection of her own face, pale and drawn with worry. She thought of the rent, due in twelve days. She thought of the polite, automated rejection emails that were the only things filling her inbox.
Her hands hovered over the keyboard. The frustration of the last months crystallized into a single, sharp point. What did she have to lose, besides her dignity? And what was dignity worth against eviction?
With a slow exhale, her fingers began to move. 5’6”, 125 lbs. [Attachment: Selfie from her cousin’s wedding last month, cropped awkwardly at the knees.] I am adaptable. No clinical phobias. I don’t know. Soap? Currently, frustrated.
She read it over. It felt like she was sending a piece of herself into a void. She clicked ‘send.’ The message vanished with a whoosh, and the room was silent again, save for the rain. She sat there in the darkening apartment, waiting for she didn’t know what, the strange request hanging in the air around her, thick and unfamiliar as a new smell.
The reply came not the next day, but a week later. A week of silence that made the whole bizarre exchange feel like a fever dream. Jamie had almost convinced herself she’d imagined it, or that it was some elaborate scam that had moved on to more promising targets.
Then, a plain text to her phone from a blocked number: 1 p.m. Tomorrow. The Lockwood Building, 42nd floor. Ask for Mr. G. Do not be late.
No mention of the job. No confirmation of what the job even was. Just a command. The old frustration warred with a new, cold curiosity. She showed up, wearing the only professional outfit she owned—a black blazer and slacks that felt like a costume. The Lockwood Building was all steel and shadowed glass, a monolith in the financial district. The lobby was a cathedral of quiet wealth, all marble and hushed voices. A security guard with a bored expression directed her to a private elevator that required a keycard. When the doors opened on the forty-second floor, a man in a tailored suit—Mr. G, presumably—was waiting. He didn’t speak, just motioned for her to follow.
The office he led her to was not a corporate suite. It was a room out of another century. Dark wood panelling, shelves of leather-bound books that looked actually read, a massive desk the colour of dried blood. The air smelled of expensive cigar smoke, lemon polish, and something else—a faint, sharp scent of fear, maybe, that had seeped into the very grain of the furniture.
Behind the desk sat Benedetto Russo.
Jamie had seen his picture before, in the business section of the paper once, and in a blurry news clip about a racketeering trial that ended in a mistrial. Seeing him in person was different. He was older, his hair steel-grey and impeccably styled, his face a map of sharp angles and calculated calm. He was studying a document, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. He looked like a senator. He looked like a king.
He finished reading, removed his glasses, and looked up. His eyes, a flat, flinty grey, swept over her from the practical flats to the careful knot of her hair. The appraisal was total, impersonal. Like he was assessing livestock. Jamie felt her skin prickle. She stood straighter, forcing herself not to fidget.
He set the glasses down. “Jamie.” His voice was smooth, a low rumble without warmth. “Sit.”
She sat in the leather chair opposite him. It was deeper than she expected, swallowing her slightly.
“You answered our ad. You provided the information requested.” He leaned back, steepling his fingers. “You are perfect for the job.”
Perfect? Based on her height and a vague description of her scent? “Thank you, sir,” she managed, the words dry in her throat. “Could you… clarify the position?”
A thin smile touched his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Clarity. Good. The position is live-in. Domestic management. Cooking, cleaning, maintaining the household. My son’s household. He is… focused. Dedicated to the family business. He requires an environment free of distraction. Your role is to provide that.”
Jamie’s mind raced. A live-in housekeeper. The ‘excellent compensation’ would have to be truly excellent to make that leap. “I see. And the compensation?”
Benedetto named a yearly figure. It was more than she’d made in the last three years combined. Her breath hitched. Then he continued. “Upon formal acceptance of the position, a bonus will be processed to immediately clear all your outstanding debts. Student loans, credit cards. All of it. A clean slate.”
The numbers, her numbers, flashed in her mind. A crushing weight she’d carried for years, just… gone. The ghost town in her bank account suddenly blooming into a verdant, open field. It was an impossibility made sound, made flesh, offered across this vast desk. It was too much. It was suspiciously much.
“That’s… incredibly generous,” she said slowly, her voice tight. “For housekeeping.”
“It is,” he agreed, his gaze unwavering. “Because it is not only housekeeping. Your primary function is to service my son.”
Jamie blinked. “Service… what does that mean?”
He smiled fully then, and it was the most frightening thing she’d seen yet. “Sexually. Or otherwise. Your job is to be available, whenever he needs. To see to his needs so his mind remains on the business. You are a practical solution to a biological reality.”
The words landed not with a shocking crash, but with a sickening, slow-motion thud. They echoed in the silent, elegant room. The leather of the chair felt suddenly clammy against her back. The faint smell of cigar smoke turned acrid.
“Sexually?” The word came out of her mouth small and brittle.
“It is a requirement of the position.”
Her brain, scrambling for any foothold, any piece of herself to hold onto, latched onto the most absurd, technical detail. A stupid, pure fact in a sea of grotesque proposal. She heard herself say it before she could stop.
“But I’m a virgin.”
The moment hung. Benedetto Russo’s expression did not change. The flinty eyes simply watched her, as if she’d stated the weather. He gave a slight, dismissive shrug of one immaculately tailored shoulder.
“Then you are unpracticed. That is irrelevant. You are clean, you are agreeable in appearance, you are in need. The terms are not negotiable. The offer stands for twenty-four hours.” He picked up his glasses, signaling the audience was over. “Consider the alternative. The life you are currently living. The debt. The… nothing. Then decide if your purity is a luxury you can afford.”
Then decide if your purity is a luxury you can afford.”
The sentence hung in the perfumed air, a verdict. Jamie felt the room tilt. The numbers, the clean slate, they evaporated, replaced by a cold, metallic taste at the back of her tongue. Service him. She was a thing to be used. A biological solution. Her body seemed to separate from her mind, one frozen in the leather chair, the other screaming silently in a distant place.
She stood up. The movement was jerky, uncoordinated. “I… I have to go.” It was a whisper, stripped of all the practiced professionalism she’d walked in with.
Benedetto Russo watched her, unperturbed. He noted the pallor of her skin, the way her hands trembled slightly at her sides. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing slightly, as if examining a detail in a familiar painting. “De Marco,” he said, the name soft, testing. “Your last name. It’s Italian. Your father… Marcus De Marco?”
The question was so surreal, so utterly disconnected from the horror of the previous moment, that it cut through the panic. She blinked, mechanically. She nodded. “Yes. How did you…?”
A slow, transformative smile spread across Benedetto’s face. It wasn’t the cold, sharp expression from before. This was different. Softer, almost avuncular. It was somehow more terrifying. He sat back, steepling his fingers again, but the gesture now seemed thoughtful, not dismissive.
“Marcus De Marco’s daughter,” he murmured, mostly to himself. He let out a soft chuckle, a sound of genuine, dark amusement. “Well. Who knows?” His flinty eyes raked over her again, but the appraisal had changed. It was no longer just clinical. It was proprietary. Strategic. “Beautiful. You come from good stock. Strong family. Once, anyway.”
Jamie could only stare, her mind a blank page where two impossible realities were bleeding into each other.
Benedetto’s smile remained, kindly, as if he were about to offer her a scholarship. “This changes the perspective,” he said, his voice a low, confidential rumble. “A pretty girl in need is one thing. But the daughter of Marcus De Marco… You could be the perfect endgame solution.”
“Solution to what?” The words were barely air.
“To everything,” he said, with a simple, chilling certainty. “I want my son to marry. To settle. To give me grandchildren to carry the legacy. It’s time. He resists the… arrangements… I suggest. Finds them crass. But you?” He spread his hands, a benevolent king offering a crown. “You could be the perfect solution. Smart. Beautiful. And from the De Marco family. There’s history there. Respect. The De Marco family could be a very good alliance.” He muttered the last part, his gaze drifting to the skyline beyond the window, already calculating, weaving her into a tapestry of power and bloodline she didn’t understand.
Jamie’s past and future collided in the silent, elegant room. The vague stories of her father’s youth, his tight-lipped silence about his own parents, their quiet, detached life in the suburbs—it all crumbled. A secret history, one with weight and consequence, had been living beneath her feet her whole life. And this man, this terrifying man, saw it. He saw her through it. Not as Jamie the unemployed graduate, but as a De Marco. A piece on a board she never agreed to play on.
He wasn’t just buying a mistress. He was proposing a breeding contract. A merger.
The momentum of her initial shock propelled her backward a step. Then another. She didn’t speak. Couldn’t. She turned and walked stiffly to the office door, her heels making too-loud clicks on the polished floor. Mr. G was there, a silent sentinel. He opened the door for her.
She walked past him, into the sterile hallway, toward the elevator. Benedetto’s voice, warm and paternal, followed her out, a ghost in the air conditioning.
“Twenty-four hours, Jamie. Think of the alternative. Think of the legacy.”
The elevator doors closed, sealing her in silent, mirrored silence. Her reflection showed a stranger—a pale girl with wide, shattered eyes. She saw her father’s nose, her mother’s mouth. She saw a name—De Marco—that now felt like a brand. The descent began, a smooth, sinking feeling that matched the chaos inside her. The numbers of her debt were gone, replaced by the magnitude of a different, more profound cost. The doors opened on the pristine lobby, and she walked out into the indifferent city, the word ‘solution’ echoing in her skull with every step.
The doors opened on the pristine lobby, and she walked out into the indifferent city, the word ‘solution’ echoing in her skull with every step.
For an hour, she just walked. The sharp angles of the financial district gave way to the cramped, vibrant chaos of her own neighborhood. The smell of espresso and exhaust replaced the lemon and fear of that office. She tried to think, but her thoughts were shattered glass, each piece reflecting a different horror: the debt, the number he’d quoted, her father’s name in his mouth, the flat finality of service him.
She bought a terrible coffee from a cart and sat on a bus bench, watching life happen. A couple argued over a map. A delivery rider cursed at a taxi. It was all so normal, so dirty and real. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A jolt of pure, animal fear shot through her. She fumbled it out.
It wasn’t the blocked number. It was her landlord, Frank.
>>Rent due by 5pm tomorrow. No extensions. No excuses. You’re 11 days late. Pay in full or leave the key in the mailbox. I’m not running a charity.
The words were a physical blow to the sternum. The last thread of the tightrope she’d been walking snapped. The eviction notice she’d been dodging with promises and partial payments was now a concrete fact. Tomorrow. She imagined the locksmith, her few belongings in trash bags on the sidewalk. Her couch. Her books. Muffin, confused and trembling in her carrier.
She saw the two paths with a brutal, cinematic clarity. Path one: homelessness. The shelter, her resume becoming more worthless by the day, Muffin with some reluctant friend until she couldn’t bear the guilt and surrendered her to a stranger. The slow, grinding erosion of everything.
Path two: the clean slate. The impossible number. A gilded cage with a monster inside.
Your purity is a luxury you can afford.
Frank’s text was the final shove. The luxury was not her virginity. The luxury was choice. She had run out of it.
Her body moved before her mind could formulate another protest. She stood, the half-finished coffee falling from her numb fingers, splattering dark across the pavement. She turned and walked back the way she came, her pace quickening with a mechanical resolve. The city blurred around her. She didn’t feel the cold. She didn’t hear the traffic. She was a missile retracing its trajectory.
Back into the cathedral lobby. The same security guard glanced up, his boredom shifting to mild recognition and then confusion. She went straight to the private elevator, her finger jabbing the call button. Mr. G must have left instructions, because the guard didn’t stop her. The doors slid open. She stepped in.
The ascent was silent. She watched the numbers climb in the brass panel, her reflection ghostly in the polished doors. She looked hollowed out. Empty. The fear had burned away, leaving a cold, heavy certainty. She had nothing to negotiate with, except the one thing he wanted. But she had one condition. One stupid, small, non-negotiable piece of her old life.
The elevator chimed. The doors opened.
Mr. G was there, as if he’d been waiting. He showed no surprise. He never did. He simply turned, expecting her to follow. He led her back to the office of dark wood and lingering fear.
Benedetto Russo was on the phone, his back to the door, looking out at the kingdom of steel and glass. “...ensure the shipment is rerouted through Montreal. I don’t care about the cost.” He heard the door open and closed, finished his call with a terse, “Handle it.” He turned.
He saw her standing there, just inside the threshold, her chest rising and falling too fast. He didn’t smile. He simply waited, a king accepting a surrendered flag.
Jamie’s voice, when it came, was clearer than she expected. It wasn’t loud. It was flat, final, scraped raw.
“I’ll do it.”
Benedetto gave a slow, single nod. “A practical decision.”
She took a sharp breath, the words rushing out on the exhale, her one piece of ground to stand on. “But my Shih Tzu, Muffin, comes with me.”
The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t the calculating silence from before. It was the silence of pure, unadulterated astonishment. Mr. G, by the door, blinked. A tiny, almost imperceptible crack in the marble facade.
Benedetto Russo stared at her. His flinty eyes widened just a fraction. His lips, usually set in a line of absolute control, parted slightly. He looked at the serious, pale young woman who had just agreed to sell her body and her future to his dynasty, and who was now, with the same breath, making a definitive stand about a small, fluffy dog.
A sound escaped him. It started low in his chest—a choked, wheezing thing. It built. It wasn’t a chuckle. It was a full, deep, roaring laugh that seemed to shock the room itself. It boomed off the wood panels, rattled the glass on his desk. He laughed until he had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.
“The De Marco spirit,” he finally managed, gasping for air, shaking his head in bewildered admiration. “Alright, Jamie. The dog can come.” He waved a dismissive, amused hand. “The solution will include a Shih Tzu. See to the details,” he said to Mr. G, whose mouth was a tight line, fighting his own professional composure.
Benedetto’s laughter subsided, but the strange light of amusement remained in his eyes as he looked at her, this girl who had just become the most bizarre and interesting acquisition of his long, ruthless career.