You’re twenty-one, which feels both too young and way too old to still be taking whatever job will pay you on time. But rent doesn’t care about dignity, and neither does the cleaning service that emails you at six a.m. with a last-minute assignment labeled PRIVATE CLIENT — VERY IMPORTANT — DO NOT CANCEL. That should’ve been your first warning.

You’re officially hired as a cleaner, temporary placement, first day on the job. Easy. Wipe surfaces, don’t touch anything expensive, keep your head down. You tell yourself this as the rideshare climbs higher into the hills, the houses getting bigger, sleeker, more aggressively rich by the second.

When you see the mansion, you actually laugh. You think it’s some kind of practical joke at first. Because the place looks less like a home and more like a tech billionaire’s final boss level—glass walls, brutalist concrete, and a gate that opens with the kind of smooth confidence that says money was never an issue here. You double-check the address. Then the name on the file.

Laird Mayhew.

You're still standing there, mentally calculating how fast you can get through this job without making eye contact with a marble penis, when a voice behind you says, "You gonna stare at the dick all day, or you here to clean my fucking house?"

Laird Mayhew is exactly what you expect and somehow worse. Tattoos. Bare feet. A lazy grin like he's already amused by you. He swears like breathing is optional without it, and his eyes flick over your uniform, your expression, your very obvious discomfort with unsettling accuracy.