Gilded Cage

The limo’s door opened and Yamazaki’s irritated face poked in. “Gray doesn’t need me. You got it wrong.”

“I did?” Brandon inclined his head. “I apologise, sir. Terribly sorry.”

Yamazaki climbed back in, grumbling. He settled next to Lillian and fished out a handkerchief to mop his sweat. Lillian knew the pudgy man loathed any manual labour.

Lillian clutched the wedding bouquet tightly. She might have broken a couple of flower stems. Her heart drummed wild. Brandon Shea was willing to help her. Him. Her knight in shining armour. All of a sudden, the future wasn’t so bleak, and as much as she wanted to, she didn’t need to kill Stanford. Brandon had given her a second chance.

She tried to catch her bodyguard’s eyes, but Brandon seemed occupied with his own thoughts. What had made him change his mind? He’d rarely spoken to her after he’d smuggled her food that first night. And he’d kept smuggling her food whenever Mrs. Mitsusaki deprived her of her meals on her father’s order. He’d even sneaked her candy bars and other sweets she’d never tried in her life. Last night, she’d found a small pink box under her pillow. When she’d opened it, she found a beautifully decorated cupcake inside. It was the most delicious cake she’d ever tasted. Lillian thought it was his way of saying sorry. Brandon had never hinted, or discussed anything about her proposition. That was why she was surprised with his sudden offer of help. She hadn’t expected that he would be willing to risk his life to help her.

As the motorcade entered the Marubi Plaza garage, her heart pounded even harder. Lillian didn’t see how Brandon could smuggle her out from the clockwork-tight security measures. She studied Brandon’s face in secret. He looked calm but guarded. She put her trust in him. This had to work.

This had to…

The limo stopped near a private elevator. Half a dozen men in dark suits were standing by. Dark sunglasses. Earpieces. Heavily armed. Their faces looked unfamiliar. Lillian guessed they must be Stanford’s men. Brandon opened up the limo door and talked to one of them. They traded fast words before Brandon craned his neck to the limo and called, “We’re clear.”

Yamazaki went out first then he helped Lillian climb down from limo. She felt shaky. Nervous. This was it. She had to let Brandon know her decision. As soon as the elevator doors closed, she pretended to lose her footing and grabbed something to prevent herself from falling. That something was Brandon’s hand. She didn’t just grab his hand, she squeezed him hard as if she wanted to break his bones.

“Are you all right, Ms. Blackwell?” Yamazaki asked.

“Gomen. Sorry. My heels are too high. Never got used to them.”

“Ah.” Yamazaki nodded thoughtfully. “My wife adores them. I’ll never understand about woman and high heels.” He laughed at his own joke.

Brandon Shea’s face remained blank, betraying nothing. He eyed the numbers above the elevator’s door. The Marubi’s chapel was located on the top level, one hundred and seventy floors above where they were now. Terrorists had destroyed the original Marubi about five years ago. Maxwell Stanford had bought the landmark and built a new skyscraper as the hallmark of his empire. The new Marubi Plaza was a city within a city, housing businesses, shopping, restaurants, boutique hotel, and Stanford’s residence on the top floor. Lillian could understand why Stanford wanted to have his wedding on his own turf. She just didn’t expect that Stanford would build his own chapel, considering what kind of man he was.

When they hit the eighteenth floor, Brandon hit the emergency button and simultaneously whipped out something from his pocket and aimed it at Yamazaki. It happened so fast, the next thing she saw, the pudgy man slammed against the elevator’s wall then twitched on the floor.

“What—”

“Taser,” Brandon cut her off. “If we do this right, we’ll keep the casualties to a minimum.”

“Oh.”

He pocketed the taser and reached for his gun. Brandon fired once towards one corner of the elevator’s ceiling. His gun was equipped with a silencer. The only noise it made was the sound of the bullet hitting the glass. Lillian turned away as a shower of glass debris splattered around them.

“Camera down.” Brandon slipped his gun into his holster. He snatched her veil and flipped it open.

She could see him without any obstruction of the veil. Her handsome hero. Her heart swelled. Giddy.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I need you to lose your dress and this veil. I assume you’re wearing something underneath, right?”

“Y-yes.”

“Do it.”

Lillian dropped the bouquet and yanked the veil from her head. As she was working on the zipper, she saw Brandon, with the grace of a cat, climb up the railing and pop open the elevator’s ceiling. She’d barely shrugged down her dress when Brandon disappeared into the opening. The man was a ghost.

“Take off your shoes, too.” His voice loomed from the ceiling.

Lillian kicked off her five-inch platform pumps.

A rope dangled from the ceiling. It had a loop on the end.

“Put it around your waist and I’ll pull you up.”

She did what Brandon asked her to do. A heartbeat later, her body was airborne, going up to the ceiling. Brandon helped her climb onto the roof of the elevator. The claustrophobic space was filled with cables and soot-covered hydraulics tangled together like a gnarly ancient tree trunk.

“You see it there?” Brandon pointed to a narrow ledge between the building’s wall and the elevator’s shaft. “We must walk there until we reach that opening. Can you do it?”