Chapter 2 — The Studio

The tea arrived in a porcelain cup, carried in by the same uniformed woman who had led Estelle to the studio. She set it down on the worktable without a word and left.

Estelle didn’t touch it.

She walked slowly around the room instead, studying the brushes lined neatly in jars, the rows of paints arranged by shade, the spotless floor.

It was the kind of studio she had once dreamed of having—spacious, quiet, fully stocked. But it didn’t feel like hers. It felt staged, like a set waiting for a performance.

She stopped again at the easel. The canvas was perfectly stretched, the surface smooth and white. She lifted a brush, held it for a moment, then set it back down. Her hands were trembling.

The door opened again.

This time, it wasn’t Jayden. A young man stepped in, carrying a stack of blank canvases. He looked no older than twenty, dressed in plain clothes, his expression neutral. He set the canvases against the wall and gave her a quick nod.

“You’ll need anything else, you ask me,” he said quietly. His accent was local, his tone clipped.

“What’s your name?” Estelle asked.

“Daniel.” He hesitated, then added, “I handle supplies.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He left as quickly as he had come.

Estelle sat back down in the chair, staring at the untouched tea. She felt the weight of the camera in the corner again, the silent presence of someone watching. She wondered if Jayden was on the other side of a screen right now, studying her hesitation, measuring her every move.

The hours passed slowly. She didn’t paint. She didn’t even sketch. She only sat, stood, paced, sat again.

By late afternoon, the door opened once more. Jayden entered, this time without a suit jacket, his sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows.

He looked at the blank canvas, then at her.

“You didn’t start.”

Estelle met his gaze. “I don’t work on command.”

A faint smile touched his lips, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Good. I don’t want obedience. I want truth.”

He walked past her, stopping at the window. The city stretched far below, hazy in the fading light.

“You’ll stay here tonight,” he said. “There’s a guest room prepared. Tomorrow, you begin.”

Estelle’s chest tightened. “I didn’t agree to that.”

“You didn’t refuse either.” He turned back to her, his expression calm, almost patient. “Think of it as time. Time to decide if you belong here.”

The silence between them stretched again, heavier this time.

Estelle looked at the canvas, then at the door. She felt the walls of the studio pressing in, the quiet hum of surveillance, the certainty that once she stayed, leaving would not be simple.

But she didn’t move.

Dinner was served in silence. A long dining table stretched across the room, but only two places were set.

Estelle sat at one end, Jayden at the other. The food was delicate, plated with precision, but she barely touched it.

Jayden noticed. “You don’t eat much.”

“I’m not used to this kind of food,” she admitted.

He leaned back slightly. “You’ll adjust.”

The way he said it made her uneasy, as if he wasn’t talking about the food at all.

Afterward, a housekeeper led her upstairs. The guest room was spacious, with a wide bed, a desk, and a window overlooking the city lights. Everything was immaculate, almost impersonal, like a hotel.

“Mr. Wang prefers quiet after midnight,” the housekeeper said before leaving.

Estelle sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the neatly folded sheets. She should have felt relieved to have a place to sleep, but instead, the silence pressed down on her.

She stood and opened the door. The hallway stretched long and dim, lined with closed doors. She walked slowly, her footsteps muffled against the carpet.

Most of the doors were locked. She tried one, then another. The handles didn’t budge.

At the end of the hall, she found a door that opened into a music room. A grand piano stood in the center, its surface polished to a mirror shine. Sheet music was stacked neatly on the stand, though the pages looked untouched for years.

She ran her fingers lightly across the keys but didn’t press down. The silence of the house felt too heavy to break.

As she turned to leave, she noticed a small red light in the corner of the ceiling. Another camera.

Back in her room, she closed the curtains tightly and sat at the desk. She pulled out her sketchbook and began to draw—not the canvas, not her mother, but the piano she had just seen.

The lines came quickly, sharper than usual, as if her hand was trying to capture something she couldn’t put into words.

A knock at the door startled her.

“Miss Yang,” Jayden’s voice came through, calm and steady. “Are you comfortable?”

She hesitated before answering. “Yes.”

“Good. Tomorrow, you begin.”

His footsteps faded down the hall.

Estelle stared at the sketch in front of her. The piano looked cold, abandoned, yet somehow alive under her pencil. She closed the book and set it aside.

Lying in bed, she kept her eyes on the ceiling, listening to the faint hum of the house. She wondered how many cameras were hidden in the walls, how many doors she would never be allowed to open.

And she wondered, not for the first time, if she had already given up more than she realized.

The next morning, Estelle woke to the sound of a soft knock at her door. When she opened it, a tray of breakfast had already been placed on the small table outside—congee, steamed buns, and tea. No one lingered in the hallway.

She carried the tray inside and sat at the desk. The food was warm, carefully prepared, but she ate slowly, distracted by the silence of the house. Even in daylight, it felt too quiet, as if the walls absorbed sound.

At nine, another knock. This time, it was Daniel.

“Mr. Wang is waiting in the studio,” he said.

Estelle followed him downstairs. The corridors were wide, lined with more artwork—pieces she recognized from magazines, others she suspected had never been shown publicly. Some bore faint labels in the corners, as if they had been catalogued.

When they reached the studio, Jayden was already there. He stood near the window, sleeves rolled again, a tablet in his hand. He looked up as she entered.

“Good morning.”

Estelle nodded. “Morning.”

He gestured toward the easel. “Today, you begin. No deadlines. No restrictions. Just paint.”

She hesitated. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll sit in front of that canvas until you decide what you want,” he said evenly. “But I think you already know.”

Estelle walked to the easel. The blank canvas stared back at her, demanding, expectant. She picked up a pencil, her hand unsteady at first, then steadier as the lines began to form.

Jayden didn’t move closer. He only watched from a distance, silent, as if studying not the sketch but her.

After a while, Estelle set the pencil down. “You’re watching me.”

“I watch everyone,” he said simply. “It’s how I understand them.”

She turned to face him. “That’s not normal.”

His expression didn’t change. “Neither is wasting talent.”

The words hung in the air. Estelle looked back at the canvas, her chest tight. She wanted to argue, but part of her knew he was right—she had been wasting herself, hiding from her own work.

Still, the way he said it unsettled her.

By midday, she had filled the canvas with rough outlines. Not a portrait, not yet—just shapes, fragments, the beginnings of something she couldn’t name.

Jayden finally stepped forward. He studied the lines, then glanced at her. “Better.”

Estelle set the pencil down. “I’m not doing this for you.”

His mouth curved slightly, though it wasn’t quite a smile. “Of course not.”

He left the studio without another word.

Estelle exhaled, realizing she had been holding her breath. She sat back in the chair, staring at the unfinished sketch.

For the first time in years, she felt the stirrings of something she thought she had lost. But it came with a weight she couldn’t shake—the sense that every line she drew was being measured, recorded, and stored somewhere she couldn’t see.

By late afternoon, Estelle’s sketch had grown into something more defined. The outlines of a face were beginning to emerge, though she hadn’t decided whose.

She stepped back, wiping her palms on her jeans, uneasy at how quickly the hours had slipped away.

Jayden returned quietly, as if he had been waiting for the right moment. He studied the canvas without comment, then looked at her.

“You work differently when you forget I’m here,” he said.

Estelle crossed her arms. “Maybe because I don’t like being watched.”

“You’ll get used to it.” His tone was calm, matter-of-fact, as though he were stating a law of nature.

She shook her head. “That’s not something people should get used to.”

Jayden didn’t argue. He only gave her a long, unreadable look before turning toward the door.

“Dinner in an hour. Daniel will show you the way.”

When he left, Estelle exhaled sharply. She hated how he could make her feel both cornered and challenged in the same breath.

---

Dinner was quieter than the night before. This time, Jayden didn’t sit at the far end of the table but closer, though still with a deliberate distance.

“You’re not afraid of silence,” he observed.

“I grew up with it,” Estelle replied. “My mother liked quiet.”

Jayden’s gaze lingered on her, but he didn’t press further.

Afterward, Estelle excused herself early. Instead of returning straight to her room, she wandered the hallways again.

The mansion felt different at night—darker, heavier, the silence broken only by the faint hum of electronics.

She passed a door left slightly ajar and glanced inside. Rows of monitors glowed in the dark, each screen showing a different angle of the house: the foyer, the dining room, the studio. Her chest tightened when she saw herself on one of the feeds, standing in the hallway at that very moment.

A figure moved inside the room. Daniel. He looked up, startled to see her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said quickly, stepping toward the door.

Estelle froze. “You’re the one watching?”

“I just monitor,” Daniel said, lowering his voice. “It’s not my choice.”

Before she could ask more, he closed the door firmly, leaving her in the hallway.

Back in her room, Estelle sat at the desk, her hands trembling as she opened her sketchbook. She drew quickly, almost frantically—the outlines of cameras, the glow of screens, the cold piano she had seen the night before.

When she stopped, she realized her sketches looked less like art and more like evidence.

She closed the book and slid it under her pillow.

Lying in bed, she stared at the ceiling, listening to the faint hum of the house. She knew now that every step she took inside these walls was being recorded.

And yet, despite the unease, she also knew she wasn’t ready to leave.

Estelle lay awake long after the lights of the city had dimmed. The curtains were drawn, but she could still feel the weight of the cameras hidden in the walls. Every shift of her body, every breath, seemed too loud in the silence.

She reached under her pillow and touched the edge of her sketchbook. The pages inside held the piano, the cameras, the cold outlines of a house that was beginning to feel less like a home and more like a cage.

Somewhere down the hall, a door closed softly. Footsteps moved, then faded. She couldn’t tell if it was Jayden, Daniel, or someone else entirely.

Estelle turned onto her side, eyes open in the dark. She told herself she could leave in the morning, that nothing bound her here. But the thought rang hollow.

The truth was already clear: she had stepped into his world, and walking away would not be simple.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***