Chapter 3 - The Morning After
Ethan woke up the next morning feeling like a king.
He rolled over in the silk sheets of the bridal suite,
reaching out for the woman he thought was his ticket to a lifetime of luxury.
But the bed was empty.
He frowned,
sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
"Emma?"
he called out,
expecting her to be in the bathroom.
Silence.
He noticed a note on the pillow.
He picked it up,
expecting a love letter.
Instead,
it was a printed copy of a bank statement showing a balance of zero dollars.
At that exact moment,
his phone rang.
It was his mother.
"Ethan!"
she shrieked as soon as he picked up.
"My cards are declined!
The movers for the boutique are here,
and they say the rent hasn't been paid in three months!
What did you do with the money?"
Ethan felt a pit form in his stomach.
"Mom,
calm down.
Emma must have moved something.
I’ll just call her."
He hung up and dialed my number.
'The number you have dialed is no longer in service.'
He tried again.
Same result.
He scrambled out of bed and grabbed his laptop,
trying to log into the penthouse management portal.
'Access Denied.'
Panic finally began to set in.
He threw on some clothes and rushed down to the lobby,
demanding to know where his wife was.
The concierge,
a man who had been nothing but polite the day before,
now looked at him with a mask of cold professional indifference.
"Mr. Brooks,"
the man said.
"We have been instructed to inform you that your reservation was cancelled as of midnight."
"Cancelled?"
Ethan yelled.
"This is my wedding night!
My wife paid for this!"
"Actually,
sir,"
the concierge replied,
sliding a bill across the counter.
"The credit card on file was declined at 12:01 AM.
You currently owe the hotel four thousand dollars for the room and the mini-bar."
Ethan’s face turned a ghostly pale.
"That’s impossible.
Check it again."
"We have,
sir.
Several times."
"Furthermore,
there are two gentlemen in the lounge waiting to speak with you regarding a vehicle."
Ethan turned around to see two men in suits standing near the exit.
They weren't hotel staff.
They were repossession agents.
"The Mercedes,
Mr. Brooks,"
one of them said.
"The lease was terminated effective immediately.
Hand over the keys,
or we’ll have to involve the police."
Ethan felt like the world was spinning.
He reached into his pocket and handed over the keys to the car he had bragged about for months.
He stepped out onto the sidewalk,
the cool Chicago air biting through his thin shirt.
He had no car.
No money.
No wife.
And then,
his phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
It was a video file.
He pressed play.
It was the recording of him and his mother in the suite the night before.
His own voice echoed through the speaker:
"She's a mouse,
Mom...
we're going to trap her."
The video ended with a single line of text:
'The mouse has teeth.
See you in court,
Ethan.'
He dropped his phone onto the pavement,
watching the screen shatter.
Behind him,
May you like
the luxury hotel doors remained closed,
shutting him out of the world he thought he had stolen.
