Opening
In Chapters 21–25, Millie Calloway uncovers a setup that confirms her worst suspicions and forces a pivot from observation to action. What begins as a nagging mystery about her hiring explodes into an escape plan for a woman trapped in a luxurious prison—and a test of how far Millie will go to help, no matter the cost.
What Happens
Chapter 21: The Ad That Never Was
In a college lecture on value and perception, Millie challenges her classmates’ take on the Josh Bell subway story, arguing people ignore beauty because they don’t want the burden of helping. That belief—she always helps—anchors her choices. After class, she runs into Amber Degraw, whose daughter Olive shouts “Mama!” at the sight of Millie; Amber flees, rattled. The moment is petty satisfaction—then reality intrudes.
Jobmatch calls: Millie’s credit card was declined. Her housekeeping ad never goes live. The revelation flips her timeline on its head—so the one employer who contacted her directly, Douglas Garrick, never saw any listing. Someone sought her out on purpose. The theme of Deception and Manipulation snaps into focus as Millie realizes she’s been targeted.
Chapter 22: A Convenient Excuse
Millie can’t shake the feeling she’s being watched, so she calls Douglas with a harmless pretext about updating her résumé and asks how he found her. After a pause, he gives a slick answer: his wife, Wendy Garrick, passed along Millie’s number via a friend’s recommendation.
His tone stays smooth, but the warning is blunt—don’t bother Wendy. The explanation shifts attention from Douglas to Wendy while still reeking of control. Millie decides she needs the truth, directly from Wendy.
Chapter 23: The Truth Comes Out
At the penthouse, Millie confronts Wendy in the guest room with the Jobmatch news. Wendy’s first instinct is to lie; then she breaks. She admits she tracked down Millie through Ginger Howell, a former client Millie and Enzo Accardi helped escape years earlier. Millie’s past as a quiet vigilante finally collides with her present, and the theme of Justice and Revenge reenters the story with force.
Wendy describes her reality: Douglas broke her wrist; she lied to the doctor. She hired Millie in panic, then panicked again at the risk. Douglas, she says, “sees everything.” The penthouse—sleek, wired, flawless—is a surveillance cage, sharpening the novel’s Appearance vs. Reality motif. In a surge of shame and resolve, Wendy rips off an opulent bracelet, presses it into Millie’s hand—inscribed, “To W, You are mine forever, Love D”—and retreats behind a slammed door. Millie leaves more certain than ever: she’s going to help Wendy get out.
Chapter 24: A Talk with Brock
On her way to the Garricks’, Millie answers a call from her boyfriend, Brock Cunningham. He’s fed up that she won’t move in, says they need a serious talk about their future. Millie agrees to dinner tomorrow, dread rising at the thought of revealing her criminal past and prison record.
At the building, the doorman gives her a knowing wink. The elevator opens to a surprise: Wendy, no longer hiding, stands waiting. “We need to talk,” she says, the first clear sign she’s ready to move.
Chapter 25: The Escape Plan
In the living room, Wendy explains that after their last encounter she veered toward despair—but Millie’s offer of help pulled her back. She contacted Fiona, an old college friend living off-grid on a farm in upstate New York, who promises refuge.
Wendy lays out the plan: she leaves tomorrow while Douglas is on a cross-country trip. She can’t risk rentals, tickets, or digital breadcrumbs. She needs Millie to rent a car in her own name and drive her to Albany, where Fiona will pick her up. Millie agrees immediately, refuses payment. Before they part, Wendy gives one last warning: Douglas is extremely dangerous and will do whatever it takes to find her. Millie insists she isn’t afraid—but doubt flickers. Crossing Douglas could cost more than either of them expects.
Character Development
Millie’s compulsion to help shifts from instinct to mission, while Wendy transforms from captive to co-architect of her own escape. Offstage, Douglas tightens as a portrait of coercive control. Brock’s ultimatum complicates Millie’s double life.
- Millie: Moves from suspicion to certainty; commits to an illegal, high-risk rescue; confronts the wedge between her “normal life” and her past as a fixer.
- Wendy: Evolves from fearful and evasive to decisive; admits the abuse; initiates a concrete escape; reclaims agency by giving up the bracelet.
- Douglas: Emerges as calculating, omniscient, and possessive through Wendy’s testimony and his engraved “gift.”
- Brock: Presses for permanence; forces Millie to confront the secrets that threaten her relationship.
Themes & Symbols
Deception drives both sides: Douglas manipulates narratives (how Millie was “found,” the façade of a healthy marriage), while Millie and Wendy counter with an escape that relies on stealth, misdirection, and controlling the digital trail. Justice arrives outside institutions; Millie’s history with Ginger and Enzo shows a pattern of do-it-yourself protection when the system fails. The novel insists that appearances are weapons—polished surfaces hide bruises, wealth masks surveillance, and “kindly” warnings conceal threats.
The bracelet crystallizes control. Its inscription claims ownership, its cost signals status, and its weight, once worn daily, becomes a shackle. When Wendy hands it to Millie, she symbolically rejects Douglas’s claim and chooses flight over display—a small, tangible precursor to her larger break for freedom.
Key Quotes
“Mama!”
- Olive’s cry exposes how deeply Millie has imprinted on the child—and how brittle Amber’s “happy family” façade is. It primes the section’s fixation on what people perform in public versus what they live in private.
“To W, You are mine forever, Love D.”
- The bracelet’s inscription is a contract of ownership masquerading as romance. Wendy surrendering it is her first decisive step away from Douglas’s control and toward self-definition.
“He sees everything.”
- Wendy’s line distills the terror of surveillance in an elegant apartment turned prison. It justifies her earlier evasions and raises the stakes for any plan that leaves a trace.
“We need to talk.”
- Said by Wendy at the elevator, it flips her role from passive to active. The phrase marks the exact hinge from secrecy to strategy.
“Douglas is an extremely dangerous man… he will do whatever it takes to find me and bring me back.”
- This warning frames the escape as a pursuit narrative before it begins, foreshadowing retaliation and reminding Millie—and the reader—of the cost of failure.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters deliver the novel’s pivot: the mystery of Millie’s employment resolves into a mission to extract Wendy from a high-tech gilded cage. The story accelerates from eerie observation to imminent action, confirming Millie’s instincts and clarifying the antagonist’s menace. At the same time, Brock’s ultimatum threatens Millie’s shot at an ordinary life, sharpening the personal stakes. The escape plan commits the narrative to confrontation, pitting Millie’s creed—help, even when it hurts—against a man who refuses to be left.