The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 165

Chapter 165: 165 | The Girl in Room 301

We maneuvered the dresser through the entrance, past the common area where the facilities staff watched with mild interest, and into the elevator. The fit was tight but manageable. The bald mover hit the button for floor three and we rode up in a silence interrupted only by Ray’s labored breathing and the soft mechanical hum of the lift.

Third floor. West Tower. The female residential wing.

The doors opened onto a hallway identical to what I’d seen in 1-A. Five apartments per floor, central corridor with a small seating area near the elevator, and the particular quiet of a space that hadn’t yet accumulated the noise and personality of its inhabitants. Room 301 sat at the far end of the hall, its door propped open with a designer weekender bag in deep emerald leather that probably cost more than most people’s monthly rent.

We carried the dresser down the hall with considerably less struggle now that I bore the majority of the weight. Ray kept glancing at me with an expression that oscillated between gratitude and mild concern about whether I was going to put the furniture through the wall.

As we approached 301, a voice drifted out through the open door. Female. Clear and sharp with the particular intonation of someone accustomed to being listened to. Not loud, but carrying the authority of volume without needing to actually raise it.

"Mother, I am not exaggerating. The square footage is acceptable but the ceiling height is genuinely disappointing. If Father’s firm had been consulted during the design phase, the residential specifications would have included at minimum nine-foot clearance rather than this standard eight-foot compromise that—yes, I understand the building is six decades old. I’m making an observation, not a request for a time machine."

A pause settled, but it was the kind of pause that felt calculated for effect rather than any actual need to process what was being said on the other end.

Then her voice came again, sharper this time. More edge beneath the polished surface.

"And I have neighbors. The walls appear adequate in construction, but I can hear the elevator mechanism from my bedroom if I stand near the west-facing wall. Which I will be doing frequently, given that is where my vanity will be positioned according to the layout I finalized last month."

Ray caught my eye with an expression that managed to convey his entire opinion of Miss Lang without requiring a single syllable of commentary. I returned a half-smile and angled my head toward the open doorway.

We edged the dresser through the frame with the care usually reserved for defusing explosives.

Room 301 was seven hundred fifty square feet of chaos that had been organized with military precision. Boxes sat stacked against the far wall in careful rows, each one labeled in crisp handwriting that detailed contents and intended destination within the space.

Three garment bags hung from the closet rod like artifacts in a museum exhibition, their contents presumably expensive enough to justify individual protective casings.

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