Page 112 of Corrupting Camille

I step deeper into the shadows beyond the reach of valet lights, cold night air slicing into my lungs as I dial a secure line, the one I keep only for blood-soaked secrets and debts repaid in screams.

A voice answers on the second ring, deep, familiar. No names, no preamble. Just business. “Listening.”

“Douglas Everhart.” I pause, slow inhale. “Start with his finances. Freeze his accounts…quietly. Trigger an audit. Then leak something ugly. Embezzlement. Fraud. Doesn’t matter if it’s true. I want his wife nervous. His business partners wary. His friends unwilling to return his calls.”

“Timeline?”

“Immediate.”

“Intensity?”

“Ruin him,” I say calmly, voice devoid of any hesitation. “But do it slowly enough that he has time to feel it. Make it linger.”

“Understood.” The line disconnects sharply.

I light a cigarette, watching the smoke coil lazily upwards, just like the chaos about to consume Douglas Everhart. Camille begged me to wait, to leave it untouched, to spare her from reliving nightmares. But I’m not a man who waits. I’m not a man who listens.

Not even to her.

Especially not to her.

Behind me, the soft click of high heels echoes quietly off polished stone. Ivy steps into my peripheral vision, movements careful, controlled. She’s smart enough to approach slowly. Smart enough to know I’m already coiled tight.

“I wondered where you’d disappeared to,” she says softly, voice careful. “Camille seems… shaken.”

I don’t look at her, continuing to inhale smoke, slow and deliberate. “She’ll survive.”

“You’re destroying her.” There’s no accusation in Ivy’s tone, just cold observation. She moves closer, heels clicking softly, folding her arms over her chest. “But maybe that was the plan all along.”

“I’m not destroying her.” I finally glance toward her, exhaling smoke sharply. “I’m setting her free.”

Ivy laughs, humorless. “Is that what you call this? Freedom? You’re pulling her apart, Kane…piece by piece. Eventually, there’ll be nothing left.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Her eyes narrow slightly, but unflinching. She knows the violence I’m capable of. Knows exactly how dark I go. She’s watched me dismantle empires, topple powerful men, turn reputations to ash. She knows this won’t end clean.

“You’re fixated,” Ivy murmurs. “Obsessed. You might think you’re in control now, but she’s changing you. Weakening you. I can see it.”

I turn sharply, pinning her with a look so cold, so utterly merciless that she flinches, barely, but it’s enough. I move closer, voice dropping to something lethal, quiet enough that only she can hear it.

“Ivy, don’t confuse my obsession with weakness. Camille Sinclair belongs to me,her pain, her secrets, every fractured piece she tries to hide. Anyone who touches what’s mine, I destroy. Slowly, piece by piece.” My stare pins her in place, cold and unblinking. “That includes you.”

She swallows, throat working delicately as she recalculates the danger of standing this close, of testing boundaries. Her eyes narrow cautiously, wary yet still defiant enough to push forward. “If I didn’t know better, Kane, I’d think you were in love with her.”

I meet her stare head-on, feeling something primal twist in my chest, clawing its way deeper than mere love ever could. Love is a simple, fleeting thing, easily lost, easily replaced. This is different. This is something violent and bottomless, an unquenchable hunger, an unbreakable chain wrapped around my bones. It sinks into bone marrow, infects the blood, reshapes the soul. It doesn’t heal; it consumes.

“Love?” I echo quietly, the word bitter and mocking on my tongue. I step closer, my voice dropping to something low and dangerous, a truth too violent to be softened. “This isn’t love, Ivy. It’s deeper. It’s a starvation no touch can ease, a thirst no blood can satisfy. She’s embedded herself inside me, taken root where nothing else survives.”

My eyes burn into hers, the words heavy with a certainty that leaves no room for doubt. “You think love is dangerous?” I murmur, leaning in until my breath grazes her cheek, cold andunforgiving. “This makes love look harmless. What I feel isn’t safe.”

“It’s not love, Ivy. It’s so much fucking worse.”

She holds still, her pulse fluttering visibly at the base of her throat, lips parted as if she wants to say something sharp, something defiant. Instead, her gaze slips, just for an instant, betraying a rare fracture beneath her careful mask.

“You’re dangerous enough without this fixation,” she murmurs finally, her voice a quiet blend of caution and faint longing, like someone staring into flames they ache to touch, knowing it would burn them. “I don’t envy her…but a part of me wonders what it’s like to be on the receiving end of something so destructive, so consuming.”

Her eyes flick back to mine, guarded now, but her voice dips lower, threaded with a wary honesty she rarely shows. “Just remember, Kane…fires that burn this bright rarely spare anyone. Not even the ones who starts them.”