Page 36 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

I pour the wine too fast. It sloshes up the bowl of the glass, staining the rim like a threat. I don’t bother wiping it. I just stand there, barefoot in my kitchen, one arm folded across my ribs, the other clutching the stem as if it were a weapon.

The lights are too bright, so I turn half of them off. Dim, golden glow. I thought it might help.

It doesn’t.

Silence in my apartment used to feel like safety. A sigh. A retreat. Now, it feels staged. Every corner, every closed door, every untouched item pulses with the quiet tension of being too still.

My phone buzzes once. Unknown caller.

It doesn’t buzz again.

I don’t answer.

The wine hits the back of my throat with too much force. Sharp. Sour. Like I’d been storing it for a day that never came. I take another sip anyway. A third. Then I stop pretending I want to unwind.

I open my laptop, and the screen flares to life.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Whether it’s news about the PAC, messages from Finch’s legal team, something from Jay, maybe even a warning from whoever had been dropping breadcrumbs into my life like I was some dark fairytale heroine.

Nothing.

Not one goddamn thing.

Just the residual ache of a day that shouldn’t have happened.

My name is gone from records. My office was invaded. My instincts are buzzing like a wire held too long in the rain.

I shut the laptop.

The knock comes just after.

I blink. I don’t move.

Another lighter, almost polite knock follows.

I set the glass down. It wobbles. I don’t fix it.

The hallway outside my door is empty when I look through the peephole. No footsteps, no creaks, no rustle of movement. Just silence and the dull hum of the building’s overhead fluorescents.

But there it is.

At my feet.

A box. Slim. Matte black. No name, no label, no tape.

I don’t pick it up right away. I stare at it. For too long. Like it might grow legs and run off if I look away.

Then I crouch, pick it up, bring it inside like a fool.

Like someone who already knew what was inside.

On the table, I open it.

The velvet interior is deep enough to swallow the low light of the room. Inside, resting against the plush lining, is the key.

The same one from my desk drawer at Finch—antique, polished now, gleaming like it had never seen dust.

It is threaded onto a black velvet cord, like a pendant.

Next to it, a single white card.

No handwriting. No logo.

Just numbers.

Coordinates.

My stomach drops in that slow, spiraling way that comes right before impact. The kind of dread that doesn’t scream. It whispers.

I back away. Just a step. Then another.

The glass of wine remains untouched on the table, half-full, mocking.

I wrap my arms around myself and stand in front of the box like it might open again, reveal something worse.

The coordinates burn into my brain like a brand.

I don’t Google them.

I don’t need to.

I know where they lead.

Not the exact address. But the feeling. The pull in my gut that is no longer logical.

It leads to him.

Whoever he is.

Whoever he thinks I am.

I go to the window. Pull the curtain back with the tips of my fingers.

Night cloaks the street in indifference. No vans. No glowing red lenses.

But I feel it.

That soft prickling at the base of my skull. That heaviness in my limbs that isn’t just fatigue.

I press my palm to the glass. It’s too cool.

I want to scream. Or sleep. Or fall to my knees and tear the key apart with my teeth.

Instead, I turn back to the table and stare at the velvet cord. And know, without any doubt at all, that I will go.

Because he wants me to.

And something buried so deep inside me that’s twisted, ugly and honest, wants to see what he’d left for me.

This isn’t surveillance.

This is seduction.

I take the key. And I go.

***

The building isn’t one I recognize.

It is downtown, tucked behind a row of empty retail offices, a monolith of black stone and mirrored glass with no visible signage. The kind of place that doesn’t want to be known.

No concierge. No security desk. Just a silent elevator waiting with the top floor already keyed in.

I hesitate. For only a second.

Then I step inside.

It is silent the entire ride up. No music. No buzz. Just the soft hum of motion and the pounding of my pulse in my ears.

When the doors open, I walk into shadow.

The entire floor is dark, lit only by ambient wall panels and the city skyline beyond floor-to-ceiling glass.

Everything is pristine with charcoal walls, black marble floors, soft gold lighting that kisses the edges of furniture too expensive to touch. There is no sound. No movement.

But the door has opened for me.

The key slides into the lock without resistance.

And when I step forward, I know it has been waiting.

The space is like a set. Designed. Curated. The scent in the air is something masculine and crisp like oak, smoke, maybe something synthetic and darker beneath. I can’t place it, but I know it isn’t mine. It is his.

A low hum plays from unseen speakers. Not music exactly, just deep ambient tones, more feeling than sound.

And in the center of it all, arranged with unsettling precision, is the table.

On it: a decanter of dark wine. A thin folder with my name printed in the corner. And a small velvet box.

I don’t touch anything.

Not yet.

I stand there, breathing in silence and perfume and dread. My heels click once as I shift, then stop. The air feels heavy. Like it knows what comes next.

I pick up the folder.

Inside are recent photos. Me at work. At the café near my building. Sitting in my car. The timestamps stretched back months. Someone has been cataloging me like data. Like a case study. Like a possession.

Beneath the photos, a single sheet of paper.

It isn’t a threat. It isn’t even a message.

It is a transcript. A transcription of something I’d said weeks ago, in my own apartment. I remembered it—half-muttering to myself in the dark.

“I feel like someone’s rewriting me.”

He had recorded it. Word for word.

My hand goes to the velvet box before I even mean to.

I open it.

Inside is a collar.

Not crude. Not fetishized. Just…elegant. Smooth black leather. A single brass ring at the front. No tag. No name.

But I know exactly what it means.

My breath catches in my throat. Not from fear.

From recognition.

I stand in the center of the room, breath shallow, fingers trembling around the velvet ribbon still looped through that cursed key. The walls don’t move, but they feel like they do. Not in a haunted way. No, nothing so cinematic.

It is worse, more subtle and intentional. Everything here has been chosen for me, down to the quiet hum of the lighting, the way the black marble reflects just enough of my silhouette to remind me that I am alone…and being watched.

I step backward, keeping the collar on the table in my periphery. It sits there like a threat and a promise, a symbol dressed in elegance. Sleek. Minimalist. Silver with soft leather lining. No tag. No lock. Just waiting.

I don’t touch it. Not again.

Instead, I turn in a slow circle, taking inventory.

Three cameras. One in the corner of the ceiling. One nestled into the smoke detector. The third, too small to see, but I know it is there. Maybe in the glass. Maybe behind the wall. But I can feel the lens against my skin like a breath.

I cross the room in slow steps, pressing my hand against the glass overlooking the city. The skyline blinks back, indifferent. Cold. I can see Finch HQ from here. Just barely. A sliver of familiar steel in a world that has never felt less solid.

My reflection in the glass is faint, but honest. Tense shoulders. Red-rimmed eyes. Lips parted like I am waiting to speak, but don’t know what to say.

The wine decanter catches the light next. Red as blood. Half full. The glass beside it hasn’t been touched. He’d left it for me. Or for the version of me he believed I’d become. A woman with questions. With fractures. With no one else to call.

And maybe…he isn’t wrong.

I pick up the file first. My name in clean serif print. No address. No return label. Just VERA CALLOWAY typed across the front like I’ve been reduced to an exhibit.

Inside: photos. Pages of notes. Surveillance stills I haven’t seen before of myself.

Me. Sleeping. Brushing my teeth. Drinking from a chipped blue mug I thought no one noticed.

There are printouts of messages too of conversations I’d deleted years ago, mistakes I thought were buried under newer sins. My personnel reviews. My first internship application. The list goes on.

This is more than obsession. It is documented curation, and possession.

A tightness settles in my chest like a noose drawn quietly closed. My fingers flip through the last page, and that’s when I see it. A single quote, centered on the bottom of the page in ink that looked handwritten:

“She’s not broken. She’s been carved.”

I slam the folder shut.

No footsteps come. No doors open. He isn’t here physically, but I don’t believe for a second that he isn’t watching.

I turn toward the intercom speaker mounted near the exit. “What do you want from me?”

No response.

“Say something.”

Still silence. Not even static this time. Just the hum of climate control and my own pulse hammering at my throat.

I take one long look at the collar. At the wine. At the folder. Then I walk to the camera in the ceiling corner and tilt my chin toward it.

“If you’re trying to break me,” I say, voice flat, “you’ll need to try harder.”

The lights dim by one level.

Not off. Just…darker.

God.

He’s listening.

I press a hand to my chest to slow my breath. My mind is trying to stay rational. My body isn’t cooperating.

I’m not afraid the way I should be. I should’ve screamed, should’ve demanded answers, kicked something, clawed at the walls.

But all I can do is stand there, swallowed by velvet and marble and heat, and wonder what part of me had started wanting this.

Not this, exactly. Not the trap. Not the collar.

But the intimacy of it. The precision. The way it all screamed, I know you better than you know yourself.

That was the part that undid me.

The worst men I’d known had wanted to own my body. this one wanted to own my mind. My decisions. My desires. My silence.

And he was doing it by letting me think I had a choice.

The music shifts in the background—no lyrics, just low strings. A minor key. The kind you feel in your bones.

I don’t sit.

I don’t drink.

But I don’t try to escape either.

I just stand there in the silence, staring at the collar.

At the little box I hadn’t closed.

At the part of myself I am starting to recognize in it.

And that’s when the lights in the room go off completely.

Black.

Absolute.

One beat passes.

Then another.

Then, the intercom flickers back to life.

His voice is undeniably intimate.

“You came.”

That is all.

Just two words this time.

But it is enough.

Because the moment I hear them, something in me shatters and something darker answers.

I immediately make for the door and leave. Suddenly, I don’t have the patience to see this through.