Page 40 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

I don’t know what I expected from the silence. Comfort, maybe. A chance to think without feeling hunted. But the truth is, silence never comes empty—not in my world, not anymore.

It slithers between the cracks, sits beside me like a phantom, curls around the spine of every thought I dare to entertain. Silence, in the wake of Lucian, isn’t relief. It’s rehearsal.

The evidence of his touch is everywhere. My email server now routes through a private encryption layer I didn’t install.

Security clearances I once had unrestricted access to now ping red, requiring secondary verification by “internal advisory protocols.” And that man, Turner, who once led entire policy discussions with arrogant disdain, is now nothing more than a resigned footnote in the Monday digest.

“Transition in leadership,” they called it..

Beth says I should take the win. “They were coming for your head, Vera. You’re still breathing; you’re still getting paid. Take the damn win.”

But I didn’t win. I didn’t negotiate my way out. I didn’t pull a string or deliver a speech or plant a trap. I didn’t even fight back—not really. He did it. Lucian. Quietly. Efficiently. As if he was wiping crumbs off a silk tablecloth.

And now the silence feels like debt.

The boardroom is colder than usual. Maybe it’s just me. I sit through the quarterly review with my hands flat on the polished glass table, pretending to care about projected growth in R&D like I’m not spiraling.

Everyone acts normal. Polite smiles. Soft nods. Polished professionalism with no soul. I wonder if they were all given the same directive: “Leave her alone. Let her believe she’s fine.”

I glance at the screen at the far end of the room. There, in the corner, a name I didn’t expect to see again.

Lucian Dane: Senior Executive Oversight Consultant.

Effective Immediately.

The meeting ends ten minutes later. I don’t remember what was said. My knuckles ache from clenching the chair arms. By the time I step out of the room, the entire building feels like it’s shrinking around me.

Like I’m being gently nudged toward something. A funnel. A cage.

Back in my office, I don’t sit. I pace.

My phone vibrates on the edge of the desk. I snatch it up without thinking. Unknown number.

I don’t answer. I just stare at the screen until the call dies, replaced by the oppressive glow of the lock screen. No voicemail. No message. Just a digital echo that fades too quickly to mean nothing.

There’s a folder on my desk. It wasn’t there when I left. I know it wasn’t. I locked the drawer. I remember locking it. Inside: a single printed report. A revised staff structure: Finch Corp Legal Division.

My name isn’t missing. That would be too obvious.

Instead, it’s there…but moved. Shifted beneath a new title: “Lead Counsel—Internal Compliance Alignment (Under Review).”

Under review?

Beth knocks once, then peeks in. “You okay?”

I nod.

She doesn’t believe me. But she doesn’t push.

“Lunch later?” she asks softly.

“Maybe.”

She leaves me alone again, and I’m back in the eye of the storm. And the worst part? I’m starting to see it. Not the damage. The strategy.

He’s not killing me. He’s folding me into his world. One silent reassignment at a time.

I lean against the edge of my desk and try to calm my breath. But the tightness is back in my chest. That unbearable weight I used to feel as a child, just before a foster parent told me to pack.

Lucian isn’t trying to destroy me. That would be easier to survive.

He’s weaving me into something I didn’t agree to, didn’t vote for, didn’t ask to be part of. And the longer I pretend not to see it, the more elegant the trap becomes.

Later, I stand in the bathroom mirror, rinsing my face with cold water. I stare at my reflection until my eyes sting. Behind me, the automatic lights flicker—motion sensor lag.

I freeze.

Then I turn sharply. No one’s there.

But my reflection looks different. Less sharp. More frayed at the edges.

I step back into my office. My door is ajar. I never leave it ajar.

Something’s moved on my desk again. The folder is gone.

No, not gone. Shifted.

Placed dead center.

I sit.

Not because I’m tired. But because I need to root myself. Because everything around me is subtly, irrevocably changing. And he’s not even here.

Except I know better now. He’s here.

He’s always been here.

And I think I finally understand the game.

It’s not about breaking me. It’s about conditioning me. Bit by bit. Silence by silence. Until I can’t tell the difference between what I want…and what I’ve been shaped to accept.

But if he’s watching me and if he’s listening, then let him hear this:

You may have built the room, Lucian.

But I decide when the door closes.

And I decide what burns.

The rest of the day stretches out like a tightened wire, humming with a pressure I can’t quite name.

I sit at my desk, fingers poised over the keyboard, pretending to type while my eyes skim the surface of the office.

Everyone is avoiding me. Not obviously, but in the way people look at a fire that’s already scorched someone. They don’t want to catch whatever burned me.

Beth sends me a Slack message around noon:

“Lunch?”

I don’t answer. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know how to be around her right now. Around anyone. I feel…rewired.

Lucian’s presence in this building is like a second heartbeat, pulsing just behind the walls. I can’t see him, but I feel him everywhere.

In the replacement faces now stationed outside Legal. In the quiet deletion of files I didn’t approve. In the fact that two meetings I was scheduled for this week have been “postponed indefinitely.”

He’s not just nearby. He’s embedded.

I open my email and find another one flagged URGENT. A compliance audit. My department. Surprise, surprise.

I click through the attached briefing memo, and I don’t even flinch when I see the header:

Finch Corp Oversight—Executive Risk Consultant: Lucian Dane.

I push back from the desk, stand too fast. My vision flashes white for a second.

I need air.

In the stairwell, it’s silent. Cold concrete and fluorescent hum. I pace the landing like an animal in a too-small cage. I pull out my phone, open the last encrypted message thread. Still no reply.

Just the same dead silence I’ve been staring at for days.

But he’s watching.

I grip the railing, nails biting into the metal.

He put me back together after tearing me down, then gift-wrapped the illusion of recovery like it was something I asked for. He protected me. Made me look innocent.

But I never asked for it. And now I’m stuck beneath his hand, even when it’s not touching me.

I sink down onto the step, elbow on my knee, hand braced against my temple.

This isn’t fear anymore. It’s not even fury.

It’s strategy.

He thinks I’m cornered. And maybe I am. But even caged animals learn new tricks.

I pull out my phone again. This time, I open a blank message. My fingers hover over the keyboard before I type:

“I know you’re watching. That’s fine. Watch this.”

I don’t send it. Not yet.

Instead, I draft a meeting request to Beth:

“Drinks after work?”

She’ll ask questions. I’ll lie. That’s fine.

Because I know exactly what I’m going to do.

I won’t wait for him to pull the next string.

I’ll hand him one. Let him pull it. Let him see where it leads.

Then cut it myself.

Let’s see how he handles that.

Beth meets me just after seven, coat slung over her arm, eyes lined with suspicion and a fatigue I haven’t earned the right to question.

“You sure about this?” she asks as we walk toward the glass doors.

I nod once, chin high. “I’m sure.”

She doesn’t press. Not yet. We step out into the chilled city air, the wind snapping against my black blazer. I pull it tighter across my chest, ignoring the weight in my stomach.

The kind that doesn’t come from dread—it comes from anticipation.

I don’t tell her what I’m planning. Not in full. Just enough to keep her beside me. I need a buffer for now. A witness, even if she doesn’t know it.

We end up at a rooftop bar just outside the Financial District. The kind of place built for the powerful to pretend they’re free. Steel beams. Velvet couches. Drink menus in cursive.

Beth orders a mojito. I ask for something stronger.

The moment we sit, she leans in. “You’re playing with fire.”

“I’m playing with information,” I say coolly. “That’s different.”

“No, it isn’t. Not with him.”

My fingers wrap around the lowball glass, knuckles pale. “You don’t think I know that?”

She sighs and settles back, eyes scanning the skyline. “If you’re trying to provoke him—”

“I’m not,” I interrupt. A lie. “I’m just reminding myself that I’m not helpless.”

She doesn’t believe me. I don’t care.

After a while, she leaves. A quiet excuse, something about work in the morning. I let her go.

I don’t move.

I wait.

The longer I sit there, swirling ice in my untouched drink, the more I feel it—that subtle static under my skin. The one that starts when he’s near.

And then, just before midnight, I get what I want.

An email. Encrypted. No subject line. No signature. Just one sentence.

“You’re not ready for what comes next.”

I stare at the screen, lips parting, breath shallow. He took the bait.

The waiter returns with a napkin I didn’t ask for. I unfold it. A business card falls out. Blank. Except for one name, in sharp, serif font:

Damien Strathmore.

A man with a reputation for being arrogant, loud, and flashy. Dangerous in all the ways Lucian despises.

Perfect.

I tuck the card into my clutch, press the glass to my lips, and drain it in one swallow.

He’s watching. I want him to see.

For so long, I’ve been reacting, surviving, maneuvering inside the parameters of his obsession.

Now?

Let’s see how he handles mine.