Page 49 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

They want me to be calm.

They want statements, distance, denials, measured responses from the figurehead of Finch Corp. They drag me into the boardroom at seven a.m. sharp, masks of concern hiding their real hunger: damage control.

“I understand your personal involvement, Lucian,” one of them says, the edge of smugness barely tucked beneath his tone. His name doesn’t matter. None of them do. “But this isn’t just about you anymore. The company, our investors, are demanding accountability.”

Their polished shoes scuff the floor as they circle like dogs with teeth hidden behind contracts. I watch them speak around her without ever saying her name. “The woman.” “The associate.” “Your…guest.”

“I suggest,” comes the slow, clipped voice of Bernard Roan, a legacy shareholder and family ally turned snake, “we issue a statement distancing you. It’s not a disavowal, Lucian. Just a necessary buffer until this blows over.”

I stare straight at him. “Say her name.”

A pause.

“Lucian—”

“Say. Her. Name.”

He doesn’t. Cowards rarely do when faced with something they can’t control. He adjusts his cufflinks and moves on. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

I laugh, quiet and sharp. “No. I’m thinking perfectly clearly. You want me to throw Vera to the wolves. Make her the scapegoat. Let the world paint her as some reckless seductress while I nod and smile and pretend I don’t know what kind of war she’s fighting alone.”

The silence is tight.

I let it linger.

Then lean forward, knuckles pressed to the polished glass table. “She’s not a liability. She’s the only goddamn real thing I’ve got.”

The room shifts. Some glance away. Others bristle. But none of them challenge me again.

They don’t need to. Because despite the fury pumping through my veins, I don’t contact her.

Not yet. Not because I don’t want to, but because if I reach out in that state, I’ll burn down the very world I’ve built to protect her.

I’ll say too much. Or not enough. I’ll drag her into deeper shadows before she can breathe.

So I let the silence stretch.

Mistake number one.

***

By noon, the press has turned her into an archetype. “The ambitious legal director with a string of powerful men.” They drop hints. Twisted images. Dig up old footage and filter it for effect.

The photos of her in the bar—poised, stunning, dripping danger—become ammunition.

Not one mention of Damien Strathmore’s hands. Not one headline questioning why she looks so tense when she smiles.

Jason, my assistant at Finch Corp, slides into my temporary office with his phone in hand and a clenched jaw. “There’s more,” he says.

“What is it?”

He doesn’t answer. Just hands me the device. A video plays—shaky, grainy footage. Vera. Walking alone. Hair tied up. Face bare. Jacket too thin for the wind. She crosses an empty street with her arms wrapped around herself.

Time stamp: past midnight.

Location: Midtown.

She is alone.

My throat closes around something I don’t have a name for. “Where was that taken?” I ask, my voice like gravel.

“Outside her friend Beth’s place,” Jason answers. “But there’s more.”

I brace myself.

Another clip. Different angle. Different time. A gas station convenience store. She is barefoot in slippers, hoodie pulled over her head, holding a cheap bottle of wine like a lifeline. Her shoulders are hunched. Her eyes…hollow.

That is the final straw.

***

I sit in a room I don’t remember walking into. Scotch untouched. Phone buzzing intermittently with alerts I no longer care about. I stare out over the dance floor below, the flicker of lights and laughter like a scene from another lifetime. Nothing touches me.

Except her image. Branded into the back of my skull.

I’d thought giving her space would help. Let the fire burn out. Let her scream, rage, claw at the air until she was done.

But now she is quiet. And silence, from Vera Calloway, is dangerous.

Jason stands near the door. He doesn’t speak.

He doesn’t have to.

I’m already moving.

***

On the way to the car, I have her address pulled up. Not Beth’s. Hers. The apartment she hasn’t used since the scandal erupted. I have eyes everywhere, but I need to see her. I need to remind her what silence means. What choosing defiance costs.

Not because she needs punishing.

Because I need her to feel how far I will go.

I grip the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping me from splitting apart. Vera has carved herself into the fault lines of my life and set up camp. And like a fool, I let her.

And now?

Now I cannot breathe knowing she thinks she is alone.

***

She isn’t at Beth’s.

I know that before I send anyone to confirm it. Beth’s place has too much warmth, too much familiarity.

Vera is fire right now—fuming, volatile, untethered. She wouldn’t curl up in a friend’s spare room waiting to be rescued.

No, she will walk.

Not like a woman trying to escape.

Like one daring someone to follow.

I'm in the neighbourhood she was last seen.

The neighborhood is dim, tucked between the edges of two districts that haven’t yet decided if they want to be affluent or forgotten. A single liquor store flickers on one corner, and everything else is shadows.

And then I see her.

Black hoodie. Legs bare. Hair down like a curtain she doesn’t want to hide behind anymore. Her walk is slow—not broken, but baited. She moves like she wants to be hunted. Or maybe like she already is.

I don’t announce myself. Just pull the car up beside her, silent, engine rumbling low like a growl beneath us.

She doesn’t flinch.

Doesn’t even hesitate.

Her hand closes around the handle, and she climbs in like she’d known I’d come.

She doesn’t look at me. Just stares forward, jaw clenched, breathing steady.

I grip the wheel hard enough that the leather creaks.

The silence stretches. Too full. Too fucking loud. Her presence beside me, after all of it, is a goddamn siren blaring through my skull.

And still, she says nothing.

Not why did you leave me? Not you used me. Not even go to hell.

So I drive.

Out of the neighborhood. Out past the corporate skyline and into the skeleton of the old city. Past warehouses and loading docks and broken streetlights. Until we’re boxed in by alley walls and neon graffiti that doesn’t blink.

I kill the engine, and the silence that follows is a living thing, heavy and sharp, pressing against the confines of the car.

She turns to me, her face a mask carved from equal parts challenge and grief, her eyes glinting in the dim streetlight that seeps through the fogged windows. The city outside is a blur of filth and neon, a forgotten corner where no one will hear us, no one will care.

I don’t wait for her to speak. I don’t give her the chance to sharpen her words into another weapon.

I’m already moving. I step out the driver's seat and in the back.

My hand closes around her wrist, dragging her into the backseat with a force that’s all hunger, no tenderness.

She gasps, but it’s not pain, not shock. It’s recognition. She knows what this is—what it’s always been between us. A war. A collision. A fucking reckoning.

I shove her down onto the worn leather, the seat creaking under her weight, her hoodie riding up to reveal bare skin, soft and unmarked save for the faint bruises I left last time. No panties. Just her, exposed and defiant, her body a silent challenge that ignites something feral in me.

My hand finds her throat, not squeezing but resting there, possessive, grounding, a pulse of fury beneath my fingers. Her heartbeat races, a frantic rhythm that betrays the fire in her eyes.

“You think you can bait me like that and walk away?” I growl, my voice low, scraped raw by the rage and need clawing at my chest.

Her gaze locks onto mine, unflinching, even now. “You already did,” she says, her voice a blade, cutting through the haze between us.

The words shatter something in me, a dam breaking, flooding me with heat and chaos. There’s no reply for that. No words to bridge the chasm. Only action.

I kiss her like it’s punishment, my lips crashing against hers, hard and unrelenting. My hand tangles in her hair, yanking her head back, exposing the pale column of her throat. I bite her bottom lip, hard enough to draw a hiss, a bead of blood welling up, metallic on my tongue.

She fights back—not to stop me, but to match me. Her nails rake across my chest, clawing through my shirt, tearing at the fabric with a violent grace that sets my blood on fire.

Her thighs lock around my hips, iron shackles that pull me closer, her teeth grazing the skin beneath my jaw, marking me as fiercely as I mark her.

I grab her wrists, pinning them above her head with one hand, the leather seat creaking as she squirms beneath me. Her hoodie is a crumpled mess, bunched around her waist, and I shove her knees apart with my other hand, finding her wet, fucking soaked, her body betraying the defiance in her eyes.

But her moans are too loud, too raw, a sound that could draw eyes we don’t need. I rip the sleeve from my shirt, the fabric tearing with a sharp sound, and stuff it into her mouth, pressing it past her lips.

Her eyes widen, a flash of shock, but she doesn’t spit it out. Her breath catches, muffled now, her moans trapped behind the makeshift gag, vibrating against my fingers as I hold it in place.

“You don’t get to scream,” I murmur, my voice a low, dangerous hum. “You’ll take everything I give you like a good girl.”

Her eyes blaze, a mix of fury and something darker, but her body arches toward me, inviting, and demanding.

I don’t ease in. I don’t warn her. I thrust into her in one brutal motion, hot and thick and desperate, her body opening for me like it’s been waiting for this moment. She chokes on a muffled cry, the sound stifled by the fabric, her wrists straining against my grip as her hips buck against me.

The car rocks with the force of it, metal groaning, windows fogging, the air thick with the scent of sweat and sex.