Page 56 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

The cameras love me tonight. That much is clear.

I step onto the gala floor beneath a crown of overhead lights, feeling the pinch of my heels and the pull of silk against my lower back as I walk.

The navy dress I wear isn’t loud, but it speaks. Clean neckline. Strong silhouette. Just enough gleam to catch the attention of the men who run half this city, and the women who are learning how to outplay them.

I shouldn’t have come alone, but Lucian is already gone before I wake. No note. No message. Just the silent hum of surveillance monitors left running on his desk, like ghosts keeping watch.

The Finch Foundation’s name is stamped in gold on the banners, but tonight is about women. The future, the code, the innovation, the grit. I give a speech. Something poised and sharp, laced with data and heart.

I mention the rising number of female founders across West Africa, the pipeline gaps, the dangerous trend of fake mentorship programs that are grooming women for something else entirely.

Applause follows. I smile. Take my seat. Drink my wine.

And then I begin to notice it.

Not the way the photographers keep circling, or the slight delay in one sponsor’s handshake. Not even the strange absence of Finch Corp’s usual press liaisons. It’s subtler than that.

It is in the way a government official pauses when passing me. He nods, eyes flat, but behind them is something raw. Like regret.

It’s in the way a woman on the board of a partner foundation squeezes my hand too tightly before whispering, “Keep being brave.”

It’s in the sudden crash of glass near the donor table—a young intern dropping her wine. Her face turns pale. She doesn’t even apologize. She runs.

I watch her heels disappear into the hallway beyond the bathroom signs, heart ticking faster than it should’ve. I wait a few beats before excusing myself, my own steps sharp across the marble tiles as I follow.

The restroom is empty at first glance, until I hear it. A soft sound. A stifled sob behind the second stall.

“Are you alright?” I ask gently, not moving closer.

Silence.

Then a shaky voice: “Sorry…I just— I spilled my drink, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” I say, pausing. “I just wanted to check. That crash nearly gave me a heart attack.”

She laughs once. But it sounds wrong. Wet. Like fear is caught in her throat.

“I know who you are,” she says quietly. “You’re…you’re the one they’re trying to protect.”

I stiffen. “Who’s ‘they’?”

But the lock clicks. The stall door opens. She emerges with smeared mascara, eyes wide and trembling. Pretty. Young. Her name badge reads “Dara | STEM Futures.”

She doesn’t answer my question. Just shakes her head like she’d said too much. “Please forget I said anything. I’m just drunk.”

She flees the restroom before I can say another word.

I don’t chase her.

I stand there a minute longer, staring at the mirror.

My reflection looks composed and almost regal.

But my pulse betrays me. Something is wrong.

Not just here. Not just tonight. Beneath the applause and speeches and silk, something rotten pulses beneath this city’s clean surface. And it is touching everything.

Even me.

***

I get back to Lucian’s penthouse just after midnight. The driver he assigned doesn’t speak unless spoken to. The city is slick and quiet through the tinted glass, like it is holding its breath.

The moment I walk in, I know he isn’t there.

The room is too still. Too unguarded.

I kick off my shoes near the glass wall, watching my own blurred reflection as the skyline glitters behind me. I don’t bother calling him. He won’t answer. And I’m not sure what I’d say if he did.

Instead, I go to his desk.

I’m not snooping. Not really. But maybe I’m looking. For proof. For explanation. For anything that makes sense of the way tonight unfolded like a warning dressed as a gala.

The desk is tidy, of course. Lucian never leaves anything undone. Except for one drawer.

It’s slightly ajar.

Inside are neatly stacked folders, arranged with military precision. I freeze when I see the one labeled “EDU/FOUNDATIONS—CLEAN SHELLS (INACTIVE)” in block print.

I pull it out and open it.

The names are buried on the third page. Names I recognize. Names from tonight.

STEM Futures. AdaCode Initiative. LearnBridge International. I blink. Then read again.

The side notes are worse.

“Front for data mining.” “Recruitment portal for underage labor, disguised as internships.” “Linked to SEA trafficking routes.” “Donor flagged for laundering.”

My mouth goes dry.

I flip another page and see a different name—one of the major sponsors tonight. The same one whose eyes wouldn’t meet mine during my speech. His signature is scrawled across a disbursement form from six months ago. Direct ties. Unclean money.

I shut the folder.

My fingers are cold. But I can’t stop.

On the far end of his screen, a browser window has been minimized. I tap the trackpad to open it.

Error 404.

The URL in the bar is half-loaded. A news site. The headline had once read: “Tech Outreach or Trafficking Scheme? Hidden Crisis Behind African Coding Camps.”

Gone now.

Wiped.

I hear the elevator ding behind me.

I don’t turn.

Lucian enters like he always does—silently, smoothly, as though the night bends for him.

“I found the file,” I say, my voice clear but taut. “And the article. You wiped it.”

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t ask which one. Just shrugs off his jacket and walks past me like none of this is news.

“You knew,” I press, standing. “You’ve known. About what they’re doing. The girls. The fake internships. Why didn’t you—?”

“Because you didn’t need to carry that,” he says, pouring himself a glass of something dark. “Not yet.”

“That’s not your choice,” I snap.

His eyes lift to mine, finally. Calm. Unapologetic.

“No. It’s mine.”

I stare at him, heart hardening. “I thought we were done with the secrets.”

Lucian doesn’t flinch. “We’ll never be done with the secrets.”

I can’t argue that. Because I know he is right.

I look at the folder in my hands. The weight of it. The faces tied to it. The corruption disguised as innovation. The girls whose names will never be printed.

And then I look at him. The man who loves me, who moves heaven and hell to protect me.

The man I still don’t fully know.

And I realize…maybe I never will.

***

It starts with a twitch.

Not mine—but the senator’s bodyguard, standing ten feet to my right during a routine donor photo op. Broad shoulders. Bulletproof stare. But the longer I speak with the senator, the more I see it: the way his eyes wouldn’t settle. The way his fingers tap—rhythmic, fast, anxious.

I pause mid-sentence.

The senator doesn’t notice. But the bodyguard does. He looks at me like I’m a crack forming in a concrete wall.

A few minutes later, near the service hallway, I pass two men speaking in hushed tones—one is a sponsor’s logistics aide, the other wears a lanyard without a badge. I slow slightly, pretending to adjust my clutch. That’s when I hear it.

“—what Dane’s digging into could blow the whole facade. She shouldn’t even be here—”

“Shh. Just get her out quiet.”

I don’t stop to hear the rest. My stomach has already started to knot.

Lucian has eyes everywhere. But lately, it feels like those eyes are watching me more than the danger. And I’m starting to wonder if the danger is closer than he is letting on.

***

Back at the penthouse, I find silence again. It greets me like it has learned my name.

The skyline blinks in slow pulses beyond the glass. Everything is clean. Still. Staged. I drop my clutch on the hallway table and exhale slowly and sharply. Something inside me needs to move, search, and know.

I find myself back at Lucian’s desk.

Not the obvious folders. Not the top layer. My fingers move on their own, pulling back the crisp manila jacket labeled “Compliance & Legal: Internal.”

He tucked it deep. Like it didn’t want to be found.

I slide out a black paperclipped file marked “Cross-org Review: Global Youth Tech” and unfold the contents with hands that don’t tremble but want to.

A memo dated six weeks ago.

“The following individuals are under internal inquiry for connections to unregulated mentorship orgs operating under shell names across three continents.”

I scan the list. My stomach turns.

These aren’t just strangers.

These are men who’d shaken my hand tonight. Women who’d smiled during the keynote. Executives who’d pledged scholarships for disadvantaged girls in exchange for “internship flexibility.”

There is more. Attached is a flagged document. Half-redacted. The title alone makes me cold:

“Suicides of Whistleblowers: DOJ-FBI Joint Memo (Suppressed)”

The top line reads:

“Two former employees tied to LearnBridge and AdaCode died under suspicious circumstances after attempting to release records.”

Lucian had saved this.

Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d forgotten it was still here. Maybe part of him wanted me to find it.

The tab beside the document is still open.

A nearly deleted article from an independent U.S. journalist. One paragraph survives cache:

“Multiple tech mentorship initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa have been flagged in a growing investigation tied to trafficking, identity laundering, and shell exploitation under philanthropic covers. The suicides of two anonymous whistleblowers—one in Lagos, one in Marseille—remain under federal scrutiny, though official statements deny linkage.”

My breath stops for a moment. Not out of fear—but fury.

This isn’t business. This is rot.

Lucian had known. He was watching it unravel from the shadows while the rest of us drank wine and toasted to empowerment.

And he’d left me to walk into it blind.

I am halfway across the room when I hear the elevator sigh open.

Lucian steps inside like a ghost wearing skin. Tailored shirt open at the throat, coat folded over his arm, eyes unreadable.

I don’t wait.

“I know what you’re hiding,” I say, holding the file in both hands like it can protect me. “I saw the memo. The list. The suicides.”