Page 6 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

I check my phone. Vera is in her office again, typing furiously.

Her jaw is tight, her hand cramping once as she shakes it out. Then she resumes with the same pace and precision. Except her foot is bouncing now. I haven’t seen that in weeks.

Another crack.

She thinks she’s chasing power. She’s walking straight into its architect.

I glance at the empty conference room as staff begin clearing the water glasses.

My greatest high isn’t winning. It’s building a cage that someone chooses to walk into. A cage they think they built themselves.

***

The luncheon is held in a penthouse ballroom at The Arlow, all mirrored pillars and skyline vanity. Forty stories up, with glass so clear it turns Manhattan into a painting.

The servers wear white gloves. The violinist near the bar doesn’t stop for applause as he plays through conversations like he doesn’t care who hears him.

I arrive late on purpose.

People notice. They shift, straighten, and glance toward the elevator.

The mayor’s aide murmurs something to a hedge fund executive.

A lobbyist from New Jersey who’s overdressed and overzealous steps aside the moment I pass.

No one stops me.

I don’t need a table number. My name is the table.

Councilwoman Li rises as I approach. “Mr. Dane. Always a pleasure.”

“Councilwoman,” I nod. “How’s your son?”

She smiles too quickly. “Accepted into Cornell’s urban planning program.”

Of course he was. I paid for his final recommendation letter.

I take my seat at the center of the half-moon table. The cutlery is polished. The name cards are embossed. The steak is plated with rosemary and performance.

I don’t touch it.

Across the table, a tech investor makes a joke about blockchain and affordable housing. No one laughs, but they all smile. I sip water, not because I need it, but because the motion gives them something to react to.

My world is curated. It’s not comfortable, but at least it’s controlled.

The conversations drift toward mergers and grants. Philanthropic initiatives that solve nothing but make great headlines.

I nod when necessary. Offer two sentences here, three there. Enough to remind them I’m in the room. Not enough to reveal what I’m thinking.

I’m not thinking about them. I’m thinking about her.

And how, for all their wealth and weapons, none of these people know what it feels like to watch someone build herself into something real and plan exactly where to place the first fracture.

***

After the luncheon, the car is waiting outside. It’s a black town car with chrome trim and leather seats so smooth they make no sound when I sit.

Dorian is on a call.

The door shuts behind me. Piano music plays low through the speakers. Nothing modern. Satie, I think—delicate, meandering, and almost lost. I let it drift.

I pull out the device again and tap once.

Her feed opens.

Vera’s in a different room now. This one is a quiet one with low light, and the window blinds are half-drawn.

She’s holding a memo in one hand, tapping her pen on the desk with the other. She doesn’t know the pen is out of ink. She hasn’t looked at it in ten minutes.

Her face is stretched thin. I’ve learned to read what people don’t show.

She’s tired in that way that comes when you know you’re being maneuvered but don’t yet know by whom. She senses something, even now. That itch at the back of the mind that says, You’re not alone in the room.

I watch her lean back in her chair and close her eyes. It’s the fifth time today.

I mark it.

Then I pause the feed out of necessity. The line between strategy and something else is beginning to fray, and I know it.

I tell myself this is about control. But it’s no longer just that.

It’s about proximity. About the moment she’ll discover that every door she’s walking through was built for her.

That the path she believes she carved was already waiting. That I placed her in my world before she even knew it had a name.

The car slows.

Dorian finally speaks. “Senator Wardwell’s chief of staff followed up. They’d like to know if the firm you mentioned, Finch Corp, will be approved for conflict clearance.”

I glance at him. “They will.”

“You’re sure?”

“They’ve already been cleared.”

He nods once and doesn’t ask how I know. That’s why he’s still employed.

***

Back in the office, I take the south wing entrance because it’s quieter and faster. A few junior analysts pretend not to see me. One stands too quickly and nearly drops her tablet.

I ignore them all.

My office is glass and chrome. An intentionally minimalist space where every surface reflects without offering warmth. The skyline wraps three of the four walls, so it feels like I’m suspended above the world, not in it.

I like that illusion.

I sit behind the desk and open the file marked Lyle: Internal Debrief.

He did well.

He’ll report back to Vera. He’ll tell her about the glass, the architecture, the transparency of Dane Capital’s urban development model.

He’ll use the word integrity.

She’ll raise an eyebrow. And then she’ll do what she always does and dig deeper. Suspicion would be the least likely reason. She would need to understand what power looks like before she challenges it.

That’s what makes her valuable and mine.

I turn the feed back on. This time, it’s muted. She’s pacing now. Phone in hand, earpiece in. Probably Anissa on the line. Her gait is even, but her fingers twitch near her hip.

That twitch didn’t exist two weeks ago. More unraveling and more cracks.

I study her face again with calculation.

She doesn’t know the contract she’s reviewing was flagged by my legal division three days ago or that the call she’ll get tomorrow about offshore grant protocols will originate from a shell firm I own.

She doesn’t know I’m circling her entire orbit and shifting the gravity slowly.

She thinks this is momentum and that she’s still on her own two feet.

She doesn’t know I already own the floor.

***

Night falls slowly over Manhattan. Lights flicker on like nerves firing to life. The city hums beneath my feet, unaware of how easily it can be turned.

I close the feed and sit in silence. For once, I let the silence stretch longer than necessary. Because I’m feeling something I don’t name yet.

But it’s there. Uninvited and unrushed.

A tension between the mind and the man. Between what I set out to build and what I might let happen, if I’m not careful.

I press my thumb against the edge of her file. I don’t open it because I already know what’s inside.

What matters now isn’t what’s in the file. It’s what happens when the file becomes irrelevant.

When she stops being a subject.

And starts becoming something else.