Page 61 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

The email comes just after sunrise.

I’m not expecting it. I’m not expecting anything, not anymore. Not recognition, not relevance, not invitations to stand on stages I used to dream about. My public face has gone quiet in the last year. Not by accident.

I open the message with my heart already half-hollow, bracing for another soulless partnership pitch or shallow foundation request.

But this is different.

Subject: Global Summit on Innovation & Tech Ethics—Vienna 2025 Header: Vera Calloway—We Haven’t Forgotten Your Voice.

I blink.

Read the first paragraph twice.

They want me to speak. Headline, no less. On a panel exploring the intersection of ethics, surveillance, and power in emergent technologies.

You are one of the few voices who understand both sides.

You’ve lived it. You’ve built from it.

The world still needs what you have to say.

I sit back slowly.

For a moment, I forget where I am. The quiet luxury of Lucian’s penthouse. The muted morning light curling across imported marble floors. The untouched breakfast tray at my side.

All of it fades.

Because for the first time in a long time…I feel seen. Recognized as me.

***

I wait for him to come home.

He is gone when I wake, again. No message. Just the usual signs of absence: one light left on in the corner of the surveillance suite. A glass rinsed clean and left on the kitchen shelf.

The faint echo of a room that had been used in silence.

He returns late—still in a black suit, jaw tight, eyes tired. The kind of tired that doesn’t come from work.

I am waiting in the lounge, laptop open, email pulled up.

“I got invited to speak in Vienna,” I say, as casually as I can manage. “International summit. Tech ethics, innovation. They want me to be a headline speaker.”

He stops in the entryway.

Doesn’t move or l smile or say congratulations.

“Vienna?” he says.

I nod. “It’s not until next month. They’re offering to fly me in, full panel access. There’ll be UN officials, Nobel candidates—”

“No.”

I freeze.

He steps closer, shedding his coat. “It’s not safe.”

“I haven’t even told you the details yet—”

“You don’t need to.”

He pours himself water. Like we are discussing weather. Like my life’s first real reentry into meaning doesn’t deserve a full sentence of acknowledgment.

“Decline,” he says. “Immediately.”

I stare at him.

Something inside me that is old and mine cools. “You’re not serious.”

His voice stays level. “There are security issues you’re not cleared to understand. That summit is under heavy surveillance, and half the speakers are flagged for compromise. It’s not a safe environment.”

“You could come with me,” I offer, too quickly. “We could go together—”

“No,” he says again. “I said no.”

Just that. Final. No opening for dialogue. No offer to discuss, or support, or compromise. Just a verdict handed down by a man who has built me a fortress and called it love.

I stand slowly.

The laptop closes with a soft click.

“You know,” I say quietly, “I thought maybe—just maybe—you’d be proud of me.”

His eyes meet mine.

But I don’t see Lucian in them.

Not the version I fell for.

The man looking at me now isn’t proud. Or surprised.

He is guarding something. Something I can’t see. Suddenly…I’m not sure I want to.

***

I don’t decline the offer. I don’t accept it either.

I let the email sit in my inbox—flagged, unread, waiting. Like a matchbox I haven’t opened yet. Telling myself it isn’t defiance. That I’m just thinking. That I’m giving Lucian space. That I’m not trying to provoke anything.

But deep inside, where the quiet parts of me still whisper truth, I know the difference.

This isn’t a delay. This is a decision forming in the dark.

He said no. He didn’t ask. He didn’t reason.

And I didn’t push.

But I haven’t submitted either.

I keep the tab open, stare at the words again. “The world still needs what you have to say.”

The world.

Not him.

Not this house, or this bed, or the curated silence I am being wrapped in day by day like silk bindings.

I close the laptop and stand. My heart beats slowly, but something colder is waking.

***

The message comes mid-afternoon.

Not through my normal channels. Not even through the backdoor network I occasionally access when I need to verify rumors inside Finch Corp.

This is different.

It is slipped into the drafts folder of an abandoned burner account I’d forgotten I ever linked to this machine. A ghost buried in my system.

One draft. No subject. No recipient.

The message opens without clicking.

Alias restored. New relay ID: Harper99.

Crown List progress made. Full trace nearly mapped.

You’re on it, Vera. From a “high-value exchange,” circa 2006.

There was a fire. You were tagged as “voided,” but that doesn’t erase the file.

Still searching. Stay quiet. Stay alert.

You’re closer to the truth than he’s letting you know.

I stare at the screen.

Not blinking. Not breathing.

I reread the words five times. Ten. My mouth has gone dry. My palms slick.

High-value exchange. You were tagged. There was a fire.

I sit down slowly. Back rigid. Hands trembling.

Something pulses at the edge of memory—jagged and flickering.

A hallway.

Heat.

A scream.

Mine?

No. Not mine. A child’s voice. Or maybe a girl beside me.

A woman’s shadow dragging me by the arm.

Red lights flickering like warning signs in a locked building.

But it evaporates just as quickly.

All I have now is this: My name was never clean. It was buried. Hidden. Deleted from systems I’d never even known existed.

And Lucian…Lucian hasn’t told me.

I don’t know what he knows.

I don’t know how long he’s known.

But I know this: I can’t ask.

Because if he lies, and if he’s been lying all along, I’m not ready to hear it out loud.

***

He comes home earlier than expected.

I’m curled on the sofa, a book splayed open on my lap, its words dissolving into the static hum of my thoughts. My heart stumbles, still tethered to the conversation we never finished, to Vienna, to the weight of things unsaid.

He doesn’t speak as he enters—no greeting, no explanation, no mention of where he’s been. Just a heavy, deliberate silence that fills the room like smoke.

His jacket falls to the chair, the leather crumpling softly. His tie follows, a dark ribbon discarded on the floor. He crosses the room in three measured strides, his boots silent on the hardwood, and drops to his knees before me.

His forehead presses against my stomach, warm through the thin cotton of my shirt, a gesture so raw it feels like a confession or a prayer. His breath seeps into me, steady and warm, and I freeze, my fingers hovering over the book, caught between reaching for him and pulling away.

I don’t speak. Neither does he.

The silence stretches, thick with the weight of everything we haven’t said, until he rises, his hand closing around mine. His touch is firm but gentle, pulling me to my feet, guiding me toward the bedroom with a quiet purpose that feels less like desire and more like necessity.

The dim light from the city filters through the curtains, casting fractured shadows across the bed, painting his skin in shades of silver and gray.

He doesn’t look at me as he begins to undress me, his fingers slow and deliberate, peeling away my sweater, my jeans, my bra, until I stand bare before him.

His eyes trace my body, not with hunger but with something deeper—a need to hold onto me, to memorize every curve before it slips away.

There’s no rush in his touch, no urgency, no whispered words to coax or tease.

Just a quiet, unrelenting possession and a need that says stay here, don’t drift, don’t become something I can’t keep.

His hands move over me, warm and steady, lingering on the dip of my waist, the curve of my shoulder, as if he’s anchoring himself to me.

My body responds, heat blooming low in my belly, but my mind is a tangle of doubt, caught in the unspoken rift between us. I don’t pull away, but I don’t fully give in either, my heart teetering on the edge of surrender.

He guides me to the bed, the mattress dipping under our weight as he lays me down on the cool sheets.

The city’s glow seeps through the window, bathing us in a soft, ethereal light.

He sheds his shirt, his chest bare and shadowed, and settles between my legs, his hands sliding up my thighs with a tenderness that feels almost fragile.

When he enters me, it’s slow, deliberate, each inch a quiet claim that makes my breath catch. My hands find his shoulders, my fingers curling into his skin as my body arches to meet him, drawn to him despite the uncertainty flickering in my chest.

His movements are steady, a rhythm that builds a slow, smoldering fire. The bed creaks softly beneath us, the sound mingling with the harsh cadence of our breaths, the slick heat of our bodies merging.

My legs wrap around his hips, pulling him deeper, and he groans, a low, primal sound that vibrates through me. His hands frame my face, his thumbs brushing my cheeks, and for a moment, his eyes meet mine, dark, unreadable, and heavy with something that feels like fear.

The intimacy of it is overwhelming, a connection that’s as much about possession as it is about need, and I feel myself unraveling, my body yielding even as my heart hesitates.

He shifts, pulling out gently, and I whimper at the sudden emptiness, my hands reaching for him. He doesn’t leave me wanting for long. He rolls me onto my side, his body curling behind mine, his chest warm against my back.

His hand slides down my thigh, lifting my leg to rest over his, opening me to him. When he enters me again, it’s with the same slow, deliberate pace, but the angle is deeper, more intimate, each thrust sending a wave of heat through me.