Page 64 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

I step off the plane into the chill of Vienna dawn, heart pounding from secrets I carry like lead in my chest. The summit that awaits me is billed as the moral crossroads of innovation and ethics in technology, but I’ve traded one kind of cage for another.

Lucian hasn’t stopped me, but his silence has been louder than his words. That distant absence before I left is a storm cloud I can’t outrun.

I check my wardrobe twice in my suite’s mirror—navy sheath dress, modest heels, hair loose and composed.

I take a breath and press my fingers to the glass, watching the city’s early lights twinkle like false promises.

He doesn’t hate this. He’s just waiting for a reason to pull me back in.

***

The summit’s entrance hall is palace to innovation—polished stone floors, angular LED installations, attendees in crisp suits carrying air of ambition.

I flash my credentials: “Keynote Speaker: Trust and Ethics in Surveillance Tech,” and duck through the gates of opulence.

Lights flash when I walk in. Cameras. Journalists hovering—old contacts looking surprised to see me. I smile for the lenses, but inside, my chest constricts.

Standing on stage later, I speak about rebuilding trust in an age when every keystroke can be weaponized, when power silences truth.

The irony stings, but I can’t let anyone know it, so I hold my voice steady, project confidence I don’t feel.

Applause rings out. I smile outwardly, but blood pounds in my ears.

***

Back in my suite, I sit at the desk, surrounded by Campari and lukewarm water, the folder open between me. Member lists, revelations, invoices.

I turn to my laptop. I tap through card access and message logs—and pause at root access. Something cold unwinds inside me.

Lucian’s fingerprint darkens, named “LSO admin,” buried for months, watching every keystroke, call, and message. Shadow processes siphoning, blipping every access.

He’d been inside my phone. My work files. The very draft of this summit speech, likely. My breath shakes.

“How long?” I whisper.

The question echoes in the room, and I realize I am not afraid of traffickers, but I’m afraid of him.

***

I return to Lucian’s penthouse. I carry nothing but the truth I’m not sure I can speak.

He meets me at the door in a tailored suit, mild exhaustion, impassive until he sees my face. Something narrows in him.

“How long have you been spying on me?” I ask. Voice flat.

He paces slowly, hands behind his back. “Since the day I found you.”

I swallow. “Surveillance is why I’m alive.”

He nods. “You belonged to a system before me. I reclaimed you.”

I shake my head. “You monitored my conversations, emails, and my body.” My voice trembles. “All of me belongs to you?” I echo him, bitter. “That was always clear to you.”

He closes the distance and places a hand on my shoulder—not tender, not soft. Weighted.

“Yes,” he says. “I never hid it. I told you I couldn’t risk your freedom or your life.”

My hand trembles as I remove his palm.

“For months? Watching me with strangers? Watching me think?” I refuse to sound fragile. “That’s not love. It’s possession.”

He steps away quietly. “I regret nothing.”

***

That night, I can’t sleep. I sit in bed with the folder in my lap, hands trembling around it like I hold glass in my palms. My reflection in the dark window stares back.

Who am I? A representative of ethical technology, now caught between predator and protector.

The room is silent; his side is empty. I text Harper99 once—“Help me.” Then I delete it. I need something stronger—truth he can’t hide.

Summit speech replay runs in my head: words about trust, layered in irony I can’t outrun.

I open my encrypted drive and pull the summit video offline. I watch my own performance, listen to my voice cracking when I quote privacy policy lines. I save it, tag it.

I delete the root process Safeguard Agent in my system. The one marked “LSO admin.” I leave notices for later. I’ll never ask him for permission; I’ll never owe him for knowing.

By sunrise, I am no longer the woman he can monitor. I am someone else. Someone waiting.

The city wakes outside my window. I wake up colder, quieter, and ready.

One truth I carry:

he can’t keep me quiet anymore.

And if that costs us everything, I’ll pay the price.