Page 7 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

The apartment is quiet, but not peaceful. The quiet hums under my skin. Outside, the rain needles the window in uneven rhythms as if the sky can’t decide whether to whisper or scream. I lie there a moment longer, watching the ceiling in the illusion of stillness.

Then I get up. My feet bare on hardwood. The city is a smear of pale lights through the window. I check the door twice. Bolt engaged and chain intact. Same as it was an hour ago. Same as it always is. Still, I twist the knob just to feel it catch.

Back in the kitchen, I flick on the light. It’s too bright. I squint as I reach for the French press. The coffee tastes burnt, but I drink it anyway. My hands are already shaking.

I sit at the counter with my laptop open, blue light sharp against the dark.

The spreadsheet loads slowly, revealing one of the coalition’s offshore case files that was assigned two weeks ago.

My eyes scan the list of holding companies.

Most are forgettable, but one sticks. Dane Capital Urban Assets. Something about the name itches at me.

I open a new tab and cross-check it against the city’s public redevelopment records. It’s overly clean. Overly so.

Registered to a South Dakota trust with generic board names, zero press coverage, no complaints, questions, and too smooth.

I see that it’s 2:33 a.m., and I’ve already rewritten three mental memos today. I close the tab and take another sip of coffee, glancing at the door.

By 9:00 a.m., I’m already at the office, too wired to feel tired.

The rain hasn’t stopped. Manhattan looks like it’s been scrubbed with dishwater and spit out in streaks. Inside, the building feels sterile and clean in a way that smells like someone’s been covering something up.

I review the Wardwell memo for the fifth time before pushing it aside.

Emery knocks and steps in without waiting. “Your 10 a.m. just called that they want to reschedule. Said the roads are flooded downtown.”

I nod. “Fine. Slide it to Thursday.”

She hesitates. “Also, there’s a courier at reception. He delivered something from the Drummond arbitration. Says it’s urgent.”

“I thought we closed Drummond.”

“So did I.”

When I reach reception, the courier’s already gone. The envelope is thin, sealed, and anonymous. I take it without a word.

Back in my office, I tear the edge open. Inside are copies of different sheets without letterheads. One sheet includes the name Dane Capital Urban Assets. It means nothing. But my fingers go still. I don’t know why.

At 1:00 p.m., I snap at a junior associate for bringing the wrong briefing folder.

“Page thirty-five was redacted,” I scowl. “How do you not verify the index before handing it to me?”

He flinches. “I—sorry, I thought—”

“Don’t think. Check.”

He stammers an apology and retreats. I feel eyes on me. I look up. Jay Banning is smirking with his eyes on me.

“Are you good?” he asks, voice light, but too careful.

I nod. “Fine.”

“You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I haven’t.”

He doesn’t press, but he watches me longer than he should. As though he knows I’m lying or he’s waiting for the cracks to spread.

The wind outside has picked up. Thunder rolls low and far, like a warning from something older than weather. I return to my office, shut the door, and pause.

Something’s off.

My desk looks…wrong. Nothing dramatic or missing. But the angles are different. The alignment. The stack of folders I left perfectly squared now leans half an inch to the left.

I open the bottom drawer. The file I always keep locked is there. But one tab sticks out further than the rest.

I open it. The contents are untouched. At least they look untouched. But that’s the problem. It’s too exact and neatly returned. As though someone tried too hard to put it back the way I had it.

My stomach knots.

I open the top shred bin next to my desk. On top of the pile is a single sheet. It’s not shredded. It’s whole. A memo I threw out yesterday. Minor, irrelevant, and meant to be destroyed. Now sitting neatly on top of everything else.

I walk to the window. The blinds are open. I always close them. Even when I forget to lock the file drawer. Even when I forget to send Emery a reminder. I never forget the blinds.

I close them slowly, my hand shaking. Then I step back, heart thudding in a rhythm I can’t reason with.

I’m being studied.

Someone’s been here inside my space and my movements. Someone who knows how I work and think. Someone who knows me well enough to try and put things back where they belong.

But just wrong enough for me to notice. And not say anything. Because saying it out loud makes it real.

Back at the desk, I stare at the returned memo. Part of me wants to panic. The other still, quiet part wants to understand.

This isn’t vandalism or chaos. It’s deliberate, methodical, and calculated.

The kind of intrusion that isn’t about damage but attention.

And I should be afraid. I am afraid.

But buried under the fear, where the logic hasn’t reached, a dark curiosity that I don’t want to admit flickers.

The rain doesn’t stop.

It’s heavier now and meaner. It’s no longer a whisper on the windowpane but a constant hammering on glass and steel.

Manhattan isn’t gleaming tonight. It’s soaked and smudged. Streets gleam like oil. Umbrellas break against wind tunnels. And above it all, thunder grumbles in long, low intervals, like something ancient turning in its sleep.

I don’t leave the office until almost ten. I stay long enough to make it look like I had a reason.

I check emails, document reviews, and a flagged compliance summary I didn’t even skim. It’s not work I’m doing. It’s avoidance. I’m avoiding the apartment and the silence.

But eventually, I run out of excuses.

When I reach my building, the doorman’s already gone. His post is empty, a half-drunk paper cup of coffee sitting on the counter. The elevator hums to a stop at my floor. The hallway is quiet.

My keys feel cold in my palm. The metal doesn’t usually register temperature, but tonight I feel everything. I insert the key and turn it. The door opens too easily without resistance or a click of the deadbolt.

I stand there for a full ten seconds, unmoving, staring at the gap between the doorframe and the world I’m supposed to call mine.

I know I locked it.

This morning, I did my usual three-count tug. Bolt, latch, and handle. I do it every time. It’s muscle memory, like a ritual.

And yet the door is unlocked.

I push it open and step inside. The lights are off, but I don’t flip the switch. I let the dark hold me for a moment, then toe off my shoes and move barefoot across the floor.

Nothing looks disturbed. That’s what’s wrong.

Everything is exactly where I left it. My blazer draped over the chair. The candle I blew out last night sits untouched with the wick still curled, like a sleeping fingerprint.

I walk to the kitchen. The mug I left in the sink is still there.

But the kitchen window is open just a sliver. A whisper of a gap. Enough for a draft to snake through. Enough for someone to hear, smell, and reach.

I didn’t open it. I would never open it. Not in this weather or ever at night.

A soft gust slips in, raising the hairs on my arms. I step back. My heartbeat is too fast now, but not from fear exactly. It’s something else.

I check the locks again. Not just on the door, but the window latches, the balcony slide, even the narrow bathroom vent. Everything is locked. Everything except what someone left for me to find.

An unwritten message.

I go to the bookshelf, trace a finger along the spine of a volume I haven’t touched in weeks. It’s dustless and out of place, as if it were taken down and wiped. Or worn clean by a gloved hand.

There’s no sign of forced entry. No fingerprint, boot mark, or smudge on the counters.

That’s what chills me.

Someone was here, and they didn’t need to force their way in. They were invited or acted like they had been. And they wanted me to know.

I should call someone. I should file a report. I should do any number of rational, prescribed things.

I don’t do any of that. Instead, I walk slowly to the kitchen and pull a notepad from the drawer, the one I keep near the pens and scissors and receipts I never throw out.

I write a single line: If you’re going to watch me, have the decency to do it from the front.

I tear it from the pad, smooth the edges, place it on the kitchen counter, just beside the sink, half tucked beneath the lip of the empty mug.

I step back and stare at it. I don’t know what I expect.

A voice behind me? Applause?

I get nothing.

***

Sleep doesn’t come.

I sit on the couch with my legs tucked beneath me, lamp on low, a mug of tea going cold beside me. I try to read, then I try to work, then I try to breathe evenly enough to pretend I’m not unraveling.

I fail at all three.

But something odd happens around 2:00 a.m.

I stop waiting to feel safe and start wondering why the presence doesn’t scare me more.

It should.

Someone was in my home. My private space. Someone opened my window, touched my things, watched me without consent or question.

But the fear, while real, is not consuming.

It’s…complex.

This wasn’t a random break-in or malice for the sake of it. Whoever did this, whoever’s watching, they knew me well enough to leave the smallest, quietest disturbances. No trace of violence or vandalism, but they left echoes.

Echoes only I would hear.

I hate that part of me feels seen by it.

Because no one sees me. Not really.

Jay sees the strategist. Anissa sees the leader. My partners see the numbers, the outcomes, and the win-loss record.

But whoever is behind this saw that I always close the blinds. They saw that I stack folders with the tab facing right. That I throw away old memos but only tear them once, down the center.

How my coffee cup always rests to the left of my keyboard, never the right.

They saw everything no one else bothers to notice. And part of me doesn’t want it to stop.