Page 57 of Forbidden Empire

Then I saw it. The twisted, triumphant grin he wore made my stomach drop.

He’d won, and he knew it.

“You will belong to me, Esme,” he hissed, letting my legs slip down and stepping back, leaving me open and wanting.

I glared at him, letting him see pure rage in my stare, even as my body screamed with unsatisfied need.

He spun on his heel and strode out of his office, abandoning me there, skirt shoved up, thighs slick, pulse thundering with frustration.

“You bastard,” I snarled into the darkness, yanking my skirt down with shaking hands.

His laughter echoed down the hall, taunting and victorious.

In that moment, I wanted to hate him more than I’d ever hated anyone.

But all I could taste was the bitter hunger he left behind.

Ten

ESME

Aidon had fallen right into my trap, letting me pore over the intelligence he’d gathered on Rhea’s syndicate.

Now I had twice the leverage. The scales tipped in my favor, though he would never admit it.

He was beginning to trust me again. The process was a slow one, but I could work with it.

Not that he’d ever say as much. But he let me leave alone, as long as I kept in touch, kept him updated on where I was and what I was doing.

It was a leash, sure, but looser than before.

After slipping back to my rental, showering off the sweat and grime, and changing into dark clothes, I set my plan in motion.

If Aidon discovered what I was up to, he’d think I was betraying him all over again.

Maybe I was in a sense, but not really. I’d deal with that later.

For now, I moved through the shadows of Rhea’s warehouse on the city’s edge, my nerves stretched tight as piano wire.

The darkness pressed in, broken only by overhead lights that flickered on and off, drenching the concrete floor in jagged, shifting shadows.

After all this time, I found out where she kept her servers, a secret I’d hunted for weeks.

If I could get to them, I’d have the last piece. Enough to ruin her, to force her out of the city forever.

The air tasted of oil and rust, the ghosts of old machinery haunting every breath.

I could hear, somewhere distant, the faint drone of another warehouse.

My heart pounded a manic rhythm as I darted from one patch of darkness to the next, the tiny, encrypted flash drive in my pocket thumping against my thigh with every step.

My mission was brutal and simple: find Rhea’s servers and download everything I could.

Aidon, in his arrogance, had handed me the intel I needed.

Now I knew the exact place to look. If I reached them, I could gut her operation from the inside.

Every second was borrowed time. Every breath was a risk. I slipped deeper into the dark, adrenaline lighting me up from the inside. All I had to do was get in, get out, and not look back.