Before he could think about it further, the masked woman closed the distance between them in three steps and kissed him.And every thought in Johnny's head burned away like paper in fire. The countdown, the system, the panic, the confusion — all of it disappeared. Only the moment remained.She reached up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him deeper into a kiss.Her lips were soft warm and hungry.He kissed her back like his life depended on it—which, technically, it did.His hands found her waist, pulling her closer. Her skin was hot against his palms. She smelled like roses and something darker, something that made his blood burn.Their mouths moved together. Her tongue brushed against his lower lip, and he let her in.She moaned softly against his mouth.Her hands found the buttons of his shirt. She worked them open quickly, expertly, pushing the fabric off his shoulders. His pants followed. Then his boxers.Soon, he was as naked as she was.She pulled back just long enou

Johnny spent the next three weeks locked inside the Sky Sovereign.He barely left the penthouse. Most days, he didn't even bother moving from the deep leather cushions of the couch.His mind was trapped in a relentless, exhausting loop, replaying the exact same sequence of questions until the words lost all meaning.How did Mia know? How did she end up in that private room? How did she manage to show up at the exact underground establishment he had fled to while trying to save his own life?The timing was too flawless. Too convenient. Too mathematically impossible to digest.Sometimes, when the exhaustion numbed his thoughts, he tried to convince himself that it was nothing more than a cosmic freak coincidence.Other times, he was absolutely certain that the Ultimate Harem System had somehow orchestrated the entire trap from behind the scenes to force his hand.Neither answer brought him a single shred of comfort.Every few minutes, his thumb would mindlessly unlock his phone, No calls

The Silver Crest Holdings building wasn’t far from the Nebula Hotel. The two establishments sat in the same central district, one of the busiest areas of Pantheon Valley. The streets were still humming with early morning traffic, and Johnny decided against using any of his cars. Instead, he walked briskly, almost jogging, to clear the last traces of his hangover from his head. Each step helped him shed the fuzziness, letting his mind sharpen gradually as the city moved around him. By the time he arrived, his clothes were slightly wrinkled, dust clinging to the hems, and his sneakers scuffed from the uneven sidewalks. A row of luxurious cars gleamed under the morning sun, parked neatly along the entrance . The building itself loomed tall and imposing, all steel and glass, reflecting the skyline in its mirrored panels. Johnny paused briefly at the entrance, taking in the structure. It was a statement. A monument. A business empire manifested in concrete and glass. He adjusted his

The moment Johnny stepped through the glass doors of Silver Crest Holdings, a quiet wave of déjà vu washed over him. Nothing had changed. Nothing. The lobby still had that cold, expensive smell—like polished marble and paper fresh from the printer. The same muted silver lamps. The same reception desk where interns hovered like anxious ghosts. Phones ringing. Heels clicking. People rushing past each other with the sharp urgency of those who believed their entire future depended on a signature. Everyone was busy. Everyone looked important. Everyone acted like they mattered more than whoever stood next to them. Johnny stood still in the middle of it all, watching. And for a split second, he saw a younger version of himself—same building, same walls, except his clothes were cheaper, his shoulders lower, and his eyes… tired. Always tired. Back then, when he was an intern, he didn’t really see the world around him clearly. He didn’t know the game he had walked into. He thought it was

Johnny didn’t move. He simply stood there beneath her, Emily Blake perched above him, her heel still hovering where his obedience was supposed to be. He looked at her the way one looks at a stranger wearing a familiar face—detached, dissecting, unreadable. As if his eyes were stripping her down past the makeup, past the posture, past the performance… and finding nothing worth respecting. Her legs—crossed, elevated, pointed at his face—became the trigger. The past slammed into him like a wave he’d thought couldn’t reach him anymore. Internship days. Her voice. Her heels. Her cruelty. He remembered everything. He remembered how she entered the company after him — clueless, unskilled, lazy — and within three weeks was somehow supervising him. Not because of effort. Not because of talent. Because the higher-ups liked how she looked in a pencil skirt. He remembered doing her tasks every night. He remembered her forwarding her entire workload to him with a casual, “Babe, be a de