2025-04-19 21:13:01
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Betrayal in Plain Sight
AriaI was sitting behind my desk, still reeling from the chaos of the press briefing, when I noticed him hovering near the doorway. The young technician I had planted during the event. He looked pale, like he wasn’t sure if he should even be in my office.“Come in,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “You’ve got something for me?”He nodded quickly and stepped closer, lowering his voice like the walls had ears. “I couldn’t see the hacker’s face during the blackout. It was too dark, and they moved fast. But…” He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled something out. “I managed to pick this up. They dropped it.”He placed the item gently on my desk. At first, it looked harmless, a simple access badge. But the moment my eyes landed on it, my stomach flipped. I knew that badge. I had seen it clipped onto Ellen’s blazer more times than I could count, and in that moment, my throat went dry. “Where exactly did you find this?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.“Near the emer
Shadows on the Screen
AriaThe applause had barely started when the lights cut out, plunging the entire hall into darkness. For a moment, there was nothing but silence and the sound of my own heartbeat thudding against my ribs. My fingers tightened around the podium as if holding onto it would keep me grounded.Then the screens behind me crackled to life with harsh static, and the sound made people flinch. Then it was the grainy footage that appeared next, shaky and clearly filmed from hidden cameras. I recognized the faces instantly; they were members of my executive board, half of them, sitting in quiet rooms, exchanging files, whispering over envelopes stuffed with cash.The distorted voice followed, filling the hall silently.“Your leaders are liars. Your trust has been bought and sold.”As soon as those words echoed, the room broke out in gasps. My stomach turned because I knew exactly what I was seeing. These were the same names I had read in the envelope days ago, and now the whole world was watchin
The Breaking Point
AriaThe envelope sat on my coffee table like a heavy burden I couldn’t carry anymore. I had stared at it for hours, mentally trying to prepare myself for whatever I would find in there before finally tearing it open, telling myself I was ready. But I wasn’t.My hands trembled as I spread the papers across the glass. Line after line of names filled the page. Half of my executive board. Half! These weren’t strangers or rivals. These were people I had built with, defended in board meetings, and fought for when others wanted them gone. And here they were, exposed in black and white, tied to the betrayal that had been choking me for months.For a long moment, I just sat there staring at the names, not sure what to do. The weight of it was crushing, and it got me wondering. If so many of them had turned, maybe Ellen was right. Maybe the problem wasn’t them. Maybe it was me.And so I curled myself on the couch, replaying every argument, every rushed decision, every time I’d snapped at some
Strings in the Dark
EllenThe skyline glittered outside my penthouse, like it knew what I was about to do. I cradled a glass of wine in my hand, swirling the deep red liquid while Lucian’s demand replayed in my head:Get me out, and I’ll keep your secret.The audacity. No one dared to corner me. Not board members, not investors, not family, and certainly not a man in chains. Yet his words had burrowed into me, and no matter how many times I tried to dismiss them, they echoed like a threat I couldn’t mute.I tapped the stem of the glass against my knee and opened my laptop. His freedom… that would be my leverage. If Lucian walked out of prison owing me, he wouldn’t just be an ally, he’d be my insurance policy against Aria.And so I scanned through the group of names on my screen, from lawyers who had hidden scandals to bird members whose careers I’d rescued. Even a government official who’d conveniently “forgotten” to file paperwork after I made it worth his while. One by one, I composed careful messages
A Deal in Chains
EllenAfter that night at the charity ball, I couldn’t sleep a wink. I paced my penthouse more and more, the lights of the city glowing outside my window while my own mind replayed Aria’s face over and over. The way she looked at me, with that obvious suspicion in her eyes, like she was seconds away from ripping the truth out of me with her bare hands, made me realize she was too close.I’d been careful for so long. Subtle and precise. But maybe I had underestimated her. She wasn’t as clueless as I had hoped. I thought I could keep her in the dark, circle Zion, and take my time. But now she was digging, and if she kept digging, she’d find me. My slip-ups weren’t little anymore. They were cracks, and I had to be careful of that.I pressed my hand to the back of a chair and forced myself to breathe. No, I couldn’t let her get there first. Not now, not ever. I needed to tilt the game back in my favor, and that meant pulling in someone who could do what I couldn’t: scare her, shake her, d
The Unwanted Ally
AriaI thought it would be Pete. When I first saw the car, every part of me was sure it was him even when I walked toward that parked car. The way it sat there in the dark, with its engine humming, and its headlights off, it reeked of Pete’s kind of cowardly theatrics. My pulse was hammering, my palms were damp, but I told myself I could handle him. Whatever this was about. But when the window rolled down, all that bravado died. It wasn’t Pete. It was a face I hadn’t seen in four years. A face I hoped I would never see again.The man leaned into the glow of the dashboard, with a smug half-smile cutting across his face like he’d been waiting for this exact moment. And just like that, my chest felt tight. I was slammed back into memories of alarms screaming, shadows running, the deafening crack of gunfire. These were memories from the Fabergé Egg job. The one that went sideways. The night we barely escaped.I recognize this man because he was the one whose wrath we escaped from that da
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