The kiss was war.
Not romance. Not surrender.
It was a clash of two storms pretending to be skin.
Damien's mouth moved over hers with the precision of a man used to getting what he wanted — but Emilia didn't yield. She kissed back like she had nothing to lose, like she had already read the ending and had decided to rewrite it with her own blood.
When they broke apart, he didn't smile.
He looked at her like a question he couldn't answer.
Like she might just be the final reckoning.
"You don't know what you've started," he said, voice like cracked obsidian.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes glinting. "Then show me."
---
They didn't sleep.
Not that night.
Not the next.
They didn't talk about the photos. Or the message. Or the names scribbled behind locked drawers. They played house in a mansion built on ruins. Ate dinner in silence. Shared space like strangers.
But his eyes never left her.
And when he thought she wasn't looking, he watched her like a man checking for cracks in the walls.
---
Three days later, the package arrived.
Unmarked. No return address.
Inside: a flash drive.
She plugged it into her laptop on the balcony, heart a hammer behind her ribs.
The video was grainy, security cam footage. The timestamp was a year old.
At first: nothing. Just the hallway outside Damien's west wing. Then—
A woman.
Running.
Hair wild. Mouth open. A scream caught in silent footage.
Annabelle.
A man followed.
It wasn't Damien.
It was someone taller.
Leaner.
Eyes the color of knives.
He caught her by the arm. Dragged her out of frame.
The video cut out.
Emilia sat frozen, hand over her mouth.
It wasn't Damien.
But Damien had lied.
He wasn't the only shadow in this house.
---
She confronted him that evening.
Held out the flash drive like it was a loaded gun.
He glanced at it, then at her. Calm.
"Where did you get this?"
"You tell me who that man is, and I'll tell you."
His jaw clenched. Just briefly. Enough.
Then: "Vale."
The name was a knife.
"You said he was just a business rival."
"He was more than that to her."
"To Annabelle?"
"To all of them."
---
The air between them cracked.
"Tell me the truth," she said. "No riddles. No games."
Damien looked at her, and something inside him wavered.
"Vale collects people," he said. "Women. Information. Leverage. The kind that disappears quietly when it's no longer useful."
"And you're just what? The safer option?"
He stepped closer, voice low. "I was the only one who made them sign the contract. The only one who gave them a way out. Even if it cost them everything."
"But not their lives?"
"Not their names."
Emilia stared. "So you knew Annabelle tried to run."
"I knew she wouldn't make it far."
The silence that followed was endless.
She turned to walk away.
But his voice caught her before she reached the door.
"You're not like them, Emilia."
She stopped. "Don't flatter me."
"It's not flattery. It's a warning."
---
That night, she couldn't sleep.
She lay awake with the flash drive tucked under her pillow and the name Vale echoing in her mind.
At 2:00 a.m., she received another message.
From the same anonymous note app.
This one shorter.
Colder.
He's coming back. Don't be here when he does.
No name. No sign-off.
Only terror.
Because this time, Emilia believed it.