Chapter 7
414words
The apartment was deathly silent. Only the city's eternal neon glow cast shifting shadows across the walls. My body felt like ice, but my mind burned like wildfire.
Ten years.
For ten long years, I'd transformed myself into the perfect instrument of revenge. I abandoned my name, my past—everything. I studied like a madman, trained like a spy. I thought I'd seen through every piece on the chessboard.
But I was wrong.
I always thought I was the hunter, never realizing I'd been part of someone else's game all along. Damian Blackwood… he isn't my tool, much less my enemy. He's my only, irreconcilable… ally in this world?
The very thought made my head spin.
What now? Come clean to him? No, impossible. There's zero trust between us. I invaded his system and pried into his deepest secrets. In his eyes, I'm just a dangerous intruder with unclear motives.
I need to rethink everything. Each step must be—
Just then, my laptop screen flickered.
A shrill alarm I'd never heard before sliced through the silence. My heart seized in my chest.
It was the signal from my implanted "Trojan Horse." Not just any alarm—this was the highest-level "self-destruct" alert. Someone was forcibly removing my program.
He found it!
Impossible! I erased every trace!
I lunged at the computer, fingers flying across the keyboard, desperate to regain control. Too late. My commands vanished into the void. My backdoor program was being dismantled from within by a stronger, more dominant force. Like a bomb disposal expert, he was precisely cutting every wire.
Then my screen went black.
A second later, a familiar logo illuminated the center—the "Styx Power" emblem, an ouroboros snake encircling a sword.
Then Damian Blackwood's face filled my entire screen.
He wasn't using video conferencing software—he was capturing images directly through my webcam. He appeared to be in his office, the night sky his backdrop. His face showed nothing, but those eyes… they pierced through the screen, pinning me in place.
He'd used my own backdoor to hack me.
My blood turned to ice.
He was looking at me. Seeing me sitting in my dark apartment. Seeing the undisguisable shock on my face. Seeing my completely exposed, pathetic true self.
Game over.
His icy voice came through my speakers, each word like an epitaph carved into stone.
"Ilara Nolan… or should I call you by another name?"
"We need to talk."
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