Liam Pov
I watched the message deliver.
She didn't reply.
Smart girl.
But she read it. I could imagine seeing a shock look on her face. Her screen lit longer than necessary. Her breathing hitched right after, like someone caught on a cctv.
I took another sip of my drink, then turned away from the floor-to-ceiling window where Manhattan skyline blinked in the distance.
She might still be awake, i thought.
Still thinking about me.
Still trembling from the ghost of a single touch.
So was I.
The silence of my penthouse didn't soothe me the way it usually did. Tonight, it felt… tighter. The air thicker. My own body heavier with want I hadn't allowed myself in years.
Alicia Blake was supposed to be a ghost from my past.
Now she was a complication in heels and a silk blouse.
She didn't even know the half of it.
I walked back into my private study, dimly lit, lined with dark shelves and scent of aged leather and secrets. My fingers moved across the biometric scanner hidden beneath the desk.
Click.
A concealed drawer opened.
Inside: two photos, a USB drive, and a single folded document.
The top photo was of her. Taken three years ago. Unofficially.
Her face had changed slightly—cheekbones sharper, jaw more defined—but her eyes? Still too honest. Still too damn soft.
I'd followed her few years when i got luck to see her in London, at a charity event. But she didn't see me.
Not personally.
But I paid someone to.
To make sure she was safe.
To make sure she never came too close to what I was becoming.
She hadn't.
Until now.
Her résumé had landed on my desk two weeks ago. At first, I thought it was a mistake. A cruel coincidence. But the more I read, the more I realized she had no idea who I really was.
No idea that I once disappeared from the bed we both shared at Obsidian club, because I don't want her deep in my world.
No idea that I chose her… and then chose my darkness instead.
And still—here she was.
Working for me.
Letting me touch her.
Breaking under my voice like she does back then.
I sat back in the chair and stared at the screen again.
Her file.
Alicia Blake, twenty-five. First daughter/heiress of Blake Couture. Had a brother, mother, stepsister and stepmother. Top grades. No criminal record. Clean social life. Predictable history.
But what the file didn't say was what I remembered.
The way she tasted of champagne and challenge.
The way she kissed hungrily and desperate, like she wanted to devour something she wasn't supposed to touch.
The way she looked at me like I was already hers.
That girl was back.
Older, wiser, but still breakable.
Still dangerous.
Because Alicia never needed to ask questions to get under your skin, she just existed, and suddenly, you were willing to burn every boundary just to be near her.
That's what scared me.
Not her curiosity.
Not her defiance.
But my own willingness to let her destroy me again.
I pulled up her building's security cam footage, because it was owned by me, but she doesn't know. I bought it immediately i knew she lives there.
And i ask an electrician to install a spy camera, which i can be able to see her. And she and her roommate can't know it's being installed in their apartment.
She was pacing in her tiny Brooklyn apartment, barefoot, hair undone, clutching a glass of water she hadn't sipped in minutes.
She was unraveling.
Already.
Her fingers trembled as she set the glass down. Her brows pinched like she was at war with herself.
She looked stunning.
Even more so when she thought no one was watching.
I should've shut the screen.
I didn't.
Instead, I leaned closer and whispered to the darkness:
"You're already mine again, aren't you, Alicia?"
She couldn't hear me.
But something told me she felt it.
This wasn't just sexual.
It never was.
I had her blood work on file from the company's medical screening. Her genetics triggered something in our system—something I hadn't seen before.
She matched someone from a file buried in KnightCorp's forbidden archives.
A legacy file.
Code: Project Obsidian.
Something experimental. Classified. Dangerous.
I hadn't unlocked it fully.
Not yet.
But I would.
And when I did?
I'd find out what she really is.
Because Alicia Blake wasn't just a blast from my past.
She was connected to something far more powerful than either of us realized.
And I couldn't let her go.
Not now.
Not ever.
At exactly 9:03 p.m., I sent a second message.
Not to Alicia.
To my head of security.
Knight:
Flag Blake's home address. Place external surveillance. I want real-time reports if she leaves the apartment. Discreet only.
The response was instant:
Security:
Confirmed. We'll begin overnight coverage.
I closed the thread and stood slowly, the weight of my choices settling into my bones like old sins.
This was the line.
The one I'd drawn in my own code of ethics years ago.
Don't touch her again.
Don't bring her into my world.
Don't let her see the monster I became.
But I already had.
And the worst part?
I didn't regret it.
Tomorrow at 7:00 a.m., Alicia would walk back into my office with polished lips and a nervous heart, pretending like nothing had happened.
And I'd let her pretend.
Until she begged me not to.
Until she wanted to cross the line with me again.
And this time, I wouldn't stop her.
This time?
She'd come undone under my hands.
And I'd destroy every reason I ever had to protect her.
Because I already broke the rule the day I hired her.
The rest?
Will break on their own.