Strings of Seduction
The city's late sun slanted through glass and chrome, painting the Hartwell Academy gates in a warm, lazy gold. Teenagers spilled across the pavement like a glittering tide voices high, backpacks slung, sneakers scuffing polished stone. It should have felt ordinary. It should have felt safe.
But safe was not a word that belonged to me anymore.
Michael's laugh cut through the noise first. He was always loud always alive. He strode out of the crowd with that crooked grin of his, hair a mess, tie hanging at an angle like he'd given up trying to look neat and decided charm would do the work for him. Blake clapped him on the back, Angela tucked a stray curl behind her ear, and the twins Isabella and Allegra floated by like identical storms in designer uniforms. Even from a distance, their rivalry sparked like static.
I watched them, something tender and fierce waking in my chest. He was seventeen and radiant and oblivious to the knots fate would tie around our lives in another timeline. I would not let that happen again.
"Olivia!" Blake called, waving so hard he nearly lost his balance. "You look wow. Way better than last semester."
"You two are impossible," Michael groaned, but he smiled. The sight of him so alive steadied something raw inside me.
Then the black car glided to the curb, smooth and silent as a shadow. Heads turned.
Lily stepped out, framed in luxury. Her heels clicked like a metronome counting off danger; her lipstick was the exact shade of blood. She smiled the way vipers display their fangs beautiful, hungry.
"Sister," she sang, like a bell with a poisoned tongue. "What an unexpected delight to find you here."
I met her smile with a practiced softness. "Lily."
Michael's expression hardened. He moved forward before I could stop him fast muscle and fierce intent. "What are you doing here?"
"Building a future," Lily said, and the sweetness was arsenic. "A Hart never hides from opportunity."
He bristled. "Don't call yourself our family."
My fingers tightened around his arm. "Not here." My voice was low, an edge under velvet. "Not now."
He glared at me fear, confusion, and that brotherly fury that had once been ignored. He hated Ethan. He had always seen the slithering shadow behind that handsome face. He'd said so years ago and I'd laughed; I had been too foolish to hear him. Not again. Not now.
Lily watched him with amusement. Delight flickered over her features at the idea of causing trouble. She loved to stir. She loved to win.
"Ethan," she crooned when he arrived inevitable, perfect, the sun in man-form. He stepped from his car in a suit tailored sharp enough to cut. Heads turned; the girls sighed; boys looked annoyed. He was wealth, charisma, and danger wrapped into one lethal smile.
He saw me and his face shifted in a way I remembered like a bruise soft, owned, adoring. My stomach tightened in a way that had nothing to do with fear. It was adrenaline: the kind that comes before a hunter pounces.
"Olivia," Ethan said, stepping forward. He produced that smile that once tempted me into trusting a dagger. He was unaware of the new calculus I carried in my chest.
"Ethan," I replied, honey-smooth and deliberately warm. If I wanted him to fall deeper, I had to feed the illusion: the rosy laughs, the small sighs, the gentle touches. Let him mistake the act for the truth.
Michael's jaw set. "Why are you still around him?" he muttered, mostly to me.
"Because it's my life," I said softly, with a smile that told him to trust me. He blinked, anger warbling like an untuned violin, but he let go. He trusted his sister to know what she was doing even if, at that moment, he didn't.
Lily took in the tableau: me smiling, Ethan smiling back, Michael scowling. Her lips twitched as if savoring a private joke. "How romantic," she said, venom disguised as mistletoe.
"Shall we?" Ethan asked, his hand offering mine.
On reflex, I let my fingers find his. He pressed a little, as if to make sure I belonged. Heat flared where his skin met mine. The world contracted to the point where only his scent rich citrus and something darker existed. For a heartbeat I remembered everything: silk, blood, the dagger, the taste of betrayal.
Then I smiled wider, because a blade does its work while disguised as a ribbon.
"Dinner," I said, and my voice was syrup.
---
The car's interior smelled of leather and expensive cologne. He drove with one hand, other hand curled possessively on my knee as if the public claim would anchor him. He talked about merger opportunities and social calendars, things that once would have enthralled me. I pretended to be delighted, to hang on every word, to let his ego inhale my attention and grow fatter.
This was theater. It would be perfect because he believed he was the lead.
At the restaurant, he pulled my chair out like a gentleman in a period drama. People glanced. Cameras phones caught moments. I fed them what they wanted: the picture-perfect couple. The knowing smiles, the quick glances. That night, I would let him imagine forever.
We ate. We spoke. He leaned in, cocky, convinced. He liked to show me off. He liked the air of ownership.
"You're luminous tonight," he said, wine tasting the line between compliment and possession. "Sometimes I still can't believe I caught you."
"Oh Ethan," I sighed, folding my fingers around his hand. "I feel so lucky."
He beamed like a man who had discovered a rare gem. He was in love with the idea of me worse, he loved being the man who made the world sit up. Once, I might have been flattered. Now, I cataloged him the jokes he used, the way he leaned, the cadence that meant he was lying.
When he left the table for a call, I watched him through narrowed lids. He was tantalizingly blind. That would help.
"Isabella told me she saw you at the gala," Allegra's voice was in my ear, bright and resentful. She had followed with Isabella earlier two predators with lipstick and grievances. "You were the center of attention, right?"
"Always," I said lightly. The twins were territorial about attention, about status, about anything that moved. Let them squabble over Michael; their petty wars made good background noise.
"And Serena?" Allegra's emphasis was pointed. Of all the school factions, Serena Valentine was the queen bee the twins both hated and wanted to envy. Serena had tried to claim Michael once and failed badly; she loved drama and status and would be shaken by this evening.
"Sleepy," I said with a smile. "Always dramatic."
Blake glanced at me, then at Michael, then back. "You two look like you're in a movie," he said, willingly ridiculous. He nudged Michael, then winked at Angela who hid a giggle behind a shy hand.
Michael's shoulders tensed. He loved the theater of youth but hated the manipulations that came with this older, stepping-world we were entering. He hated Ethan personally. I had seen it had felt it in the way he watched, in the way his hands found fists, in the small protective acts that came from someone who had loved but had been ignored.
He hated the man I would seduce, and his hatred made my plan sweeter: if he hated the man enough, he would never make the same mistake twice.
---
The dessert arrived like a slow, inevitable tide. Ethan watched me eat a chocolate slice as if every bite confirmed his victory. He told an anecdote about a deal he'd closed how he'd gambled and won. He loved risk and reward. He loved to be the man who conquered.
I laughed at the right places. I leaned in just enough so his eyes darkened. I let him think the flame between us had grown brighter.
When the evening tapered, he offered me a ride.
"Come home with me," he said, and the smallness of those words was loaded like a gun.
"Of course," I said. Let him think he'd won everything. Let him feel that dizzy, bloated pride.
He drove like a man certain of victory. The city melted by: storefronts, late-night cafes, neon bleeding into reflection. He took my hand again, low, possessive. "You'll be mine," he murmured. "Forever."
"Forever," I echoed, my voice honey with steel.
Inside, I whispered the truth to the air no one else could hear: *Forever ends the moment I decide it does.*
---
We arrived at his apartment a penthouse that screamed money: wide windows, soft lighting, art pieces that cost more than my past life's bonus cheques. He poured us wine and asked about the merger. I answered with the light flirtation he wanted. He complimented me. I played coy. He watched me as if I were the last thing he'd ever own.
Later, he moved closer and kissed me. Not tenderly possessively. He tasted like the world: sweet, rich, dangerous. My head spun with memories I could not ignore. The dagger. The cold marble. The felt of that night when the world had been clever enough to kill me.
I breathed through the moment, staying present, allowing him to think I was still his. When he fell asleep hands tangled with mine, face slack with trust I lay awake, plotting.
Start small. Cut deep. Make the wound last.
---
The next morning, Michael texted: *She was there, right? Did you see her?* He used no name. He never did with her. He trusted epithets more than people stronger, simpler.
I answered with a photo of a coffee and a simple: *Talk tonight.*
He arrived that evening with the look of someone who'd been holding his anger inside like a hot coal. He didn't need words. He grabbed my hand and the relief on his face when he saw me whole was a hot, immediate thing.
"You okay?" he demanded, fierce and tender. "You didn't… you look tired."
"A long night," I said. "Business meetings."
He growled. "That bastard needs to be dead."
I put a finger to my lips and laughed, bright and meaningless. "Not yet."
He stared at me as if he wanted to peel every layer. He loved me like a brother loves brutally. It flared in his features: the memory of me being taken; the memory of me not seeing; the resentful promise to himself he'd never be weak about again. It was a bond the past had almost broken. I would not let it break again.
"Promise me you'll be careful," he said finally. "Promise me you won't"
"I promise," I told him. The lie slipped out as easy as breath, but it was a lie wrapped in strategy. He believed me because he wanted to.
I held him that night until he drifted to sleep on my shoulder small boy, big soul and I watched him with a tenderness mixed with steel. Protect him, I thought. Protect the life you didn't see the last time. Protect him at any cost.
Because revenge without a heart is hollow. My fists could tear things down, but I wanted him safe at the end of the bloodstained road.
---
Days passed in a dangerous rhythm. I fed Ethan attention in controlled portions, letting him crave more. I let Lily chew at the edges of our relationship like a dog who thought bones were her inheritance. I watched the twins jockey for Michael's attention at school. Blake and Angela's small romance blossomed into a series of ridiculous dares and late-night calls that made Michael roll his eyes and smile at the same time. Serena fumed in the background, her jealousies tossed across hallways like hand grenades. Poe quiet, observant Poe watched from the sidelines with a face that never betrayed the secrets he kept, and Twilight, the hacker whisper everyone half-joked about, pinged little tidbits to a private channel that smelled of espionage.
It was all the noise I needed. Subplots, rivalries, romances humanity in full technicolor kept the world spinning while I sharpened my focus.
Then came the night that shifted everything.
Ethan insisted on bringing me to a charity gala. It was decadent: chandeliers like stars, dresses that swallowed light, and an auction where fortunes were traded like love letters. He was proud to parade me. Lily watched from the balcony, eyes narrowed, hands curled around the railing. She had the look of a woman who'd been slighted publicly.
At the gala, the cameras loved us. He loved how the flash made my skin a smooth, immaculate porcelain. He loved how people glanced and counted us as power. He leaned close and whispered, "Marry me."
It was casually violent. Not a question. A claim.
Around us, the room hummed champagne glasses, applause for an auctioned painting. Lily's breath hitched. Michael's hand tightened on my elbow even as he tried to smile through the shock.
I turned to Ethan a picture-perfect, shimmering mask and I let the slowest, most genuine smile slip across my face. I put a hand over his, warm and intimate.
"Yes," I said.
A hush that was nearly audible passed through the room. Phones rose. Conversations stilled.
Ethan's grin exploded triumphant. He reached into his jacket. For a moment I thought he'd offer flowers or a ring. Instead, he produced a small velvet box and opened it.
Heads tilted. Lily's face went white then sour. Michael's breath hitched. My heart beat steady as a drum.
Ethan's voice spilled like honey. "Olivia Hart. Will you accept my proposal? Will you be mine forever?"
My mouth tasted metallic. The glittering room watched as the world condensed to the shine of a tiny stone and the glitter in his eyes.
I looked at him, and at Michael, and at Lily on the balcony smug, certain, wounded. I looked at the people who trusted me and those who underestimated me.
The velvet box shone in his palm.
I smiled, all sweetness and lethal intent.
"Of course," I said, and the applause began.
Ethan slid the box toward me then, with the whole room waiting he opened the lid. Inside lay not a ring, but a folded card. Ethan's expression flickered. Lily's eyes widened in a way that felt like pain.
On the card, in a slow, cruel handwriting, were three words:
Remember your past.
The murmur in the room changed pitch. Michael's hand went ice-cold on my arm. I stared at the card, at Ethan's face, at Lily's expression that had shifted from smug to savage.
Someone wanted to remind me of a history I had already lived and left behind.
And now, the war had more players than I'd accounted for.