The tension at Stone Industries was thick enough to choke on.
Arielle stepped into the marble-and-glass mausoleum the next morning, her mind a fractured reel of Damian's lips, his voice, and the stark, digital warning on her phone. The kiss was a brand, the message a shard of ice in her veins. She'd spent the night caught between them, sleep a distant country. Now, her hands betrayed her with a faint tremor as she clutched her tablet, her face arranged into a mask of normalcy she didn't feel.
The mask was pointless.
The air shifted as she walked. Heads, bent over monitors, lifted. Conversations in the open-plan clusters dipped into silence, then resumed as hushed, urgent whispers. Eyes followed her not with curiosity, but with a sharp, clinical interest. People moved out of her path just a little too quickly, as if she were radiating a contagion.
Something was off.
She reached her desk, a sleek curve of white oak in a row of identical stations, and her blood ran cold. Half her project files bore the sinister icon of corruption. Calendar notifications pinged meetings she'd scheduled had been moved to conflicting times or simply deleted. And there, flagged in red, an email sent from her own address to the CFO and the compliance board, timestamped from last night, approving a vendor contract she'd vehemently opposed. The figures were wrong. The risk was catastrophic.
"What…? No, no, no."
Panic, acrid and swift, climbed her throat. This wasn't a mistake. It was precision demolition.
Before the wave could crest and drown her, a hand settled on the high back of her chair. It spun her around, a slow, deliberate revolution.
Damian.
He loomed over her, a silhouette against the sterile office light, his presence absorbing it, casting his own cooler, darker shadow. His eyes were chips of obsidian, glinting with a sharp, dangerous knowledge.
"Arielle," his voice was a low vibration meant only for her, "why didn't you call me?"
She swallowed, her throat dry. "I didn't want to bother you." The excuse sounded pathetic even to her.
His jaw tightened, a subtle flex of muscle. "You think you're a bother to me?"
He leaned down, planting his hands on the arms of her chair, caging her in. The world narrowed to the space between them, crackling with a live-wire tension. The scent of him sandalwood and frost wrapped around her.
"You're under attack," he murmured, the words a secret against the hum of the office. "Someone is systematically targeting your work. Your position. Your reputation."
Arielle's breath hitched. "Who would do that? I'm nobody."
A humorless, icy smile touched his lips. "You're connected to me. And there are people in this building who know they can't get to me directly." His gaze held hers, relentless. "So they go through you."
The truth of it was a physical blow, a tight, painful squeeze in her chest.
"I'm fixing it," he said, each word a promise forged in steel. "Every corrupted file. Every falsified report. Every attempt to shift blame onto you is being rerouted." He straightened slightly, but his voice dropped another deadly octave, meant to carry to the listening ears she now felt all around them. "She is under my direct supervision. Any failure is a failure of my division. The blame lies elsewhere."
She is under my supervision. The words were professional, but the undercurrent was pure possession. She's mine to protect. Her pulse stuttered, tripping over the raw authority in his tone.
He reached out then, his movement deliberate. His fingers brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. The touch was fleeting, but his fingers lingered against her skin a moment too long, a whisper of heat against the cold dread inside her.
She shivered.
"There are thirty-seven cameras on this floor," he murmured, his eyes scanning her face. "I've already accessed the feeds."
"Accessed?" Arielle blinked, reality bending. "Damian, that's that's illegal."
"Necessary," he corrected, his gaze dropping to her lips, lingering there until her own parted on a soft, involuntary breath. "You are not safe here unless you are close to me."
Why did every step toward him feel like a step into deeper, more intoxicating danger?
He took her hand, his touch surprisingly gentle. His thumb traced slow, hypnotic circles on the delicate skin of her inner wrist, where her pulse hammered a frantic rhythm.
"Arielle," he commanded softly, "look at me."
She did. She was helpless not to.
The air thickened, grew heavy and electric. The memory of the kiss hung between them, a tangible, aching thing. Their faces were inches apart. She could see the flecks of silver in his grey eyes, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. Heat, undeniable and potent, rolled in the scant space between their bodies.
"I shouldn't want you here," Damian whispered, the confession raw, torn from him. "I shouldn't want you at all."
Her heart thundered against her ribs. "Then tell me to go," she whispered back, a challenge and a plea.
His eyes darkened, swallowing the light. "I can't."
Their hands remained intertwined, a tether. She felt herself leaning in, drawn by a gravity she could no longer resist. He was closer, his breath mingling with hers
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound was like glass shattering on tile.
Jenna stood at the entrance to the cubicle bay, a stack of folders in her arms. Her bright, efficient smile faltered as her gaze bounced from Arielle's flushed face to Damian's imposing form, still leaning over her chair. "Arielle? You oh." She blinked, rapidly reassessing. "Sorry, did I interrupt… something?"
Arielle jerked her hand back as if scorched. Damian straightened in one fluid motion, his expression smoothing into an impassive mask, the vulnerability of a second ago vanishing as if it had never been.
"No," he said, his voice cool and level, the CEO addressing an employee. "You didn't."
But his eyes, as Jenna nervously approached and began discussing a deadline, never left Arielle. They held a promise, and a warning.
The hours bled together, each one a lesson in paranoia. The feeling of being watched never left her; it prickled on the back of her neck, a sixth sense screaming. Every time she turned, a colleague glanced hastily away. Every keystroke felt monitored. Every email notification made her stomach clench into a cold knot.
By the time the office began to empty, the tension had coiled into a hard ache between her shoulders. All she wanted was to escape the gilded cage. She shoved her few personal items into her bag a lip balm, a charger, a half-read novel.
As she slung the bag over her shoulder, something fluttered from its front pocket, spinning to the floor.
A photograph.
Arielle froze, her breath locking in her chest.
It was old. The edges were softened with time, the colors faded to muted blues and yellows. It showed a couple, smiling in dappled sunlight, holding a little girl with dark, curly hair between them. Her parents. Holding her. A birthday, maybe. A good day. A before day.
Her vision blurred, the world tilting on its axis. The air left her lungs in a ragged, silent gasp.
But it wasn't the ghost from her past that made her knees buckle.
It was the note paper-clipped to it.
A single line, scrawled in jagged, aggressive handwriting, the ink dug deep into the paper:
This is just the beginning.
A sound, a whimper of pure terror, escaped her. Her hand flew to her mouth as she stumbled back, hitting the edge of her desk. The photograph trembled in her hand.
This wasn't about work. This wasn't about corporate sabotage.
Someone knew her past. Someone knew about the car accident that wasn't an accident, the tragedy that had shaped her life. Someone knew about her parents.
Someone knew exactly how to break her.
Arielle clutched the faded photo to her chest, the paper crinkling in her shaking grip. The office around her, once just sterile and imposing, had transformed. The silence was no longer empty; it was watchful, predatory. The long shadows cast by the dying sun through the blinds seemed like bars. The darkness in the corners felt alive.
The soft hiss of the air conditioning became a sinister whisper. The distant ping of an elevator was a threat.
Someone was coming after her.
Not just her career. Not just her reputation.
Her. Her history. Her heart. The shattered pieces of a little girl who had lost everything.
And this time, it was terrifyingly, brutally personal.