Zayan 'S POV
The room smells like old money and newer lies.
Glass table. Leather chairs. The kind of boardroom that makes men think iron wills are built on velvet. Damien sits at the head like he invented gravity, Marcus at his right, Daniel a quiet blade at his left. I slide into the chair opposite like I belong there: calm, small, polite. Adam. . Nothing more than a neat signature on paper.
They think they're meeting a buyer. A quiet new player. A curiosity with cash. They don't know they just invited a ghost into the house and handed him the keys.
Damien cracks a smile, that slow, oily grin that's been pasted onto too many faces who never learned to feel shame. He sets the pen down, eyes hunting mine. "We're glad you came, Adam. Let's make this official. Falconridge and Cross — a strategic injection. You want placement, we give deals."
Marcus clicks a folder open like applause. "We'll start with a fund move. Clean flows. You seed, we multiply. Everyone stays happy."
Daniel watches my hands as I fold them together. He's the kind who reads the smallest habits and files them away. He doesn't blink. He doesn't need to. His silence is a meter I can feel.
"Before we sign," I say, voice smooth and small, the sort of tone that makes people lean in because they think they've trapped a lamb — not a blade. "I have a couple of requirements. Standard. Transparency on partners. Full counterparty list. Access to certain ledgers for due diligence. And a clause: any asset moved within our agreed board must have first-refusal rights granted to Falconridge."
Marcus laughs, small and wet with greed. "Due diligence? Adam, this isn't a charity. You fund, we move. Papers, not pages of questions."
I smile, patient. "Transparency speeds things up. People who hide things are slower to profit. I don't like slow."
Daniel nods ever so slightly. He likes quick answers. He respects the man who answers the question he asks. That nod is a tiny prize. People who get it relax. I let them.
The contracts move across the glass. Contracts are beautiful. Contracts are malleable if you know where to press. Damien plays host, sliding the first sheet across like a king signing decrees. Marcus has already hand-delivered the numbers—assets, shell-company structures, nominal holdings. Damien brags soft: Damian holdings, five billion nominal. The words hang in the air like a joke. Five billion is a headline. I file it under "ego."
I flip the pages with measured fingers. The legalese is comforting—boilerplate to the untrained eye. I point at a paragraph, eyes casual. "Add an audit clause. Quarterly checks to an independent auditor agreed by both parties, with access to offshore ledgers for verification."
Marcus's face bounces between amusement and alarm. "Independent auditors? That's—"
"That's standard for a clean move," I say. "I can't commit capital blind. My partners don't like surprises."
Damien watches me, a slow smile curling. "You're a cautious investor. Wise."
Inside my head: their offshore veins. Zurich. Lisbon. Cayman. A dozen names and numbers I don't let slip. The list is already there, coded, mapped. I've taught Adam to be a patient liar. So I play the part: careful, humble, eager to move money, not men.
They sign. Pens scratch like nails on a cheap coffin lid. Marcus goes first, enthusiastic. Damien signs with the kind of flourish that tells me he believes in his own immortality. Daniel's signature is precise, cold. Then it's my turn.
I pick up the pen like I'm penning the future. I trace letters slow, careful—A-D-A-M. It's not my name but it feels good to watch a lie become ink. My hand moves steady. The paper knows my weight.
"Welcome to Cross," Damien says, sliding a glass toward me. "To new ventures."
I don't touch the drink. I keep my hands where they can't be misread. "Thank you. I look forward to…productive collaboration."
They clink glasses anyway. Ritual matters. They bought the show and the show played well.
After the signatures, the talk turns to logistics. Offshore routing, shell rotations, how to mask transfer spikes. Marcus talks like he's reciting war strategy. He loves the details; he thinks technicality equals invincibility. Daniel listens, and his eyes flick to me a few times—testing for panic, for an edge. I feed him small, safe-sounding answers. "We'll route through Zurich banks under trustee names. We'll seed property holdings in Lisbon. We'll utilize a Cayman-based capital vehicle to mask movement."
They nod. They believe the architecture they built themselves will save them. They think structure is armor. They don't know armor can be melted with the right temperature.
When they get to the names of their protectors—Veynar, little known bankers, specific freight firms that babysit shipments—my pulse does a quiet victory lap. Every name is a light switch. Every switch I flip throws the whole room into a different shadow.
"Good," Damien says, satisfied. He leans back, the chair sighing under his weight. "We'll wire the seed fund in three days. You confirm, and we move."
I watch him relax. He's comfortable. That's the worst kind of comfortable.
My mind runs in the way it always does—fast, clinical, bruisingly precise: I will get their lists. I will trace funds. I will make accounts talk. I will locate the writing hands behind the ledgers. Their offshore sanctuaries will reveal themselves like bad teeth when you put pressure to them. I don't just want his money. I want the web. I want the names in bold. I want the men who think their hands are clean.
"Three days works," I say. "Also—one more thing." I tap the clause I added earlier—the one that makes me first in line if Damian moves any asset. "I want an exclusivity period for Falconridge on any asset within the Cross network for ninety days post-transfer. No secondary sales without Falconridge consent."
Damien's smile sours, fractionally. He's not a fool. Neither am I. He's testing whether I mean to own his foot or his shoe. "Ninety days? That's—aggressive."
"Industry standard for risk management," I shrug. "Especially with high-profile holdings."
Marcus snorts. "High-profile is a polite word for risky."
I let that land. Risk is a lever. They've already agreed to sit at the table with someone they think is risk-averse. Perfect.
They argue the clause for a minute—tactics, language, wiggle room. I let them talk. Talk reveals what men hide. Marcus suggests a shorter window. Daniel suggests conditional triggers. Damien tests my patience with thin barbs. I keep my face smooth. I let them feel that I'm flexible. I let them keep cocky. It suits my plan.
We finish the negotiations and the lawyers start drafting the final addendum. Papers shuffle. Phones ping. The room loosens like a neck after a tie comes off.
When they finally move to celebrate—awards, small toasts, the murmured laughter of predators who think they caught the prey—I excuse myself to the restroom. I don't go to pee. I go to breathe. To smile without a camera on me. To let a different kind of calculation slide across my skin.
Inside the bathroom, I lock the stall and pull out my phone. The mask of Adam folds away and my other life slides on: screens, mappings, code names. Falconridge isn't a company. It's an instrument. A delicate scalpel. I open the encrypted line I built for this—dead channels, ghost routes—and send a single packet: request for verification. A polite knock at the servers we're about to touch.
Back at the table, they drink to illusions and sign checks. In my head, I play the quiet tape of everything I'm about to do. I picture the offshore ledgers bleeding into my system like cut fruit: names, account numbers, trustee names. I imagine Izar's quiet approval—if he could see this meeting he'd smile like a blade sheathed in silk.
When I return, the room feels the same. Men are louder now, their voices thick with the bravado of ownership. Damien jokes about legacies, about how men like him can't be touched. His laugh is too bright. I let my smile be small and attentive. I slide back into the chair like a man who wants nothing more than to sign on the dotted line.
As the final paperwork gets couriered and the arrangements are confirmed, Damien pats my forearm. "To fresh starts," he says.
I look at him, down at my hands with their perfectly useless ring finger, the pen in my grip, the lie I'm about to ink into their histories. "To fresh starts," I echo.
They leave the room feeling heavier with confidence than when they entered. They walk out satisfied, convinced they've made a smart call. They leave footprints that will lead me to everything.
After the door clicks shut, I let my face relax into something colder. I won't celebrate. That comes later.
My phone buzzes. The packet answered: a dozen matches. Tiny things at first—an entry here, a shell trust there, a recurring deposit routed through a Lisbon broker, a stock transfer disguised as a consulting payout. Enough to draw lines between shadow and hand. Enough for me to start burning.
I close the folder in my head and sign the last receipt. Adam has bought access. Adam has bought the map.
They didn't sell me money. They sold me their skeletons.
I sit for a second, the ink drying on the contract like a trail of blood you can't wash away. Outside the window, the city goes on: lights, fools, the same old rotations of rot. Inside, I breathe slow and let the plan plate itself into my bones.
They think Falconridge is a net to catch profit.
They haven't met the shark waiting under it.
Tomorrow I'll send auditors through systems they trust. I'll plant tiny anomalies, flagged transfers that look like mistakes. I'll place seeded accounts—backdoors—painted to look like third-party beneficiaries. I'll make invoices talk. I'll blow dust into their engines and watch the gears grind fragile. I'll let them keep thinking they remain kings as I quietly chain their crowns to a timetable.
And when the room that whispers their names looks up and sees the cracks, when the Zurich accounts start shouting, when Veynar's soft-spoken banker in Lisbon finds a subpoena on his desk and the port clerks' phones ring with questions—then they'll finally feel the weight of every second they thought they were above consequence.
They'll breathe panic.
They'll call Damien.
He'll try to squeeze himself into that false god-suit. He'll realize his scaffolding burns.
By then, I'll be somewhere else—Adam, a polite ghost—watching the world he loved collapse in slow, delicious increments. Watching men who think they bought the city learn the price of the silence they bought.
Outside, the valet brings a car. The afternoon sun slants hard and mean through the glass like a spotlight. I stand, straighten, button the cuff that none of these bastards will ever understand could hide a blade.
I walk out with them, shoulders loose, the smallest smirk curling like an ember at the corner of my mouth. I've sold them safety. I've penned their ledger. I've set the trap.
They don't even know the net has teeth. Not yet.
But it will.
And I will watch every single one of them choke on the truth I taught them how to hide.
_________________
— ARSHILA POV
I'm laying on the plant-side couch again. The expensive-ass one. The one he probably imported from some country I can't pronounce just to make the house look less lonely. It's stupidly soft. Feels like the kind of couch you sink into when life's been fucking with you too hard.
The whole wall beside me is plants. Not fake ones—real, tall, green, moody little bastards that probably cost more than my college tuition. They look so perfect it's annoying. Like, who the hell waters them? He doesn't. Obviously. Mr. Tavarian probably has a hidden plant butler somewhere.
I stare at the ceiling, the silence humming loud, and my brain—my traitor of a brain—goes off again.
Kids.
Not mine. Not his. Just… kids.
Like, is there any scientific way to have them without getting tangled in that love bullshit? Because I swear, love is the biggest scam ever created. People lose their damn minds, destroy their dignity, start crying over texts and staring at walls like NPCs waiting for an update. No thanks.
But then—my dumb heart goes, what about his kids though?
And that's where the problem starts.
Because holy shit. His kids would be unfairly beautiful. Like—imagine them. Fair skin, but not the ghostly pale shit, more like that expensive cream tone he somehow naturally has. Those eyes—dark brown, black in the wrong lighting, all serious and deep like they already know they're better than you. That hair that never fucking listens but somehow always looks good. Those eyebrows, sharp enough to slice through self-esteem.
And if they smiled—god help the world—because his smile already ruins lives. His kids would have that. That smug little half-smirk like they were born rich, beautiful, and dangerous.
And maybe—just maybe—they'd have his fangs. The ones he pretends aren't sharp, but I've seen them. I've seen how he bites the inside of his cheek when he's pissed or controlling himself. Yeah. Those. His kids would have them. Little devil teeth. Adorable and terrifying.
And if his girlfriend—yeah, that mystery girl he thinks he's hiding from me—if she's pretty? Then, damn. Those kids are gonna be drop-dead gorgeous. Like, magazine-cover-level pretty.
But that's the joke, right? They won't be mine. Because at this rate, this marriage is a ticking bomb with a pretty wrapping.
I can already see it: someday he'll walk in, say something like, "We should talk," with that calm, emotionless tone he uses when he's about to ruin my whole mood. Then divorce papers. Boom. Just like that.
And I'll pretend I'm fine, sign them, maybe throw one last sarcastic line to make him remember exactly what kind of woman he lost.
But before that—before I walk out of this stupid, echoing mansion—I swear to God, I'll give him one good slap. Not even out of anger. Out of principle. For hiding his so-called girlfriend. For marrying me when he clearly had someone. For looking me in the eyes like he owns the whole damn world but can't give a single honest answer.
He fucking deserves it.
And then I'll leave. Probably take this couch with me too. It's mine now. I claimed it emotionally.
The plants can stay. They match his vibe—quiet, expensive, and fake-alive.
I roll onto my side, fingers playing with the couch fabric. The house is too silent. It's that rich-people silence that feels heavy, like money can't buy noise. My head hurts. My chest's doing that tight, ugly thing it does whenever I try to pretend I don't care.
But I do.
And that's the worst part.
Because I don't actually want the divorce. I want the truth. I want him to just say it—say who she is. Say something.
But knowing him, he'll stay silent. Keep that stupid calm face. Keep playing the perfect husband while I rot in curiosity and anger.
And the fucked-up part? I'd still choose him. Even knowing all this. I'd still fucking choose him.
I close my eyes and imagine his kids again. Beautiful. Cold. Dangerous.
Just like him.
And me?
I'm just the idiot laying on his fancy-ass couch, overthinking her future, wondering how the hell I ended up married to a man who makes breathing feel like a secret I'm not supposed to have.
The air shifts before I even hear him.
Footsteps. Slow. Heavy. Controlled.
I stop messing with the couch fabric and tilt my head up. And there he is—Izar. The house's personal shadow. Always dressed like he's auditioning for a "man who buries secrets for a living" movie.
He doesn't notice me. Doesn't even glance. Just walks past the living room like he's on some classified mission, his shoes making that soft thud-thud sound on the marble.
I squint.
What the hell is he doing?
Because the direction he's going—yeah, that's not normal. That's west wing territory. The "forbidden" side of the house. The side even the cleaning staff pretends doesn't exist. And trust me, when rich people forbid an entire section of a mansion, it's not because the paint's peeling.
I stretch my arm a little, lazy wave. "—"
Nothing. Dude doesn't even twitch. Just keeps walking.
Okay. Rude.
I sit up, legs dangling off the couch, watching him move like a fucking ghost. He's too calm. Too sure of where he's going. Like someone who belongs to a secret I don't.
Suspicion starts crawling through me like caffeine.
He reaches the end of the hallway, right toward that door. That door. The one with the black snake handle curled like it's guarding hell itself. The one the housekeeper told me—so casually, like he was saying goodnight—"Don't ever go near."
Guess what that did? Made me want to go near it even more.
I slip off the couch and start tiptoeing behind Izar, quiet as possible. The marble's cold against my feet. Every step feels like a dare.
He doesn't turn around. Doesn't hesitate. Just walks straight to the door like it's his second home.
My heart's hammering. He stops. Places his hand on the handle. And I swear I see a faint green light blink near the top of the frame—face recognition.
What the fuck.
So it's not just locked. It's secured.
The door clicks open with this soft, expensive kind of sound—like whatever's behind it costs too much to creak.
Izar glances around once, fast. I duck behind a pillar, holding my breath. My pulse is loud enough to give me away.
Then—he goes in.
And the door closes behind him. Automatically. Locks itself.
Click.
Gone.
Just like that.
I stand there for a second, staring at the snake handle. My stomach's doing flips. My curiosity's screaming louder than my survival instinct.
So Izar can go in there. And Zayan can too.
But me? Nope. Not the wife. Not the one living in this goddamn palace. Not the one who probably still doesn't even know where the Wi-Fi router is hidden.
That's it. That's the last straw.
There's definitely something behind that door. Something shady. I don't care if it's a secret lab, a murder basement, or a stupid vault full of his luxury watches—it's something. And I'm not sleeping until I know what the hell it is.
I whisper under my breath, "So, Izar gets a VIP pass, huh? Must be nice being one of the chosen ones."
My mind's already spiraling. What if Zayan's "girlfriend" is in there? Hidden. Like some pretty, soft-voiced secret living behind biometric locks. Hell, maybe he keeps her there like a fairytale gone wrong—Rapunzel with an access code.
I bite my lip, pacing. "No, that's crazy. That's… insane."
But then again, this house is insane. And so is he.
I stare at that door a bit longer. The snake handle almost looks alive in the low light, metal gleaming like it's daring me to touch it.
"Behind that door," I mumble, "is either his biggest secret or my next mental breakdown."
Probably both.
The plants beside me rustle faintly, like they're gossiping about how stupid I'm about to be.
I point a finger at the door, muttering like a lunatic, "You think you can hide shit from me, Tavarian? Game on. I'm gonna find out what's behind you. Even if I have to break in, crawl through vents, or fake a retinal scan."
The silence answers back like a smirk.
Yeah. I'll find out.
Whatever's hiding in there—Zayan, Izar, the snake handle, the goddamn truth—it's mine now.
Because if this marriage is built on secrets, I'm done being the one left in the dark.
One day soon, that door's gonna open.
And whatever's behind it?
I'll make sure it regrets underestimating me.
I grab the snake handle before I can think twice.
It's cold. Too cold. Like it's alive.
I twist it—
and the door beeps.
Not a soft sound.
Not a "hey, careful" sound.
A sharp, mechanical, caught-you-red-handed kind of beep.
I flinch so hard I almost trip on the goddamn marble. My brain goes full chaos mode—oh shit oh shit oh shit—he's gonna fucking kill me—
I bolt. Barefoot. Heart trying to punch through my ribs.
The hallway suddenly feels longer, wider, louder. Every sound echoes—my breath, my heartbeat, my sins.
I dive back into the living room like I'm escaping a crime scene, flop onto the couch, grab a random throw pillow, and just—pretend.
Pretend I've been here the whole time. Innocent. Normal. Totally not trying to break into a biometric door.
My lungs are burning. My hands are shaking.
I try to look casual, like I didn't just almost set off a house alarm. But my chest's rising and falling like I ran a fucking marathon.
I stare at the plants.
They look judgmental. Like, "Really? You thought that was a good idea?"
"Shut up," I whisper.
I smooth my hair down, cross my legs, pick up my phone—acting. Full performance mode. Oscar-worthy.
I even scroll through my gallery just to look busy.
But my heart won't calm down.
Every sound from the hallway makes me freeze. Every creak makes me think it's him.
Zayan.
Walking in.
Finding me here, breathless, messy, guilty.
I swallow hard, muttering under my breath, "Please, God. Not right now. Let him be in a meeting or plotting world domination or something. Just—not now."
My pulse is still racing, a wild drum in my chest. My palms are sweaty. My brain's replaying that beep like it's stuck on loop.
What the hell did I just do?
The air feels heavier now, like the house knows.
Like I crossed a line I wasn't supposed to.
I lean back, forcing myself to breathe slow, pretending I'm just relaxing on the couch, totally chill, totally fine—
when in reality, if that door had a voice, it'd be whispering:
You're in trouble, sweetheart.
__________
See you ,next week 🤍