LEVERAGE
POV: Elena Rostova
The morning sun didn't apologize for the violence of the night before; it just illuminated it.
I woke up on the velvet chaise in the master bedroom, my neck stiff, my body entangled in the heavy charcoal blanket. The room was empty. The bed—a sprawling, untouched monolith—lay perfectly made. Silas had slept there, presumably, but he left no trace. No wrinkles. No scent of sleep.
I sat up, clutching the blanket to my chest. I was still wearing his white dress shirt. The cuffs were rolled, stained with a single, dried speck of rust-colored blood on the left sleeve.
Silas.
The memory of the shower washed over me—the heat, the steam, the absolute tyranny of his hands soaping my body. The way I had leaned into him. The way I had begged him to kiss me.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Shame burned a hot path down my throat.
I was falling for my jailer. It was a cliché so old it had moss on it, but the reality was visceral. It wasn't romance; it was a desperate physiological response to safety. He was the wall that kept the wind out. Of course I wanted to lean on him.
But a wall could also crush you.
I stood up. My legs felt steadier today. The shock had receded, leaving behind a cold, sharp curiosity.
The door to the hallway was open. I could hear the distant hum of a vacuum cleaner. The cleaning crews. Erasing the evidence.
I didn't go out. I was in the West Wing. The forbidden zone. And Silas wasn't here.
I have a window, I realized.
My eyes scanned the room. Minimalist. Severe. Nothing personal. No photos of parents, no mementos.
But there was a door I hadn't noticed last night, blended seamlessly into the black paneling near the closet. A biometric pad sat next to it, blinking a steady red.
I walked over to it. I didn't have a fingerprint.
But I remembered something Silas had said in the kitchen on Day One, while lecturing me about security protocols. "Code entry is for emergency redundancy. The sequence is the golden ratio truncated. 1.618."
He was obsessed with geometry.
I touched the keypad. It didn't wake up for a fingerprint. It offered a number pad.
I hesitated. If I was wrong, an alarm might sound. Or gas might fill the room. I wouldn't put it beyond him.
I typed: 1-6-1-8.
The light flickered. Red. Then, with a reluctant chirp... Green.
The lock disengaged with a heavy thunk.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I pushed the door open.
It wasn't a dungeon. It was a file room.
It was small, windowless, and lined with grey steel cabinets. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling—a rare bulb, not a recessed LED. This room wasn't for display. It was for storage.
I stepped inside, the air smelling of dry paper and toner.
I ran my fingers along the labels. PROJECT: SKYLINE.PROJECT: AEON.PROJECT: OMEGA.
Then, a drawer labeled: ACQUISITIONS - PERSONAL.
I pulled it. It rolled open on silent bearings.
Files. Dozens of them. Names I recognized. Senator Hayes.Marcus Hale.Aris Thorne.
He kept dossiers on everyone.
My hand hovered over the tabs. R... R... R...
ROSTOVA, ELENA.
The folder was thick. Thicker than I expected for someone he had only known for a week.
I pulled it out. My hands were trembling, crinkling the manila cardstock. I sat on the floor, my back against the steel cabinet, and opened it.
The first page wasn't a contract. It was a surveillance log.
Dated six months ago. The week my father died.
Subject attending funeral. Observable distress high. Financial insolvency imminent.Asset Potential: High. Literary style: Raw, unfiltered. Vulnerable to structural pressure.
He had been watching me since the funeral.
I turned the page.
Emails. Printed copies of emails between a Vane Holdings proxy account and...
My blood froze.
The recipient was Volkov, Nikolai.
Subject: E. Rostova / Debt Liquidity
Date: October 14th (Three weeks ago)
From: Vane Holdings
To: Volkov Syndicate
"Do not accept the installment plan she offers. Increase pressure. We require the asset to be in a state of critical failure before we intervene. If she feels she has options, she will not sign the NDA. Squeeze her. Use physical intimidation if necessary, but do not damage the hands or the brain."
The world tilted.
I read the line again. "Squeeze her."
He hadn't saved me from the shark. He had chummed the water.
He had instructed Nikolai to terrorize me. He had orchestrated the timeline. The 72-hour deadline, the threat in the alleyway—it was all stage-managed by Silas to ensure I would be desperate enough to walk into the glass cage and sign away my life.
The kiss. The soup. The "protection."
It was all a lie.
He was the architect of my ruin just so he could be the architect of my salvation.
I stared at the paper until the words blurred. The "safety" I felt last night evaporated, replaced by a cold, white-hot fury.
I wasn't a guest. I wasn't even an employee.
I was a building he had condemned so he could buy the land cheap.
I heard the elevator chime in the distance.
He's back.
I should put the file back. I should run to the bedroom, pretend I was sleeping, pretend I was the grateful, shaken little mouse he wanted.
I looked at the file in my lap.
Asset Potential: High.
No.
I stood up. I didn't put the file back. I clutched it to my chest like a shield.
I walked out of the file room. I walked out of the bedroom.
I went to the main atrium.
Silas was there. He was standing by the kitchen island, looking at a tablet. He looked pristine. Fresh suit—grey wool this time. Hair perfect. The violence of last night erased, the blood cleaned from the floor.
He looked up as I entered.
His eyes scanned me. The white shirt. The bare legs.
"You are awake," he said smoothly. "I ordered breakfast. It is on the—"
I threw the file on the island. It slid across the marble, hitting his tablet with a slap.
Silas stopped. He looked at the folder. He didn't flinch. He didn't look surprised.
He looked at the label.
Then he looked at me.
"You entered the secure archives," he said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "That is a breach of Protocol 4."
"You ordered the hit," I whispered. My voice shook, but not with fear. With rage. "You told Volkov to threaten me."
Silas placed his tablet down. He turned his body fully toward me.
"I told Volkov to accelerate his timeline," he corrected. "He was going to threaten you eventually. I simply... optimized the schedule."
"You optimized my trauma?" I screamed. The sound echoed in the vast glass chamber. "You had me cornered in an alley! I thought I was going to die!"
"But you didn't," he said coldly. "You came here."
"Because I had no choice!"
"Exactly."
He walked around the island. He didn't apologize. He didn't look guilty. He looked annoyed that he had to explain the mechanics of his machine.
"You are a stubborn woman, Elena. You have a misplaced sense of pride. If I had offered you the job in a standard email, you would have deleted it. If I had offered to pay your debt out of kindness, you would have refused out of 'dignity.' You needed to be broken before you could be fixed."
"I am not a house!" I backed away as he advanced. "You can't just demo me!"
"I bought you," he stated. "I bought the debt. I bought the risk. Therefore, I own the renovation."
He stopped three feet from me.
"You snoop," he noted. "You find a locked door, and you have to open it. It is your fatal flaw. You cannot leave a secret alone."
"I found proof that you're a monster."
"You found proof that I am efficient."
He reached out.
"Give me the file."
"No." I snatched it back from the counter before he could grab it. "This is blackmail. You conspired with a known felon to extort me. That voids the contract. That voids the NDA."
Silas stopped. A flicker of something crossed his face. Amusement?
"Are you threatening me with legal action, Elena? In my house?"
"I'm threatening to walk out that door," I said, pointing to the elevator. "And taking this file to the New York Times. 'The Architect and the Mob.' That's a better headline than your biography."
The air in the room grew heavy. The silence was static.
Silas stared at me. He was dissecting the threat. Calculating the vectors.
Then, slowly, he smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile. It was sharp, predatory, and dazzling.
"Finally," he purred.
I blinked, thrown off balance. "What?"
"You stopped begging," he said. "You stopped crying. You found a weapon, and you turned it on me."
He stepped closer. I held my ground, though every instinct screamed to run.
"I hate victims, Elena. I told you this. Victims bore me. But an adversary..."
He moved into my personal space. He gently took the file from my hand. I let him take it, too shocked by his reaction to fight.
He tossed the file onto the floor.
"Now we are playing the game."
He grabbed my waist. His hands were un-gloved. Hot.
"You think this gives you leverage?" he asked, his voice dropping to a velvet whisper.
"It gives me a way out," I insisted, though my breath hitched.
"Do you want out?"
He pulled me flush against him. Through the thin cotton of the shirt, I felt the hardness of his body. The expensive wool of his suit scratched against my bare thighs.
"Do you?" he challenged. "Go back to Brighton Beach? Go back to the clickbait? Go back to being nobody?"
"I..."
"Or do you stay here?" He walked me backward until my hips hit the marble edge of the island. He pressed between my legs. "In the tower. Where it is warm. Where you are important. Where you are seen."
"You manipulated me," I said weaky.
"I created a market necessity," he murmured, leaning down. "I needed a writer who understood darkness. I couldn't hire a joyful person. I needed someone who knew what it felt like to drown. So... I pushed your head under the water."
"That's sick."
"It's architecture. To build the Spire, I had to blast through bedrock. I had to displace a million tons of earth. Violence is part of creation."
He gripped my chin, forcing me to look up at him.
"You have the leverage, Elena. You have the file. You could ruin me."
He kissed the corner of my mouth. A soft, tantalizing brush of lips.
"So why aren't you leaving?"
I stood there, trembling. The file was on the floor. The elevator was right there. I could leave.
But I was paralyzed by the monstrous logic of him.
He had broken me to make me fit. And the terrifying part was... I did fit now. The jagged edges of my desperation slotted perfectly into the void of his control.
"I want..." I started.
"What do you want?" He kissed my jaw. "Name your price. We are negotiating."
"I want access," I breathed.
He pulled back an inch. "Define access."
"No more secrets. No more locked doors. No more redacted files. If I'm writing this biography, I write the truth. All of it. The Volkov deal. The brutality. The nightmares."
Silas stared at me. His eyes were like polished chrome.
He was weighing the cost. Total transparency. For a man who lived in the shadows of his own making, it was a high price.
"If I give you the keys," he said slowly, "you cannot close your eyes when you see the monsters in the basement."
"I saw you beat a man half to death yesterday," I said. "I think I can handle your basement."
Silas stared at me for a long moment. Then, he reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a heavy, black magnetic key card. A master key.
He held it up.
"Total access," he agreed. "But know this, Elena."
He pressed the card into my palm, curling my fingers around it.
"Once you see the blueprint, you become part of the structure. You can never leave. Because I do not let my foundations walk away."
"I'm not your foundation," I said, clutching the key. "I'm the demolition crew."
He laughed. A genuine, dark sound.
"We shall see."
He stepped back. He adjusted his tie. The mask of the CEO slid back into place.
"The gala incident is in the morning papers. We have PR strategy meetings all day. You will sit in."
"As what?" I asked. "Your muse?"
"As my partner."
He walked toward the office, pausing at the threshold.
"Put pants on, Elena. You look distracting. And pick up the file. I hate clutter."
I stood alone in the kitchen.
I looked down at the key card in my hand. It was cold. Heavy.
I looked at the file on the floor.
I had come here to write a story about a man. I realized now that I was writing a tragedy.
And I wasn't just the narrator anymore. I was the protagonist.
I bent down and picked up the file. I didn't burn it. I didn't hide it.
I walked over to the trash compactor.
I looked at the evidence of his betrayal. The dates. The orders to hurt me.
I dropped it in.
I pressed the button.
The machine whirred. The sound of paper tearing and crushing filled the silence.
I wasn't forgiving him.
I was investing.
If he wanted to play a game of leverage, I wasn't going to win by running to the police. I was going to win by becoming the one thing he couldn't control.
I turned and walked toward the bedroom to get dressed.
The cage door was unlocked.
And I decided to stay inside.
POV: Silas Vane
I watched her on the security feed from my office.
She dropped the file in the compactor.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
She didn't run. She didn't scream. She destroyed the evidence herself.
She was complicit.
A thrill darker than anything I had felt during the construction of the Spire uncoiled in my stomach.
She thought she was buying access. She thought she had won the negotiation.
She didn't understand.
By destroying the file, she had severed her last tie to the moral world. She had accepted my logic. She had accepted that the end justified the means.
She was no longer an innocent bystander.
She was mine.
I turned back to my screens. The market was opening. The numbers scrolled.
But all I could see was the fire in her eyes when she held that folder and threatened to burn me down.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I needed to break her again. Soon.
Just to see how she would put herself back together next time.