Chapter 2 Two

• Sera’s legs nearly gave out.
• The phone screen burned into her mind Elise, unmistakable. A candid shot, wind in her hair, city lights behind her, alive. The exact kind of photo you didn’t take of a dead woman.
• She looked up. “Where did you get this?”
• Lucien didn’t blink. “That’s not the question you should be asking.”
• Her throat tightened. “What does that mean?”
• “It means,” he said, slipping the phone back into his pocket, “if you’re going to keep asking the wrong questions, you’re going to stay lost.”
• He turned his back to her.
• Just like that.
• Like showing her proof her sister was alive wasn’t the beginning of a conversation, it was the end of one.
• “You can’t drop that and walk away,” she snapped. “Where was she? When was this taken? Who took it?”
• Lucien poured a glass of something dark from a decanter near the desk. “Sit down.”
• “No.”
• He turned back to her, glass in hand, completely composed. “Then don’t. But I suggest you lower your voice. You’re not as invisible as you think.”
• Something about the way he said it made her glance toward the corners of the ceiling.
• She spotted them now. Tiny, seamless.
• Cameras.
• Of course.
• “You’re being watched?”
• “We’re being watched,” he corrected.
• He handed her the drink. She didn’t take it.
• His expression didn’t change. “You want to find Elise. I want to make sure the wrong people don’t know she’s been seen. That puts us on the same side.”
• Sera swallowed. “What wrong people?”
• Lucien didn’t answer. Just took a sip of his drink, then set the glass down with a click that echoed too loudly in the stillness.
• “I don’t trust you,” she said.
• “Good,” he replied. “Trust gets people killed.”
• The door behind her clicked open.
• A tall woman stepped in a severe bun, all black, tablet in hand. Security, maybe. Assistant. Assassin. Sera couldn’t tell.
• “She’s clear,” the woman said, not looking at her. “No weapons, no bugs.”
• Lucien nodded once. “Thank you, Mara.”
• Sera stared. “You had me scanned?”
• “Do you think I’d let a stranger this close without knowing everything?”
• Her fists clenched. “You don’t know everything about me.”
• Lucien walked toward her, slow, calculating. “I know your student loans are defaulting. That you were evicted twice in the past year. That you dropped out of Columbia’s journalism program three months after your sister disappeared. And that your last known address was a hostel with no working cameras.”
• He stopped inches away.
• “And now, here you are. Risking everything for answers.”
• She wanted to slap him. Scream. Run.
• Instead, she forced herself to look him in the eye. “So help me get them.”
• Lucien studied her for a long, still moment.
• Then he said: “Stay.”
• Sera blinked. “What?”
• “One week. Here. Under my protection.”
• Her heart stuttered. “Why would I agree to that?”
• “Because whoever took Elise…” He leaned in. “...doesn’t know you’re looking.”
• Pause.
• “And if you keep poking around without understanding the rules, you won’t make it to the end of the week.”
• Silence wrapped around them again, thick as velvet.
• Lucien extended his hand, palm open. Not an offer.
• A deal.
• Sera stared at it, breath shallow.
• Everything in her life screamed don’t.
• But Elise’s face… the timestamp… the chance…
• She placed her hand in his.
• And Lucien smiled.
• But there was no warmth in it.
• Just frost.
• Lucien’s grip was firm controlled, not cruel. But the second her fingers touched his, Sera felt it: the shift. Like something old and dangerous had just been set in motion.
• She pulled her hand back first.
• “I’m not agreeing to anything without details,” she said, pulse ticking in her throat. “What does ‘under your protection’ even mean?”
• Lucien turned, walked toward a recessed panel near the bookshelf, and pressed his palm to it. A hiss, then a door slid open, revealing an elevator behind mirrored glass.
• “It means,” he said, “you don’t leave this building for seven days. You don’t contact anyone. No phones, no internet. My rules, my security.”
• “Prison,” she muttered.
• “Insurance,” he corrected. “Yours and mine.”
• Sera stared at him. “You think I’m a threat?”
• “I think you’re reckless, desperate, and smarter than you let on.” He stepped inside the elevator, held the door open. “And those three things tend to get people noticed by the wrong eyes.”
• She didn’t move.
• Lucien sighed. “You came here for answers, Miss Duvall. They don’t come cheap. They don’t come fast. But they are here.”
• She hated him.
• Not for being arrogant.
• For being right.
• Sera stepped into the elevator.
• The doors slid shut. The hum of motion began. No buttons. No visible floor count. Just mirrored walls and silence.
• He didn’t look at her. “You’re still shaking.”
• “I’m not afraid of you.”
• He turned, slowly. “Good. Because I’m not the one you should be afraid of.”
• Before she could ask what that meant, the elevator stopped.
• The doors opened into… another world.
• Lucien’s private residence.
• It wasn’t cold. It was frozen. White marble floors, black leather furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a glittering city blanketed in snow. The space was sterile, curated. Beautiful, but inhuman. Like no one actually lived here.
• “I’ll have a room prepared for you,” Lucien said, stepping out. “Don’t wander. Don’t touch anything that’s locked. And don’t lie to me again.”
• She followed him through the space, her boots silent on the polished floor.
• “You really don’t trust anyone, do you?”
• Lucien stopped.
• “Trust,” he said without turning, “is something I buy in pieces. And when I’m done, I rarely keep it.”
• He walked away, disappearing down a long corridor that swallowed light.
• Sera stood alone in a place that was too quiet to be safe.
• Then, something caught her eye.
• A glint barely there. Above the archway.
• A camera.
• She turned slowly.
• One in every corner. No red lights. No blinking.
• Always watching.
• And for the first time that night, Sera realized:
• She hadn’t walked into a cage.
• She’d walked into a test.