~~ Liach POV ~~
His thigh presses between mine.
His hand on my lower back.
I don't flinch.
But I do calculate.
Distance to the bar cart. six feet.
Time to reach the pen in my pocket. one second, maybe less.
If he thinks I'll crumble under his weight, he hasn't met the girl who carved her first corpse before her first kiss.
His voice brushes my ear. "If I pushed your skirt up right now… would you stop me?"
My pulse betrays me. A twitch. A flicker.
Nothing more.
But he feels it.
And smiles.
I want to peel that smile off his face with my teeth.
Push it.
Give me a reason.
There's a pen in my blazer. I could drive it through your throat and twist. Watch you bleed on this polished floor while whispering how soft your voice sounds now.
You think this is control?
You think I'm cornered?
I was raised in cages, darling. I don't panic in them. I thrive.
His hand shifts on my spine. My skin burns.
Not because I want him.
But because my body still remembers the weight of his thigh last night.
And I fucking hate that.
"You've been playing a very careful game," he whispers. "But the cracks are starting to show."
I breathe slow. Deliberate.
If I open my mouth now, I'll taste blood—mine or his, I'm not sure which.
I want to hurt him.
Not for touching me.
But for knowing how much I liked it.
He draws the word LIAR into the fogged glass like a signature.
He walked to the door.
Leaves me standing in front of myself—reflection, heat between my thighs, fury burning a hole in my chest.
But before I could calm my nerves, my fist found the mirror.
And all I can think is.
Next time, I'll bring the blade.
~2:01 AM – CISCO-SECURED APARTMENT~
I sit on the floor with the encrypted hard drive in my lap. Naked. Cross-legged. Calm.
Blood's already drying under my fingernails.
The apartment is quiet—nothing but the low static hum of the city outside. It almost feels like silence.
But my head is screaming.
it's calculating.
Sinveer De Luna is starting to own pieces of me. I feel it in the way my breath catches when he speaks. In the way my legs betray me under his gaze. In the silence that followed when he whispered, "You've been playing a very careful game."
He's not wrong.
But I haven't played deep enough.
Until now.
~2:08 AM – De Luna Archive Echo File - Tier 2 Systems Access~
I crack the firewall in under six minutes. Reroute it through a shell account Salena taught me to bury.
One by one, I start pulling names:
Financial third-party shadows
Overseas laundering routes
Courier switches
Armory vendors
The system pings when I find something tagged "S-Class - RED Vault Candidates."
Sinveer's private warboard.
Three names are highlighted.
One has a star.
Carlos Juno.
Mid-tier broker. Smart enough to climb. Not smart enough to shut up.
He's been tracking shipments that don't exist on the official ledgers.
Stuff even Rigo doesn't have access to.
I save everything to a ghost drive.
Pull the logs.
And text a Cisco runner: "Pick-up. Level 4 asset. 1hr."
Then I slip into black again.
3:24 AM – Marina District – Surveillance Position
The SUV is running silent. Masked plates. Cloaked windows. I'm watching Carlos through the building's thermal cam. He's drunk again. Alone. Predictable.
He exits the warehouse with a limp and a flask. Always the same limp. From a deal gone wrong in 2019. I know. I was watching.
He stumbles.
I count his steps.
Wait for the blind spot between lampposts.
Then I move.
No hesitation.
No sound.
No pause between inhale and violence.
My hand wraps around his throat before he even knows what city he's in.
I slam him into the wall—hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but not enough to kill.
Not yet.
I want him aware.
I want him afraid.
"I—I work for Mr. De Luna—"
I tighten my grip. "Good."
My blade slides between his ribs, flat side first. A warning.
"Tell me about the shipments."
"I—I don't—"
I jam the blade higher. Not a puncture. Just a taste.
"Lie again and I'll hollow out your stomach while you're still blinking."
He breaks.
They always do.
He gives me everything—port codes, courier codenames, even a name Sinveer flagged under an alias. It's beautiful.
It's leverage.
And now that I have what I need—
I make it hurt.
Two slices behind the knees drop him to the pavement. He shrieks. I cover his mouth. Not for mercy—just to savor the panic.
Then I lean in, breath brushing his ear.
"This isn't about Sinveer."
"This is about me."
"I want him to bleed. And you were a good start."
Then I cut out his tongue.
Because fuck symbolism.
Some things just deserve to hurt.
He dies six minutes later—longer than most.
I drag his body into the shadows, prop him against the brick like he's passed out.
Then I write the word "Mine" beside him in his own blood.
Let Sinveer wonder who the message is for.
Let him guess if it's about territory…
Or something else.
Let him feel owned.
~4:03 AM – Apartment – Encrypted Transfer Complete~
I upload the files to the Cisco secure link. The ones about Sinveer's S-Class ports. The secret armory fund. The internal blackmail files buried under pet project names.
Gabriel will know what to do with them.
But I keep one copy for myself.
Insurance.
Control.
Legacy.
~4:17 AM – Shower – Lights Off~
The water's hot, but not scalding. I'm not punishing myself tonight.
I hum something low. Haunting.
A waltz my mother used to play when she still had fingers that didn't shake.
I wipe the blood from my thighs. From my collarbone. From the blade.
And when I breathe this time—
It's even.
Tonight, I carved my name into his world.
And I'm not done yet.