I never ask for names.

Not in hotel rooms like this, where secrets sweat through expensive sheets and pleasure is transactional, clean, and without consequences. That’s the rule. The boundary. My protection.

And tonight was supposed to be no different.

Until her.

She walked in like a storm in red lipstick and black silk. Legs longer than my self-control and eyes that didn’t flinch when they met mine. Not even for a second. I’d barely taken a sip of my scotch before she’d closed the space between us, her perfume wrapping around me like a slow burn—vanilla and vengeance.

She didn’t speak. Didn’t ask for small talk or flirtation. She simply stared at me like I was something she’d waited years to devour.

I was intrigued. Drawn in. Caught like prey that didn’t realize it was bleeding.

Her hand grazed my chest, slow, calculated. I caught her wrist.

“You sure?” I asked, voice low.

Her response was a breath against my lips. “Don’t speak. Just… take.”

My pulse jumped. That should’ve been the first red flag.

But I’ve never been good at walking away from things that smell like danger and look like sin.

The moment our lips met, the air changed. There was no foreplay—only fire. Her kiss was hot, messy, and demanding, like she already owned every inch of me and just came to collect. My hands found her waist, her ass, her thighs, pulling her against me so hard she gasped—but even that sounded like a dare.

Clothes fell like dominoes. Her dress slipped off her shoulders, slow, elegant, as if she wanted to savor the look in my eyes. Lace underneath. Black, barely-there, and meant to be peeled away.

“Bed,” she whispered.

“No,” I muttered. “Right here.”

I lifted her, pushed her against the floor-to-ceiling glass window. The city twinkled behind her—cold and distant. But in here, it was heat and friction and a rhythm that felt too familiar.

She wrapped her legs around me like she knew me. Her body responded like muscle memory, her nails scoring my back, her breath hot against my neck.

It wasn’t just sex. It was something else. A silent storm, a message my body couldn’t decode.

She moved like she’d imagined this moment a thousand times—but not as fantasy. As punishment.

I drove into her with everything I had, chasing the high, the silence, the release.

Her moans weren’t soft. They were war cries. Victorious. Broken.

And when she finally came, trembling and gasping my name, I swear I felt her shatter. Not from pleasure. From something deeper.

“Dominic…”

The way she said it—too slow, too deliberate—should’ve rung every alarm in my head.

But I was too far gone.

Consumed by the scent of her skin.

By the strange ache crawling up my spine.

We collapsed together, tangled in sweat and sheets. I barely blinked before sleep stole me, heavy and dreamless.

When I woke, she was gone.

No note. No trace. Just the faint warmth on the pillow beside mine.

I sat up, rubbing my temples. The air felt too quiet. Too still. Like something had been stolen from me in the night.

It’s not unusual. Women come and go. One-night stands don’t bother with thank-you's.

But something about her… lingered.

I searched for her name in the hotel system. Nothing. She wasn’t even registered under a room. She had slipped in like a shadow and disappeared like smoke.

For weeks, I tried to shake it. Buried myself in work. In meetings. In meaningless sex that tasted like ash. But every night, I saw her. Felt her.

And I hated that I craved it.

I hated that I kept going back to that night in my mind, rewinding it, trying to understand the look in her eyes. Not hunger. Not lust.

Hurt.

And something more dangerous.

Knowledge.

She knew who I was. That much I was sure of now. But I didn’t know her. Not even her name.

Until two months later.

When the new executive assistant walked into my office—flawless, composed, unreadable—and smiled like she’d never tasted me, never whispered my name, never disappeared without a trace.

And I realized…

She hadn’t left me behind.

She was just getting started.

I didn’t cry after leaving that hotel room.

Tears were for the old me.

The one who believed in justice, who believed in truth.

The one who believed people like Dominic Blackwell didn’t walk away from tragedies untouched.

But I knew better now.

Last night wasn’t about pleasure. It was a transaction. A test. A taste of how far I’d go to make him pay.

And he failed.

Beautifully.

My heels clicked across the pavement as I left the hotel, head high, heart armored. I didn’t dare look back. Not when my skin still hummed from his touch. Not when his scent clung to me like a memory that refused to be washed away.

The city glowed around me—lights blurring into gold and crimson streaks against the early morning haze. I pulled my coat tighter and ducked into the nearest cab, ignoring the way my hands trembled in my lap.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

I hesitated.

“Home,” I whispered.

A lie.

Because I didn’t have a home anymore. Not since Elara died.

Her apartment had become a mausoleum of unopened letters and abandoned dreams. Her baby’s tiny shoes still sat by the door. Her scent still lingered on the blankets. And every time I walked in, it felt like I was breaking into a memory I didn’t deserve to keep.

I pressed a hand over my chest, as if I could stop the ache by force.

But the pain had learned to live with me.

Like a second skin.

My phone buzzed.

A single photo stared back at me. Elara, three months pregnant, beaming in her lab coat as she held a sonogram picture in one hand and a cup of noodles in the other. Her silly cravings. Her soft giggles. Her endless faith in a world that betrayed her.

A world led by men like Dominic Blackwell.

She worked under his hospital’s wing. She’d been silenced when she filed a complaint. Harassed. Branded a liability. Terminated with no explanation just days after disclosing her pregnancy. The official story painted her as unstable. Irresponsible.

The truth?

She was destroyed.

Her car veered off the road a week later.

The autopsy said stress. Fatigue. Emotional distress.

I said murder.

And now, she was gone.

But her daughter wasn’t.

Hope.

My niece. My responsibility. My only reason for holding it together. She was barely two now—chubby cheeks, big eyes that reminded me too much of Elara’s. She deserved more than lullabies and broken promises. She deserved justice.

That’s why I built a new identity.

I trained for this. Learned the lingo. Faked the documents. Played the game until it felt natural. Until “Ava Monroe” became more than a disguise—it became a weapon.

I became everything Dominic wanted.

And last night, I gave him a piece of me… just enough to haunt him.

Because now, step two begins.

The glass tower of Blackwell Enterprises rose into the sky like a symbol of greed polished into perfection. I stood beneath it, my reflection warping in the lobby doors as I adjusted my blazer.

Confidence. Power. Control.

I walked in with the grace of a woman who had never known fear.

“Ava Monroe,” I said at the front desk. “New executive assistant to Mr. Blackwell.”

The receptionist blinked, typed, and blinked again.

“Um… Yes, right. You’re on his list. Floor 48.”

Perfect.

The elevator ride felt like a countdown. My heart didn’t race. It pulsed in slow, deliberate beats. I thought of Elara. Of Hope. Of Dominic’s hands on my skin, the way he looked at me like I was a puzzle he wanted to solve.

Well, let the game begin.

The doors opened.

He was standing by the window, back to me, looking down at the city like it belonged to him. The black of his suit, the sharp cut of his jaw, the command in his posture—it should’ve scared me.

It didn’t.

He turned. His eyes locked onto mine.

And for a moment… he didn’t breathe.

Good.

“Mr. Blackwell,” I said, stepping forward with a practiced smile. “I’m Ava. Your new assistant.”

His brows pulled together. “You…”

I raised an innocent brow. “Is something wrong, sir?”

“You look familiar.”

“I have one of those faces.”

He didn’t buy it. I could see the wheels spinning behind his eyes.

But I didn’t flinch.

If he wanted answers, he’d have to work for them.

Just like I had.

Because this time, I’m not the one who’ll be left in pieces.

There’s something about her.

From the moment Ava Monroe walked into my office this morning, something in me snapped to attention. I don’t mean the kind of attention I give during board meetings or when the stock drops two percent overnight. I mean the kind where your instincts start whispering—not just in the back of your head, but down your spine.

Like prey recognizing a predator in disguise.

She’s beautiful, yes. In the kind of way that makes men reckless. But there’s something more beneath the red lipstick and calculated glances. Something familiar. Dangerous.

And I don’t believe in coincidence. Not when it walks into your company with a forged resume and a name that barely exists.

I let her talk. Let her settle in, play the obedient role. But I watched her like I watch my competitors—waiting for the crack in the performance.

It never came.

But I know what I felt. And I never ignore my gut.

That night, I returned to my penthouse, tension simmering beneath my skin. I didn’t pour a drink. Didn't loosen my tie. I went straight to my secure terminal, the one no one touches but me. Even my head of security doesn’t have clearance for it.

I keyed in my code, thumbprint, retina. The screen unlocked with a low chime.

> Search term: Ava Monroe.

The profile came up faster than I expected.

Clean. Too clean.

No public records before two years ago. No family. No past employment that checks out. The name is real, sure—but the person behind it isn’t. Not in the ways that matter.

I’ve seen identities built from scratch before. But hers was... intricate. Meticulously planted. She’d even gone to the trouble of generating dummy hospital badges, years-old email threads, and a social media presence that looked organic.

She hadn’t just appeared—she’d been preparing.

So who the hell is she?

I opened a secure thread with my private investigator.

“Pull everything you can. Quietly. Full workup on Ava Monroe. Run image recognition from this footage—hotel exit, March 18, 4:47 A.M.”

I attached the file, expecting a smug sense of control. Instead, I felt a flicker of something else.

Dread.

Because deep down… I already knew.

Arielle’s POV (intercut)

He doesn’t know I was already there.

Not just in his system.

In his cameras.

In his walls.

That night, while he slept like a man with nothing to lose, I hacked through his building’s security.

The penthouse surveillance? Looping on a five-minute delay.

Hallway cameras? Gone.

The garage feed where I slipped out in a cab? Erased, frame by frame.

It wasn’t just about slipping away. It was about erasing the memory of my presence from every wire and sensor in his world. I didn’t just want to disappear. I wanted him to doubt he ever saw me in the first place.

Let him chase a ghost.

Let him fall for the illusion, then drown in it.

But now… he’s digging. I saw it in the encrypted chat logs on his terminal. The investigator he hired is real. Thorough. One of the best.

Too bad I’m better.

He’ll trace me to Ava Monroe.

He’ll find her—the librarian in Seattle, soft-spoken, allergic to shellfish, likes knitting.

Not me.

But then… as I dug deeper into his private server, I found something else.

A folder tucked behind layers of encryption.

Elara Winters – Confidential.

My sister.

I froze, breath catching in my throat.

She was supposed to have died in an accident. That’s what they said. The reports. The headlines.

But this… this wasn’t public data.

This was personal.

Files, medical scans, email threads flagged “internal only.”

One line in particular made my heart stop:

Subject: Elara's whistleblower claims – potential internal cover-up. Sensitive.

My blood turned to ice.

He knew.

Dominic Blackwell knew something back then. Maybe everything.

Had he tried to help? Or… was he the one who buried her story before she died?

I stared at the folder, hand hovering over the keys.

I could open it.

I could learn everything.

But once I crossed that line—he’d know someone breached him. He’d start locking things down. Asking questions. Looking at me with more than suspicion.

And if he finds out who I really am, this game becomes something else entirely.

War.

Dominic’s POV (resumes)

The PI pinged me late that night.

“No flags yet. But I’ll keep digging. This one’s buried deep.”

Of course she is.

Because she wants me to find her… just not all of her. Not yet.

I looked at the grainy hotel photo again. Her face turned away, hair falling like ink over her cheekbone.

I should’ve deleted that image. But something stopped me.

She’d slipped away before dawn like a secret.

But secrets always leave traces.

And I always find them.