Chapter 15

Maya’s POV

The office smelled faintly of leather and dusted oak — masculine, sharp, intimidating — just like Zane. His chair still carried the imprint of his weight, his scent clinging to the air like an accusation. I shouldn’t have been there. Every part of me screamed that I shouldn’t touch anything, but my trembling fingers had a mind of their own.

Zane had left earlier for a meeting with Ray. I had exactly one hour before he returned. My pulse thudded in my throat as I closed the door softly behind me, the latch clicking like a gun cocking.

The laptop sat open on his desk, the screen dark. My reflection stared back at me — pale, nervous, desperate. I swallowed hard and brushed my fingers over the trackpad. The screen blinked to life, revealing a desktop cluttered with encrypted folders.

For days, Zane had been taunting me with the knowledge that he had “proof.” Proof of my mistake. Proof that could destroy me. But proof also meant vulnerability. It meant there was something to find.

I hesitated for half a breath, then clicked into the folder labeled “Security – Confidential”. Password protected. Of course.

I bit my lip, thinking fast. Zane was meticulous, but also arrogant. He used small tells — things he thought no one noticed. His passwords were often built around moments that fed his ego. I typed “BlackAlpha21”. Denied. Then “AlphaZane2021”. Denied again.

My hands were sweating now, my pulse racing. I tried once more — “LunaHotel21”.

Click.

The folder opened.

My stomach dropped. Rows of video thumbnails appeared — security feeds, hidden cameras, time-stamped files. I scrolled until one caught my eye: IceHotel_UntitledFootage.mov.

My throat tightened. That night. The night everything went wrong.

With shaking hands, I double-clicked. The footage started — me, in the dim blue light of the Ice Hotel hallway, whispering to the guard, slipping him the envelope. The bribe. My biggest mistake.

But the uncut version didn’t stop there. It showed what came next — Zane emerging from the shadows, his eyes glinting with something dark. He had been there the whole time. Watching. Recording. Setting me up.

My stomach churned. “You bastard,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

The edges of my vision blurred as my mind reeled. This was the leverage he’d used against me. The reason he could blackmail me. The reason I was trapped.

And now, it was in my hands.

I grabbed a flash drive from my pocket — Luna’s idea. “If you ever get the chance,” she’d whispered earlier that morning, “copy everything you can. The truth might save you one day.”

I plugged it in, dragging the file across the screen. The progress bar appeared — Copying: 12%...

Every second felt like a heartbeat too loud.

Thirty-eight percent.

I paced the room as quietly as I could, every creak in the wooden floorboards sounding like thunder in my ears. Outside, the faint hum of the generator buzzed through the air.

Fifty-two percent.

A voice inside me whispered, You’re doing something reckless. Another voice — the braver one — whispered, You’re finally fighting back.

My palms were slick. The room was getting hotter, or maybe that was just my fear. I stared at the progress bar — Seventy-eight percent.

Then I heard it. Footsteps.

My breath hitched. The sound of the front door opening. A low murmur — Zane’s voice, rough and familiar. He wasn’t supposed to be back for another thirty minutes.

I froze.

Eighty-six percent.

The door handle to the office rattled. My body moved before my mind did — I yanked the flash drive out and shoved it into my pocket, snapping the laptop shut just as the door swung open.

Zane stepped in, his dark eyes narrowing when he saw me standing there. His jacket was still damp from the rain outside, his hair falling slightly over his forehead. He looked surprised at first — then amused.

“Maya,” he said slowly, closing the door behind him. “To what do I owe this… invasion?”

I forced a small smile, my heart hammering against my ribs. “I—I was just looking for you. I needed to talk.”

He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. “In my private office? Without knocking?”

“I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Oh, I do.” His voice dropped, smooth and sharp. “Especially when I find you standing near my laptop.”

He glanced down at it — then back at me. His expression shifted subtly, suspicion creeping in like a shadow.

My pulse thundered. I had to think fast.

“I wanted to ask about last night,” I said, my voice shaking just enough to sound believable. “Ray’s been acting strange, and I thought maybe you knew why.”

He stared at me, studying every flicker of my face. “You’re lying.”

The words hit me like ice.

He moved closer, his gaze cutting straight through me. I could smell the faint mix of rain and leather on him. It made it hard to breathe.

“What were you really doing, Maya?” he asked softly. “And don’t insult me with half-truths.”

I swallowed hard. “You’re paranoid.”

His hand brushed against my arm, gentle — too gentle. “And you’re trembling,” he murmured. “So tell me… why?”

I tried to pull away, but he caught my wrist. His grip wasn’t hard, but it was possessive — like he could sense the truth vibrating beneath my skin.

“Let me go,” I said through clenched teeth.

He tilted his head, eyes darkening. “You’re hiding something.”

I forced a shaky laugh. “You really think everything revolves around you?”

His thumb brushed over the inside of my wrist, a deliberate move — intimate and controlling. “No. But I do think you’re bad at pretending.”

He reached past me and opened the laptop again.

My breath stopped.

The screen blinked on. The folder was still open. My heart plummeted to my stomach.

For a moment, Zane didn’t say anything. His eyes scanned the file names — the very same ones I’d scrolled through minutes ago. When his gaze landed on IceHotel_UntitledFootage.mov, his jaw tightened.

“Maya,” he said quietly. Too quietly. “What did you see?”

I tried to answer, but my throat was dry.

He turned to me slowly, his expression unreadable — but the danger in his eyes was unmistakable. “Tell me the truth,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “or I’ll find another way to make you talk.”

My fingers brushed against the pocket of my jeans where the flash drive burned like a secret. I met his eyes and forced myself to breathe. “Maybe I saw enough to stop being afraid of you.”

His gaze darkened — and then he smiled, a slow, dangerous smile that made the room feel smaller.

“Good,” he murmured. “Then let’s see how brave you really are.”

He took a step forward, closing the distance between us, his hand reaching out toward my pocket —

The door burst open.

“Zane!” Ray’s voice cut through the air, sharp and commanding. “We need to talk. Now.”

Both of us froze.

Zane’s hand stopped inches from my side. His expression flickered — fury, calculation, restraint — all tangled together.

He exhaled slowly, then turned to face Ray. “This better be important.”

Ray’s eyes darted between us, confusion flickering across his face. “It is,” he said tightly. “Because Luna just found something in the east wing. Something about the Ice Hotel.”

Zane’s body went still. My breath caught.

“What did she find?” he asked.

Ray hesitated. “A bloodstained envelope.”

Zane turned sharply toward me, his eyes blazing.

And in that moment, I knew—

The real hunt had just begun.