Chapter 8 – The Blood Window

The room erupted into movement.

Dorian was the first to snap into action, his voice taut with command. “Wipe the drives. Everything on this level is compromised.”

Penelope was already at the panel, fingers flying across the touch-sensitive console. “Initiating purge protocol… Now.”

Behind them, Isolde couldn’t tear her eyes from the center monitor her apartment, her sanctuary, her lie. The man rifling through her things moved like he’d lived there. He knew where to look. What to touch. What to leave untouched.

“Pause feed,” she said sharply.

Penelope hesitated just long enough to raise suspicion then froze the frame.

“Zoom. Desk drawer. That corner.”

The image magnified. A small silver object sat beside the half-open drawer.

A pen.

But not hers.

Isolde’s breath left her chest like she’d been punched.

“He left something.”

Dorian’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

“It’s a tracker,” she whispered. “Modified tech. He used it in London. It’s not just surveillance it’s a proximity signal. It activates when I get close.”

Penelope cursed. “He’s luring you back.”

“No,” Isolde said. “He’s marking the apartment in case I don’t. It’s a fallback. If he can’t get what he wants from me, he’ll stage a discovery, draw in law enforcement, burn the rest of the investigation.”

Dorian didn’t flinch. “Then we get out. Now.”

He moved to the opposite wall and pressed two fingers against an unmarked panel. A narrow shaft slid open, revealing a sloping tunnel lined with industrial steel.

“No security,” he said. “Just concrete and sweat.”

They didn’t hesitate.

Isolde moved first. The tunnel was tight, hot, unlit. Her heels clacked against rough flooring until she kicked them off and ran barefoot.

Dorian followed close behind, his larger frame brushing the narrow walls.

Penelope came last silent except for the quick, clipped commands she muttered into her mic. “Backup team. Seal access. Set dead line. No trace.”

The tunnel stretched far beneath Velvet, deeper than Isolde had imagined. She could feel the city above them the weight of luxury, secrets, power pressing down like a tomb.

Then the air changed.

Cooler. Dirtier.

The exit appeared: a rusted maintenance door pushed outward into darkness.

Dorian forced it open with a groan of metal.

Outside: an alley soaked in storm runoff, the scent of oil and rain thick in the air.

A black town car waited at the curb.

Isolde stopped cold.

“That’s a Velvet car,” she said. “Not one of yours?”

Dorian’s jaw locked. “No. But I recognize the plate. Level Six access.”

“Host’s tier,” Penelope added. “Reserved for hand-deliveries.”

The rear window buzzed down.

A man in a sleek black cap held out a silver envelope.

He didn’t speak.

Dorian approached cautiously, eyes scanning the alley.

He took the envelope.

Inside: a single folded card.

Velvet paper. Handwritten.

You were never alone.

Beneath the note, folded in silk: a red velvet blindfold.

And below that: GPS coordinates. A time. Midnight.

No names. No threats. Just instructions.

Penelope peered over Dorian’s shoulder. “Classic psychological play. Invitation masked as intimacy.”

Dorian closed the envelope. “They want her to come alone.”

“No,” he said to Isolde, voice dropping. “Absolutely not.”

“I have to,” she said.

“They’ll kill you.”

“They’ll kill Vivienne if I don’t.”

Dorian grabbed her wrist not rough, but firm. “You don’t understand. This isn’t seduction anymore. This is war.”

Isolde looked up at him, chest rising and falling with quiet fury.

“Then you should know,” she said softly, “I was never just bait.”

She pulled her wrist free.

Dorian’s voice dropped to a rasp. “If you walk into that car without me, I’ll burn Velvet to the ground myself.”

The driver stepped out, opened the door.

Isolde turned to him. “I’ll go. But only under my terms.”

She took the blindfold.

And got in.

The door closed.

The car pulled away.

Dorian stood in the rain, fists clenched, watching the taillights disappear into the dark.

Beside him, Penelope whispered, “She’s braver than you think.”

Dorian’s reply was a whisper of steel.

“No. She’s angrier than she knows.”

The moment the door clicked shut, silence enveloped her.

Not just quiet manufactured silence. The kind that felt padded, engineered. No city sounds, no engine rumble, only the faint hum of filtered air and leather.

Isolde sat back, the blindfold loose in her lap.

She didn’t put it on.

The car didn’t object.

It moved steadily through New York’s undercurrent no turns too sharp, no stops too sudden. Like a dream being choreographed.

Across from her: an empty seat. But a small, square velvet box rested there, unopened.

She didn’t touch it.

Not yet.

Instead, she stared at her reflection in the window her maskless self, bare and alert. Beneath her ribs, her heart beat like percussion in a score she didn’t know the ending to.

Twenty minutes passed. Maybe more.

Then the car slowed.

Pulled into an underground space.

Soft lights bathed the walls in crimson and white.

A man in a velvet-trimmed uniform opened her door without a word.

She stepped out into a marble hallway, flanked by tall mirrored panels and sharp black sconces casting red light like blood smears.

At the far end: a door. Carved in black glass. No handle.

She approached. The velvet box still unopened in her hand.

The door read her presence. With a soft click, it opened inward.

Inside: a room.

Not large. Not vast.

Red.

Floor, ceiling, velvet-padded walls. Red silk sheets over a chaise, a circular bed surrounded by mirrors. A platform in the center, spotlighted.

A camera lens blinked in the corner.

And on the chaise: the handler.

He was older than she remembered grayer at the temples, thinner, but that same impossible composure. The kind bred in intelligence work, not pleasure clubs.

He stood slowly, brushing nonexistent dust from his sleeves.

“Hello, little bird.”

Isolde stood tall. “You’re real this time.”

“I always was. But now… you’re here without protection. That means something.”

He gestured to the platform.

She didn’t move.

“Sit,” he said gently. “This is just a conversation.”

“No,” she said. “This is a transaction.”

He smiled. “Still clever. Like your sister.”

Her jaw clenched. “Where is she?”

He reached into his jacket. Removed a silver flash drive.

“I’ll show you… but you won’t like what you see.”

He walked to the wall. Inserted the drive into a concealed panel.

The mirror shimmered.

Footage played.

Vivienne.

Months ago.

Alive. Dressed in black silk. Crying. In this room.

The handler stepped into frame.

He knelt before her.

Whispered something.

Vivienne shook her head. Backed away.

He slapped her.

She didn’t scream.

The footage cut.

Isolde’s hands curled into fists. “You bastard ”

“I loved her,” he said.

She laughed. Cold. Shaking. “You owned her.”

“I protected her.”

“You branded her!”

“I would have saved her,” he said, stepping closer. “If she hadn’t run to Dorian.”

Isolde flinched.

He leaned in, voice low.

“That’s why you’re here. Because he will destroy you the same way. Slowly. Completely. And you’ll let him.”

She stared at him. “You have no idea what he’s done for me.”

“No. But I know what he’s done to you.”

He opened the velvet box.

Inside: another poker chip. Black. Not red.

Final Offer – Deliver Blackthorn

Or Lose the Sister You Thought You Saved.

He stepped back.

“You have 24 hours.”

A door opened behind her.

No guards.

Just silence.

He smiled.

“Walk out. Or walk back in.”

Isolde stood, shaking.

But she didn’t look back.

The hallway outside the Red Room was silent, lined with mirrors and burning-red sconces, each one flickering like a low, private warning.

Isolde walked barefoot. Her heels were long gone, her thoughts sharper than ever. Her heartbeat was a drumbeat she couldn’t ignore.

The black poker chip in her palm felt heavier than metal. Its message burned against her skin.

Final Offer – Deliver Blackthorn.

She shoved it into her jacket pocket and pressed forward.

Penelope’s voice echoed in her memory “If anything goes wrong, say the word ‘oxygen.’”

She hadn’t said it.

But something had gone wrong anyway.

She exited the velvet-lined corridor through a frosted door that hissed open like a luxury vault. The hallway beyond was colder, grayer. Less Velvet, more facility.

A stairwell led down concrete, exposed pipework, and somewhere beyond, the sound of elevator cables humming.

She turned the corner and stopped cold.

Dorian.

Gun drawn. Fury in every step.

Behind him: Penelope, winded, tablet in hand, scanning the air for heat signatures and motion.

He saw her.

The look on his face pure, unfiltered need. Not lust. Not possessiveness. Something darker. Protective rage.

“Isolde,” he growled, voice hoarse. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. But he was here. And he’s gone.”

Dorian pushed past her, into the velvet chamber.

Penelope followed, muttering: “No signal bleed. That means the footage we saw… could’ve been days old. Weeks. Preloaded, pre-staged.”

They stormed into the room.

Isolde watched from the doorway.

Empty.

No handler.

No flash drive.

No poker chip.

No velvet box.

Only the bed. The chaise. The camera lens blinking softly above the mirror.

Dorian lowered his gun.

Penelope scanned the room again. “There’s a signal jamming echo here… but nothing broadcasting live. He wasn’t recording you he was watching us.”

Dorian turned to Isolde. “That wasn’t for you. It was for me.”

She stepped into the room, slowly.

“Then he’s watching now.”

Penelope was already back at the door, fingers tapping fast. “No external exits. No elevator logs. This entire setup was built for show. There’s no trace he was physically present.”

“Which means,” Dorian said, stepping toward the center of the room, “we didn’t just fall for a trap.”

He turned to them both.

“We performed in it.”

Just then a panel in the wall opened, quietly, seamlessly.

Inside: a monitor.

Live footage.

Not from Velvet.

Not from the city.

From Dorian’s penthouse.

Lights on. Curtains drawn.

And in the center of the screen: the leather sofa where Isolde had once bandaged her feet after escaping Velvet the first time.

Now, a single item rested on the cushion.

A red rose.

Next to it: the same velvet blindfold.

And behind it, as the camera panned, the unmistakable shimmer of something far more chilling:

Vivienne’s silver necklace.

Isolde’s stomach dropped.

The monitor crackled.

And her handler’s voice whispered, deep and unhurried:

“You always come home in the end, little bird.”

“You opened the blood window…”

“…Now you watch what bleeds.”

The elevator ride was pure silence.

Dorian stood like a statue, back to the doors, fists clenched so tight the bones in his knuckles whitened.

Isolde didn’t speak.

Neither did Penelope.

The only sound was the distant hum of altitude the soft rush of luxury as they rose toward the penthouse above Manhattan. The world below them was full of cameras, velvet masks, broken secrets.

But the real war had moved upstairs.

Floor 91.

The elevator dinged once.

The doors opened with a whisper.

They stepped into Dorian Blackthorn’s private world.

It was too quiet.

The scent hit first roses but synthetic, sharp, overwhelming. Not natural, not romantic. Manufactured. A chemical warning dressed as perfume.

The lights were dim. Not off. Just low enough to disorient.

Isolde’s eyes swept the space.

Minimalist furniture. Marble floors. That leather sofa, perfectly centered.

And there

Just as the feed had shown

The red velvet blindfold, placed like a lover’s gift.

Beside it, a single red rose, stem cut, water-beaded.

And at the edge of the coffee table

Vivienne’s necklace.

It had been cleaned. Polished. The chain shimmered with fresh oil, not age.

Isolde moved forward, drawn like a tide.

“Wait,” Dorian said sharply, but she didn’t stop.

She reached for the necklace, breath hitching

And the mirror across the room shattered.

Not from impact.

From sound.

A high-pitched frequency pulsed through hidden speakers. Not loud but calibrated. Surgical. Vibrating at a frequency only certain tech and certain nerve endings could detect.

Isolde staggered.

Dorian caught her.

Penelope yanked something from her jacket a sound disruptor and slammed it against the nearest speaker.

Crack silence.

The mirror stopped humming.

The air stilled.

Isolde, gasping now, whispered, “It’s not just a message. It’s a behavioral test.”

Dorian stared down at her. “What?”

“He’s watching for response,” she said, eyes wide. “What we touch. What we feel. He’s not threatening Vivienne anymore. He’s testing me.”

Penelope stood frozen by the window. “He’s moving you into her role.”

A sharp beep broke the quiet.

Penelope’s tablet lit up. “Incoming audio.”

The handler’s voice pre-recorded, but new.

“You were made for this stage, Isolde.”

“But she bled too soon.”

“Don’t make the same mistake.”

The audio cut.

And on the wall behind them

Projected in dim red light

A new set of words appeared, painted in digitized script.

THE FINAL PERFORMANCE BEGINS AT MIDNIGHT

STAGE: GLASS ROOM

PLAYER: WRENLEIGH

AUDIENCE: BLACKTHORN

OUTCOME: UNKNOWN

Dorian stared at the wall like he could burn it down with thought.

Penelope’s voice broke the silence.

“We have less than six hours.”

Isolde whispered, “Then we stop waiting.”

The Glass Room.

Isolde had never seen it. Only whispers. An urban legend inside Velvet’s most private corridors. A space without shadows. A room where nothing could hide.

She stood at its entrance now.

No velvet curtains here. No baroque gold. Just white floors and transparent walls.

Glass. Floor to ceiling.

There was no privacy. No darkness. Just light, reflection, and the sound of her own blood moving through her veins.

She wore a slip of silk barely a dress. Red. Not for seduction.

For war.

Dorian waited outside the security panel, jaw rigid. Penelope paced behind him, voice clipped as she gave the last updates to their press contact, the friendly hacker embedded at Velvet’s lowest level.

“Livestream embedded,” she murmured. “Fail-safe in place. If anything happens, the entire Board sees it. And the court. And the press.”

Dorian didn’t turn.

“I don’t want her in there,” he said.

“You don’t get to want things,” Penelope shot back. “You built this kingdom, Blackthorn. Now she’s walking into its final room.”

Inside the glass, Isolde could feel them watching. She could feel him watching. Her handler. Vivienne’s former lover. The ghost behind the curtain.

She walked barefoot to the center platform. The only object in the room: a single silver chair.

She didn’t sit.

She faced the mirrored wall and spoke aloud.

“I’m here.”

A moment passed.

Then static.

The projection lit the opposite glass wall.

A new video played.

Vivienne.

Her face bruised. Her voice barely audible.

She sat in the same chair.

She was younger here. Scared. Stripped of poise.

“They said if I performed well… he’d come back. That Dorian would come for me.”

“But he never knew. He never even knew I was here.”

Isolde’s throat burned.

The feed cut.

A speaker crackled to life.

Her handler’s voice no longer warm.

“She waited. And you lied.”

“Now let’s see if you’re any better.”

A timer appeared on the wall.

5:59:00

It began counting down.

Behind the mirrored glass, red lights blinked to life.

Cameras. Live feeds.

Isolde turned slowly. Her pulse was steady now.

She whispered into the air. “You want a performance?”

She stepped toward the chair.

Sat.

Unflinching.

“I’ll give you a fucking masterpiece.”