Chapter 2

Evelyn slid into the backseat of the ride she ordered, the cool leather a sharp contrast to the humid air outside. ‘Obsidian Ridge,’ she told the driver, her voice sounding foreign even to her own ears.

As the car pulled away from the curb and merged into the glowing veins of the city, Evelyn leaned her head against the window.

The Uber dropped her at the end of a long, winding driveway that seemed to disappear into the clouds of the canyon. Standing before the entrance of Obsidian Ridge, Evelyn felt the bag in her hand go limp.

She pulled up her mother’s text again. Below the address was a string of six digits:

2-1-0-2-3.

The date she had signed the marriage papers, Evelyn realized with a sharp intake of breath. The code to his life was the date of his greatest regret.

She stepped toward the keypad, her shadow stretching long and thin against the black stone walls. Her fingers hovered over the numbers. Every press felt like a confession.

When the final digit clicked, there was a beat of silence, long enough for her to hope the code had expired; and then the heavy hydraulic hiss of the gates swinging inward.

The drive was lined with ancient, twisted oaks that blocked out the fading LA sunset, turning the path into a tunnel of shadow. As she walked, the wheels of her suitcase rattled against the cobblestones, a loud, intrusive sound in the suffocating silence of the estate. And as the house finally came into view, a beautiful masterpiece of glass and steel perched on the edge of the cliff, she saw a single light burning in the top window.

Lucien was home. Or someone was.

She rang the doorbell. Once. Twice. No one answered. The single light the only proof that there was anyone in the house. She pushed the door slightly open, peeking her head through.

The sight of the grand foyer was a breathtaking masterpiece Evelyn had no time to behold.

‘Hello,’ she called into the empty place. Fully stepping in, hands clutching her bag like a lifeline, she wandered around the quiet house, trying to find the light she had seen from outside. A heavy thud at the end of the hallway caused her to jump in fright.

‘Hello,’ she called out again. Walking towards the source of the noise.

A door, slightly ajar. She pushed it open, while looking around what seemed like a study. Her eyes fell on him then. The sight hitting her hadder than the jet lag.

‘Lucien,’

He groaned in response, slumped heavily against the velvet armchair, his dark suit jacket discarded near the door. His white shirt was unbottoned halfway. Evelyn pursed her lips in masked disgust at the scene of the seemingly drunk Lucien. Moving closer towards him, his gaze lifted slightly, eyes unfocused at the send of the footstep walking closer to him. His collar was drenched in sweat. Her heart made an unfamiliar thud at the prescence of this man. She blamed it on the stress or nerves.

Crouching beside him, she called his name again, ‘Lucien.’

His response was a deep groan at the back of his throat. The scent of a heavy fruity musk hit her at once, forcing her to look closely at him. He wasn’t just drunk, looking quietly around as if the culprit who had drugged him would walk in at anytime.

She tried to help him up, hauling his arm over her shoulder, the sheer mass of him nearly folding her in half. Lucien was a dead weight, his muscles twitching with an unnatural, feverish heat that bled through her thin cotton shirt.

Every step out of the study felt like a mile. Her sneakers slid against the polished floors, the only sound in the suffocatingly quiet house besides the ragged, wet rasp of his breathing.

"Come on, Lucien," she hissed through gritted teeth. "Work with me."

He didn't. His head hung low, his forehead bumping rhythmically against her temple. He was lost in a fog, his nervous system being doused under the weight of the drug.

She didn't have a map of the house, but she had an instinct for power. In a fortress like this, the master of the house wouldn't sleep on the ground floor. He would be at the highest point, overlooking the city he intended to conquer.

She dragged him toward the floating glass staircase, her muscles screaming as she began the ascent.

She found the room by the scent. The rest of the house smelled of cold stone and air, but the double doors at the end of the second-floor gallery exhaled a heavy, masculine scent: sandalwood, expensive bourbon, and a hint of the ozone she’d smelled in the foyer.

She kicked the doors open.

The suite was a cavern of shadows, dominated by a low-profile bed that looked more like a black altar than a place of rest. She steered him toward it, her legs finally giving out as they reached the edge. They collapsed together onto the silk sheets, the momentum dragging her down with him.

For a moment, Evelyn couldn't move. She lay there, her heart hammering against her ribs, her lungs burning from the exertion. The silence of the room was absolute, broken only by the hum of the climate control.

Then, the air changed.

The drug hadn't just incapacitated him; it had turned his body into a hair trigger of sensory overload. As Evelyn tried to pull away, to stand up and find a cold towel or a phone, a hand clamped around her wrist.

It wasn't the grip of a conscious man. It was primal.

Lucien’s eyes snapped open.

They were two black pits of dilated glass, reflecting nothing but the dim city lights filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He didn't see Evelyn Rose Sterling, the scientist or the wife. He saw a shape. A heat source. A way to quiet the chemical fire screaming through his veins.

‘Stay,’ he rasped. It wasn't a request; it was a guttural command, the voice of a man drowning.

He lunged, his movements jerky and uncoordinated but backed by a terrifying, drug-induced strength. He rolled, pinning her beneath the heavy weight of his chest. The heat coming off him was staggering, a literal furnace of skin and sweat.

Evelyn’s breath hitched.

‘Lucien, stop. You’re drugged. You don't know what you're doing.’

He didn't hear her. He couldn't. His fingers, trembling with a fine-motor tremor, tangled in her travel-worn curls, pulling her head back. His gaze was frantic, searching her face with a hunger that was entirely devoid of recognition. When his mouth crashed against hers, it wasn't a kiss, it was a collision.

It tasted of the spiked bourbon and the metallic tang of the sedative. It was desperate, messy, and violent in its need. The five o'clock deadline, the Sterling merger; it all vanished in the dark.

Evelyn fought to keep her hands between them, her mind racing through the what was happening. He was in the peak phase. His heart was racing too fast, his body convinced it was in a state of arousal while his mind was blacked out.

As his hands moved with a blind, frantic urgency to the buttons of her shirt, Evelyn realized the true horror of the trap.

This wasn't just a spike; it was a setup for a violation he would never remember, but she would never be able to forget.