All Chapters of Trigger Me Gently: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

CHAPTER ONE: A GIRL IN A DRESS BUILT TO DECEIVE

The first shot was never meant to be heard.That’s what Ember Vale reminded herself as she stepped through the velvet-curtained threshold of the Vairo underground auction. Beneath chandeliers shaped like thorned crowns, surrounded by men in tailored suits and women wrapped in diamonds like shackles, she didn’t belong. She looked like sin dressed in midnight a floor-length slit gown, black as a threat, her lips blood-red, and eyes darker than her name.She didn’t have a number on her paddle.Because she wasn’t bidding.She was hunting.Somewhere in the auction crowd was a man who once worked for her father before he vanished six years ago without a body, a note, or a trace. Ember had waited for justice. Waited for answers. Waited to be saved.Tonight, she became the bullet instead."Keep your chin up," Violet's voice crackled through the earpiece. Her best friend was somewhere in the getaway car three blocks out. "You're already getting stared at.""Good," Ember whispered. "That means

Last Updated : 2025-06-01

CHAPTER TWO: THE DEVIL TAKES YOU DANCING

By morning, the rules had changed.Not that Ember had agreed to any.She woke to the sound of music low, instrumental, orchestral. It wasn’t comforting. It sounded like a funeral disguised as a waltz.Lucien Vairo was waiting when she opened the door.Black shirt. Sleeves rolled. No tie. Gun holstered at his back, like always. That face a mask carved from storms. The kind of beautiful you regret trusting.“Breakfast?” he asked.“I’ll pass.”“Shame.” He glanced at her torn dress, then tossed a box at her feet. “Change. You’re coming with me.”“I’m not your pet.”“No,” he said coolly. “Pets don’t lie. Or sneak into auctions with pistols.”“And what exactly am I to you, Lucien?”He didn’t blink. “A ticking clock.”She changed in the bathroom. The box held a sleek combat suit black, tactical, minimal. It fit her too well. Custom. He’d planned this.She stepped out ready to kill. He looked her up and down, nodded once.“You handle yourself well under fire. Let’s see how you do in real bloo

Last Updated : 2025-06-01

CHAPTER THREE: GHOSTS NEVER KNOCK

The dream came before dawn.Ember stood barefoot on a blood-soaked rug in her childhood home only it wasn’t right. The walls were darker. The windows were boarded. Her mother’s piano was playing by itself, keys tapping out a lullaby in minor chords.And then she saw him.Rafael Vairo.He sat on her father’s armchair like he owned the bones of the house. He looked exactly the same as she remembered him at twelve years old, tall, elegant, ageless. But his eyes… his eyes were too calm. He didn’t blink in dreams either.“Do you remember the story I told you, Ember?” he asked.She couldn’t speak. Her throat was full of soot.“The one about the girl and the maze,” he continued. “She ran so far, so fast… she didn’t realize she built it herself.”She turned to run. But the walls moved. The hallway stretched. And her father screamed from behind the bedroom door.She clawed at it, fingers bleeding.Then Rafael whispered, “Don’t wake up. It’s better here, where lies are softer.”She screamed Em

Last Updated : 2025-06-01

CHAPTER FOUR: THE HOUSE HE BUILT FOR HER

Location: Northern woods outside the city – Ember’s childhood home.Abandoned. Or so she thought.The rain was a whisper on the windshield.Ember stared at the house she hadn’t seen in twelve years. A sagging Victorian beast, choked by vines and secrets. The shutters hung like dead limbs. The porch light flickered once… then died.Lucien cut the engine. “You sure about this?”“No,” she said. “But we’re here.”They stepped out, boots sinking into damp leaves and forgotten bones.Lucien had two pistols holstered under his coat. Ember gripped a compact 9mm. Every creak in the wind felt like breathing. Watching.“This was your home?” Lucien asked.She nodded. “Before everything changed.”He looked at her. “Before Rafael made you a ghost.”Inside the house, everything was too clean.No dust. No cobwebs. A trap laid with surgical love.Ember paused in the hallway.“He’s been here,” she whispered.Lucien’s jaw tightened. “Then we’re not alone.”They moved like shadows. Kitchen: clear. Study:

Last Updated : 2025-06-01

CHAPTER FIVE: BENEATH HER SKIN

Location: Underground holding cell, Vairo estate safehouse.The walls were sweat-slick concrete.No windows. No mercy.Dani sat chained to a chair, leg wound still bleeding through a soaked bandage. Her face was pale, bruised. But her eyes? Still defiant.Ember stepped into the room.Lucien followed. No guards. No mirrors. Just them and a traitor wrapped in secrets.“I never pegged you for a coward,” Ember said calmly.Dani spat blood. “You don’t know me.”“I knew you well enough to share a home with you,” Lucien growled. “And you sold us out.”Dani laughed, bitter. “I didn’t sell you. I sold her.”Her eyes locked on Ember.Lucien moved fast grabbed Dani by the collar, dragged her chair across the floor, metal shrieking.“You’re alive because I’m not done bleeding you.”Dani smirked. “Rafael’s watching. You know that, right? Every scream I make, he’ll hear.”Ember stepped forward, pulled the flash drive from her pocket.She dangled it in front of Dani’s face.“He left this for me. You

Last Updated : 2025-06-01

CHAPTER SIX: FLESH FOR FIRE

Location: Vairo private training arena, underground bunkerTime: 4:11 a.m.Status: Reconditioning: InitiatedLucien didn’t say a word as he slammed Ember against the padded wall.She didn’t flinch. She struck back.Elbow. Throat. Knee. He twisted, caught her wrist, and slammed her onto the mat with bone-rattling force.“You hesitated.”“No,” she spat. “I calculated.”“Wrong answer.”He hit her again not in rage, but with brutal, exact precision. His eyes were clinical, unmerciful.“You’re not fighting her,” he said. “You’re fighting the version of yourself that doesn’t freeze when a child cries. You’re fighting the thing Rafael built to erase you.”Ember rolled to her feet, panting, blood in her mouth.Lucien grabbed her chin. “So stop fighting like a survivor. Fight like a goddamn weapon.”She launched into him without warning. Punches, knees, claws. She drew blood this time. A lot.Lucien grinned.Elsewhere...Location: Borderline Sector K–7Subject Beta: Live Mission ExecutionThe

Last Updated : 2025-06-10

CHAPTER SEVEN: NO MERCY IN MIRRORS

TIME: 6:02 a.m.LOCATION: Facility B-9 – Lower SublevelStatus: Containment Locked – Access Code: EMBER-V00.The doors slammed shut the moment Beta vanished.Heavy steel. Four inches thick. Lit by a red pulse that screamed: NO EXIT.Lucien shoved Ember behind cover as more charges went off down the corridor controlled bursts, meant to corner, not kill.“She planned the whole damn thing,” he growled, scanning the darkness.“No,” Ember said, her voice raw. “She’s showing me something.”Lucien looked at her like she’d gone insane. “She just tried to blow us up.”Ember stepped out from cover. “She could’ve. But she didn’t.”She walked toward the smoke-choked hallway and pressed her hand to the biometric scanner on the next door.It hissed open. Inside, fluorescent lights buzzed on… and revealed a pristine room.White tiles. Old equipment.And a single object in the center:A high chair. Strapped down. Covered in dried blood.Lucien stopped cold. “What is this?”Ember’s breath hitched. She

Last Updated : 2025-06-11

CHAPTER EIGHT: BUILT TO BREAK

LOCATION: Abandoned Vairo Safehouse, Coastal Region – 7:43 a.m.STATUS: Unknown surveillance perimeter. Ember and Lucien in hiding.The windows were boarded shut.The salt air stung like truth.Ember stood shirtless in front of the bathroom mirror, the scar under her jaw still raw and red. Her hands trembled not from pain.From rage.Not at Beta.At herself."You let her walk," she whispered to her reflection. "You had the shot."Lucien leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. Shirtless, bruised, bandaged.“You hesitated. That’s not weakness,” he said.“No,” she murmured, “it's a memory.”She stared into her own eyes. “And she doesn’t have any.”Lucien stepped inside. “That’s why you’ll win.”“I’m not so sure,” she said. “What if I can’t kill her without killing what’s left of me?”Lucien pressed something into her palm.A key. Long, rusted. Familiar.She blinked. “What’s this?”“The last Vairo cache. It’s off-books. No digital footprint. No traps.”He met her eyes. “You use it when you’r

Last Updated : 2025-06-11

CHAPTER NINE: ASHES IN HER NAME

LOCATION: Cinder Vault Inner CoreTIME: 11:04 a.m.The door sealed behind her like a tomb.No alarms. No footsteps. Just silence.Ember moved through the corridor slowly, flashlight beam slicing through clouds of cold dust. The deeper she went, the more the air felt wrong, thick, electrical, laced with something synthetic.This was where Rafael built her.The forgotten floor. The part even Lucien had never seen.Each step pulled her back to flashes of childhood:the cold touch of metal restraints…the sting of scalpels…the lullaby Rafael played through the walls while she screamed.The light hit a door.On it: a red handprint.Her own.Smaller. Blood-stained. From years ago.She touched the scanner beside it.It didn’t ask for a code.It whispered:> “Welcome home, Subject E1–Ash.”The door slid open.And the voice she feared most filled the chamber.> “Did you really think I’d let you walk in without saying goodbye, sweetheart?”Rafael.A pre-recorded hologram activated in the cen

Last Updated : 2025-06-12

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