The boardroom felt like a tomb. Outside, the city was a blur of neon, but inside, I held the power to end a dynasty in the palm of my hand. The violet liquid in the vial glowed with an eerie, rhythmic light—like a heartbeat.
The Fox's blood is the poison. Yours is the cure.
I heard the distant sound of tires screeching and gunshots echoing from the streets below. Kai was out there, playing God with people's lives, while I was here, realizing I was just a highly refined piece of meat.
I didn't wait. I didn't hide. I tucked the vial into the valley of my breasts, against the silver silk, and ran for the private elevator. I had the override code—I had seen Kai press it a thousand times.
3... 2... 1...
The doors opened to the underground garage. It was cold, smelling of gasoline and wet concrete. I saw Kai's black SUV roaring toward the exit, followed by a fleet of black sedans.
"Kai!" I screamed, but the roar of the engines drowned me out.
I didn't think. I jumped into one of the idling backup cars—a sleek, silver Porsche. I had never driven a car like this, but the "Subject Six" in me, the genetic perfection Kai kept bragging about, took over. My reflexes were sharp, my vision focused. I floored it, the tires screaming as I tore after him.
THE WAREHOUSE: 12 MINUTES LATER
The industrial district was a wasteland of rusted metal and shadows. I pulled up just as Kai was kicking in the doors of an old shipyard warehouse. He looked like a demon, his suit jacket discarded, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms corded with tension and splattered with someone else's blood.
"Kai, stop!" I yelled, throwing myself out of the car.
He spun around, his gun drawn, his eyes wild with a fury I had never seen. When he saw it was me, he didn't lower the weapon. He marched over and grabbed me by the hair, dragging me toward the wall.
"I told you to stay in the tower!" he roared, his face inches from mine. "You are the only thing that matters, and you're out here risking the heir for a pathetic coward like Marcus?"
"I'm not here for Marcus!" I hissed, reaching for the vial in my dress. "I'm here for the truth! Is Subject Five my sister? Is she me?"
Before he could answer, a haunting, distorted laugh echoed from the rafters.
"He won't tell you, Little Six," the woman's voice drifted down.
A spotlight snapped on. Marcus was tied to a chair over a vat of boiling oil used for ship parts. Standing next to him was the woman—Subject Five. Up close, she was a nightmare. Her face was a patchwork of scars, her eyes clouded with madness. She was what happens when the "vessel" breaks.
"Kai wanted the perfect version," Subject Five cackled, holding a detonator. "He discarded me like trash when my body rejected the 'seed.' He's going to do the same to you, Amara. He doesn't love you. He loves the DNA inside you."
Kai's grip on my throat tightened, but his eyes were on the detonator. "She's a glitch, Amara. A mistake. You are the correction."
"A mistake?" Subject Five screamed. "I'll show you a mistake!"
She pushed Marcus. The chair tipped toward the boiling oil.
"NO!" I lunged forward, but Kai tackled me to the ground, pinning me under his massive weight. He didn't look at Marcus. He didn't care if Marcus burned alive. He only cared about shielding my body with his.
CRASH.
The sound of the chair hitting the oil was sickening. But Marcus wasn't in it. He had slipped his bonds at the last second, falling onto the concrete edge, screaming as the hot oil splashed his legs.
Subject Five pulled a jagged knife and leaped from the rafters like a broken bird. Kai reacted with the speed of a predator. He rolled, drawing his blade, and met her mid-air.
It wasn't a fight; it was an execution.
Kai drove his knife into Subject Five's chest with a sickening squelch. He didn't look away. He watched the light leave her eyes—eyes that looked exactly like mine. He killed her with a cold, clinical efficiency that turned my stomach to ice.
He stood up, covered in the blood of the woman who could have been my sister. He turned to me, his chest heaving, his obsidian eyes blacker than the night.
"It's over," he rasped.
He walked over to me, stepping over Subject Five's body as if she were a piece of litter. He grabbed my waist and hauled me up, slamming me against a rusted shipping container.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Kai hissed, his hands wandering over my body, checking for injuries with a frantic, rough possessiveness. "You saw what happens when you aren't mine. The world is full of failures, Amara. But you... you are mine. And tonight, I'm making sure that 'Subject Seven' is planted so deep you'll never think of running again."
He didn't care that Marcus was sobbing on the floor. He didn't care that a dead woman lay at our feet. He ripped the silver silk of my dress, exposing me to the grit and the cold air of the warehouse.
"Kai, not here... look at her!" I cried, pointing to Subject Five.
"I am looking at her!" Kai roared, his hand finding the sensitive heat between my legs, forcing me to open for him right there against the cold metal. "I'm looking at the past, and I'm burying it. You are the only Fox left. Now, give me what I bought!"
He entered me with a violent, punishing force that made me scream into the rafters. It was raw. It was animalistic. It was the most explicit display of his dominance yet. He wasn't just fucking me; he was reclaiming his territory in the middle of a battlefield.
As he drove into me, his movements rhythmic and ruthless, I felt the vial against my chest. I could drink it now. I could end his dream while he was at his peak.
But as his lips crashed against mine, tasting of blood and obsession, a dark, terrifying thought crossed my mind.
What if I don't want to be the cure? What if I want to be the poison with him?