The Power Behind The Curtain
1197 Words
A private estate in the countryside. A low-lit parlor with crimson velvet walls, antique furniture, and a massive fireplace crackling with heat. The windows are shuttered. No staff inside.
Eliza sat by the fire, her silk robe brushing the floor as she lifted her glass of aged port. The flames danced in her reflection on the window, flickering just like the smirk on her lips.
Across from her, Mike Darlington poured over a black folder — the kind that never made it into government databases. Numbers. Routes. Shipment logs. Names.
“She held the meeting again,” he muttered. “Aanya. Called the board. Sat in your husband’s chair like it was her birthright.”
Eliza’s eyes narrowed, not with fear — with annoyance. “Of course she did. It is her birthright, technically.” She took a sip. “But the crown fits poorly on children who didn’t grow up under our rules.”
Mike shut the folder with a sharp clap.
“She’s rallying them. Old men loyal to her father are curious. She’s dangerous. We waited too long.”
Eliza rose. Her voice turned colder. “She’s not dangerous because she’s smart, Mike. She’s dangerous because she still has hope. Hope that the Darlington name can be something clean. Something noble.”
Mike scoffed. “She’ll find out soon enough.”
Eliza turned to the mantel where a delicate music box rested. She flipped it open. It didn’t play music — it was hollowed out. Inside: a thumb drive.
“She’s already stirred the ashes,” she murmured, placing the drive on the table. “Let’s give her the fire.”
Mike raised a brow. “The files?”
Eliza nodded. “Every deal her mother made under the table. Every shipment. Every shell company. If she digs too deep, she’ll trip the wire.”
“And when she does?”
Eliza’s smile was wicked. “We burn her with it.”
********
Flashback – Noel before the board meeting.
The screens lit up the dim room with shifting shades of white and blue. Noel sat before a wide desk scattered with encrypted tablets, flickering monitors, and a half-empty cup of black coffee. His fingers danced over the holographic keypad, code running like water as he breached the firewall of Darnex Global, one of the Darlington shell companies known only to the inner circle.
He found exactly what he needed: a ghost transaction. A shipment masked as medical supplies routed through Morocco—but the real cargo was weapons. Blood money. Eliza’s signature authorized the release. Mike’s company handled the logistics.
Noel’s jaw tightened.
“Got you,” he murmured.
Aanya had stormed that boardroom earlier that day, jaw squared, every step echoing the ghost of her father’s legacy. She held her own, but she didn’t see what was coming next. The board would retaliate, and they’d do it through whispers, fake scandals, and contracts with claws.
Noel couldn’t let that happen.
He isolated the files. Scrubbed Aanya’s name from every trail—burned any affiliation that could circle back to her. Then, like a skilled puppeteer, he fed the evidence to an anonymous political watchdog blog. One known for going viral within hours.
By midnight, the story would blow.
By morning, Eliza and Mike would be too busy cleaning up blood to come for Aanya.
Noel leaned back, flexing his tired fingers, staring at the screen that blinked “Transfer complete.”
“They want a war, fine. But she won’t be the casualty.”
A soft ping. A secure message alert.
From: Aanya Darlington.
Subject: You moved. Again. Why?
He didn’t reply immediately.
Instead, he looked at her name glowing on his screen and whispered to himself—
“Because I still owe you everything.”
---
Aston — After the Rescue
The room was dark save for the orange glow bleeding in through the blinds. Aston leaned against the marble countertop, shirt bloodied at the cuff, bruises hidden beneath his tailored coat. His knuckles were scraped raw—he hadn’t fought like that in years.
Not since Berlin. Not since the price on his head had made silence a survival instinct.
Now? He’d blown it all.
All for her.
He yanked the tie from his collar and dropped it on the floor, the silk soaked from the fight. His eyes flicked toward the mirror. He didn’t recognize himself.
Not because of the blood.
Because he had moved. He had broken his rules.
“You should’ve stayed in the shadows,” he muttered. “But no, you had to play hero.”
The truth scratched at him like rust under skin: it wasn’t impulse. It wasn’t strategy. It was Aanya.
He had watched her for weeks—her precision in gaming, her cold stare at the boardroom, her smile around Dora, the edge in her voice when she didn’t trust someone.
But tonight, when those men tried to drug her, something split inside him. Something feral. Possessive. Dangerous.
“She doesn’t even know my name,” he said to the quiet.
And yet he’d bled for her. Risked being seen. Recognized. Connected to the Darlington web. Even with Sebastian onto him.
He poured himself a glass of whisky with one hand, the other curled into a fist by his side. The liquor burned down his throat, but it didn’t take the edge off.
“You’re a fool, Aston,” he murmured.
But still… a part of him felt it was worth it.
She had looked at him—really looked—and didn’t flinch.
Didn’t run.
And maybe… just maybe…
He wasn’t going to step back into the shadows this time.
******
Sebastian Fugerson — War Room Quiet
The rain slid down the windows in sluggish rivulets, a slow-moving tide that mirrored the pulse in Sebastian’s temple.
He didn’t pace. That would imply uncertainty. Instead, he stood still — one hand resting on the back of his chair, the other holding a glass of untouched whiskey. Across the room, a wall of monitors displayed grainy footage: one, paused at the exact moment Aston Volvo stepped between Aanya and the black van.
Reckless. Bold.
And entirely unlike the man Sebastian had spent weeks chasing through digital shadows and forged histories.
Aston had always operated in silence, pulling strings from countries away, never making himself a piece on the board — until now.
Sebastian clicked the remote again, fast-forwarding to the moment Aanya looked up at her mysterious rescuer.
“Stupid girl,” he murmured — not cruelly, but like an older brother muttering at a sister who hadn’t realized she was walking into a lion’s den.
“Or maybe not stupid,” he added under his breath. “Maybe she's drawing him out.”
Because if he could notice Aston’s obsession, there was no way Aanya — Darlington heiress, chess-playing firestorm — hadn’t sensed it too.
He turned away from the screens and picked up his phone. One call. Just one.
“Get me Langston,” Sebastian said coolly. “It’s time he earned his paycheck.”
A pause.
“And bring the folder labeled ‘Volvo: South Africa.’ We’re not waiting anymore."
- Writer
