Chapter 3: Encounter
784 Words
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Everything around me blurred.
Students passed, laughed, gossiped — yet no one was aware of the monster sitting just fifty feet away.
My breath hitched in my throat. I watched him stare into my eyes mockingly.
Like he already knew.
He found me.
He actually found me.
And he was sitting there with that predatory curve of his lips, telling me everything I needed to know.
He was playing with me. He wanted me to know my private cloud, my threats — everything meant nothing to him.
But how did he…
My ID.
My ID card.
I searched frantically in my pockets. Nothing.
The alley!!.
The alley!!.
The place that changed the course of my perfectly orderly life forever.
Realization hit me.
I had handed a cold-blooded murderer my full name, my face, my college.
“Maeve… are you okay?” my best friend asked, her hand on my shoulder. “You’re shaking. You’re white as a sheet.”
“I… I forgot something, Ariel,” I said quickly, eyes fixed away from the black sedan. “In the lecture hall. Go ahead without me.”
“Are you sure? You look like you’re about to faint.”
“I’m fine. Just go… please.”
She hesitated, then walked away toward the gates.
The moment she disappeared, the car door opened.
Lucian stepped out.
Charcoal suit. Clean. Controlled. Like a CEO instead of what he really was.
But the illusion broke under the edge of the dragon tattoo crawling up his neck.
He adjusted his cuffs. Then his eyes locked onto mine.
He didn’t rush.
He walked slowly. Deliberately.
Every instinct screamed at me to run.
But my body wouldn’t move.
Paralyzed.
Within seconds, he was there. Blocking the sun.
The scent of tobacco and expensive cologne hit me, dragging the alley back into my mind.
“Running away so soon, bellissima?” His voice was low, slightly accented. “And here I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
I swallowed hard, gripping my backpack straps.
“What… what do you want?”
“I told you… if you touch me, that video goes to the authorities. Good people go to school. Bad people go to jail. That’s how the world works. You’re a murderer.”
My voice cracked at the end.
Lucian didn’t react.
Instead, he laughed. Quietly.
“Good people… bad people?” He tilted his head slightly, eyes scanning my face like I was an interesting mistake. “What a beautifully simple world you live in, Maeve Sterling.”
He pulled something from his pocket.
I flinched.
My ID card.
He turned it between his fingers.
“You think the police will save you?” he murmured. “You think a file protects you from me?”
He leaned closer, his voice dropping.
“My tech team wiped your digital footprints. Your cloud is empty, little mouse.”
My heart dropped.
Gone?.
Everything is gone.
I couldn’t breathe properly.
“Are you… going to kill me?” I whispered.
A beat.
Then he stepped back and smiled.
“Kill you?” He looked almost amused. “Death is too quick.”
My stomach twisted.
He slipped my ID into my backpack pocket.
“Go to class, Maeve. Study hard. Live your perfect little orderly life.”
His eyes held mine for a second longer.
Then he turned and walked away.
Like nothing happened.
---
Lucian’s POV
I watched her through the rearview mirror as the car pulled away.
She hadn’t moved still frozen in place.
Christopher spoke from the front seat.
“Cloud server is wiped, Boss. No trace of the alley video left.”
“Good,” I muttered leaning back into the chair while lighting up a cigarette.
I loved the way she masks her terror under fake blanket of mortality.
Most people broke in predictable ways.
Maeve didn’t.
She argued.
Even when she was scared, she stood her ground.
Even when she should’ve been begging, she put on a pretense of false bragado .
Interesting.
She thinks the world is clean. Good and bad. Order and law.
"Hahah..If only you knew bellisimma" I muttered under my breath admist laughter.
Let her keep that belief a little longer.
Let it crack slowly.
I would love to see the look o. her face when she realizes that her precious authorities and laws could barely do anything to me. I have always been careful.
But what I didn’t know was that Christopher had missed something.
A forgotten offline flash drive hidden deep inside her backpack lining.
A physical loophole.
Something small and dangerous.
And one day, it would matter more than anything else in this city.
- Writer
