VELVET’S VEIL
977 Words
The darkness swallowed everything.
One moment, Ava stood beneath the haunting stare of a woman she dared not believe was real. The next, she was consumed by silence and pitch-black air thick with tension. She didn’t move. She couldn’t.
Her mind screamed run but her legs stayed rooted.
Because part of her wanted to believe.
That what she saw wasn’t a hallucination, or a trauma-induced illusion.
That her mother; dead and buried, was somehow alive.
The lights flickered once. Twice. Then returned in a low, golden glow.
But the woman was gone.
In her place stood a masked man in a tailored suit, flanked by two women dressed in velvet crimson. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.
Ava’s hand curled around the small clutch she’d brought, though she hadn’t packed anything useful; no phone, no ID. Damien had warned her once: No traces at Velvet.
The man extended a gloved hand.
She hesitated, then placed hers in his.
The room shifted around her as they moved, revealing a descending staircase behind a mirror-like wall. It led downward, impossibly deep into the bowels of the city. The lights dimmed with every step, until they reached a corridor glowing faintly with violet light. Soft music; dissonant, rhythmic, almost ritualistic, echoed from somewhere ahead.
The masked man stopped before a door with a sigil she’d seen in Damien’s study; a stylized V, shaped like a dagger.
He turned to her.
“Strip.”
The word was quiet, but commanding.
Ava blinked. “What?”
“No clothing. No name. No identity.”
She stiffened. “I came to observe.”
“You came to surrender,” he replied. “That is the price of entry.”
She shook her head. “Damien never said”
The door behind him opened.
And standing in its frame, framed by light and shadow, was Damien himself.
Unmasked.
Unrepentant.
And angry.
“She’s with me,” he growled.
The masked man bowed and stepped aside.
Ava’s body didn’t relax. If anything, her spine locked tighter.
“What is this?” she hissed as Damien approached, hand outstretched.
“A reckoning,” he said, guiding her inside.
The room was circular; stone walls draped in black velvet. At its center, a single chair.
Damien closed the door behind them. “Sit.”
“No.”
He stepped closer, the air between them sharp with heat and fury.
“You followed the invitation,” he said quietly. “You came alone. That means you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?” Her voice cracked. “A game? Another manipulation?”
“No,” he said, dropping his voice lower. “The truth.”
He moved to a hidden panel and pressed his palm against it. A screen unfolded from the wall. On it, grainy footage from years ago; a child’s birthday party, a woman in white laughing beside a younger man.
Her mother.
Her father.
Alive. Together.
Not divorced. Not estranged.
Not dead.
Ava staggered back.
“No,” she whispered.
“They lied to you,” Damien said. “All of them. Your parents. Their colleagues. The people who raised you to believe you were a pawn in someone else’s story.”
She turned to him, fury boiling over. “Why show me this now?”
“Because Velvet isn’t just an organization. It’s a bloodline. And you’re part of it.”
She felt sick.
“No.”
“Yes. Your father wasn’t just a data engineer. He was a founder. Your mother was his partner; not just in business, but in building Velvet’s legacy.”
“Then why did they disappear?”
“Because someone tried to kill them.”
Silence.
Damien approached her, gentler this time.
“They created something dangerous. A program that could dismantle entire financial ecosystems. They called it Sable. It was meant to expose corruption, but it could also be used to destroy.”
“And now?” Ava asked, hollow.
“Now, it’s missing. Just like your father.”
Her knees buckled, but Damien caught her.
“You think I’ve been playing you,” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “But everything I’ve done; every moment I’ve touched you, every time I pushed you, it was to protect this. To prepare you.”
Her eyes welled with tears, but she blinked them back.
“Why me?”
“Because Velvet thinks you’re the key to unlocking Sable.”
She pulled away from his touch. “And you? What do you think?”
His jaw tensed. “I think I’ve never wanted someone more.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have left.”
She turned away, her chest heaving.
“You used me, Damien.”
“I saved you.”
“No,” she said, whirling on him. “You pulled me into a world I never asked to enter. You touched me like I belonged to you, then left me in the dark.”
His voice was hoarse. “I didn’t know how to let you in. I only knew how to control.”
She laughed bitterly. “And you call that love?”
“No. I call it damage.” He stepped closer. “But maybe… loving you is how I fix it.”
The words struck her in the chest like a blow. Not because they were romantic. But because they felt like surrender.
And Ava didn’t know if she could trust surrender anymore.
She walked past him to the door.
He didn’t stop her.
“Ava,” he said softly.
She paused, hand on the edge.
“When the time comes, and you have to choose between me and the truth, choose yourself.”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t look back.
But her fingers trembled as they closed the door behind her.
- Writer
