SEDUCED BY THE RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE

Episode 7:The Mirror Prison

The impact threw Lena against the bulkhead, her vision swimming with smoke and sparks. The jet's emergency lights strobed red as the plane screamed toward the Facility 7 landing pad. Julian's unconscious body slid across the tilting floor, leaving a smeared trail of blood.

Eleanor grabbed Lena's arm, her nails digging in. "The serum—it's the only thing that can protect you from them!"

The glowing blue liquid in the syringe pulsed like a heartbeat. Outside the shattered windows, the facility grew larger—a concrete monstrosity lit by floodlights, its entrance marked with that damned phoenix symbol.

Lena pocketed the syringe as the world exploded.

White Coats and Lies

Cold hands dragged her from the wreckage. Lena blinked up at a circle of faces in surgical masks. The lead doctor's eyes crinkled above his mask he was smiling.

"Subject acquired," he said, pressing a stethoscope into her chest. "Vitals stable." Begin the—"

Lena headbutted him.

Chaos erupted. She rolled free, grabbing a shard of broken glass from the tarmac. The guards raised their weapons—then froze at a voice from the shadows.

"Stand down."

The man who stepped into the light wore Julian Thorne's face. Same scar above his eyebrow. Same way of tilting his head when assessing a threat. But his eyes...

His eyes were all wrong.

"Lena," Not-Julian said, extending a hand. "You're home."

Behind him, the real Julian groaned in the wreckage, reaching weakly for his fallen pistol.

The Glass Coffins

They dragged her inside. The facility's sterile white corridors stank of antiseptic and something sweetly rotten. Through observation windows, Lena saw rows of glass pods, each containing—

"Oh God."

People floated in blue-tinged liquid. A senator who'd died in a skiing accident last year. A tech CEO who'd supposedly overdosed. And in Pod 17...

Daniel Carter.

Her real father's face pressed against the glass, his mouth open in a silent scream.

Not-Julian guided her to a central chamber where a massive machine hummed. "The Ascendance isn't about replacing people," he said. "It's about perfecting them." He tapped a screen, pulling up a DNA helix—Lena's. "Your genetic markers are... unique. The key to fixing our replication flaws."

Eleanor's voice suddenly crackled from hidden speakers: "Lena! The serum—it reverses the process!"

Not-Julian backhanded Lena across the face. She fell against the machine, the syringe digging into her thigh.

A choice: inject herself... or jam it into the machine's core.

Julian's voice, weak but clear, came from the doorway:

"Burn it all down, sweetheart."