Chapter 1:Walk into the Fire
1173 Words
FORBIDDEN DESIRES
Chapter One: Walk Into the Fire
“If you go through with this, you’ll be walking into hell with no way back.” Dad said sternly
I didn’t blink.
I sat in the backseat of a sleek black sedan, my fingers tightening around the designer clutch in my lap.
Outside the tinted window, the skyline of Manhattan glittered like a crown of blades, but only one building held my gaze,Blackwood Tower, forty-seven floors of steel, glass, and blood.
My voice was calm when I finally replied into my Bluetooth earpiece. “Then I hope the devil’s ready for me.”
my sister’s sigh crackled through the line. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t owe him revenge.”
My smile was razor-thin.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I owe him everything.”
The car slowed to a stop at the curb. My driver stepped out to open the door, but I had already pushed it open myself . The sharp click of my heels hit the pavement like a war drum in my ears.
I tilted my chin up, eyes scanning the tower that scraped the clouds like it owned them. The Blackwood logo gleamed in silver at the top like a brand on the sky.
Damien Blackwood’s kingdom.
The man who ripped my family apart with a signature on a contract, masked behind a perfectly tailored suit and a soulless smile.
One year ago, he orchestrated the hostile takeover that annihilated Sinclair Holdings,my father’s legacy. Months of humiliation, legal losses, and media frenzy followed. The world forgot, but I never did.
And now, with a forged résumé, a fake name, and nerves like tempered steel, I was walking straight into the heart of his empire.
Not to rebuild.
To ruin.
The lobby of Blackwood Industries was cathedral-like cold, grand, and intimidating. Security scanned my ID, glanced at my fabricated references, and waved me through without question. Of course they did. The system trusted pretty faces and well polished lies.
The elevator that led to the executive floor rose so fast that my ears popped. I barely noticed. my heart beat louder than anything else.
By the time the doors slid open on the top floor, I already put on my mask.
Cool. Calm. Untouchable.
But nothing , absolutely nothing prepared me for Damien Blackwood in person.
He stood across the hall, speaking quietly with his assistant. Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a slate-gray suit that cost more than most people’s rent. He turned as I stepped forward.
And the world narrowed.
His eyes were the first thing that struck me. Cold. Calculating. Like winter behind glass. But beneath the surface, there was something else an edge. Something watchful. Dangerous. Alive.
He looked at me the way a hawk might study a mouse that bit back.
“You’re early,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth, but there was a faint rasp in it. As if something in him was burning too slowly to kill him fast.
I smiled. “So is ambition.”
A flicker of amusement passed through his eyes. Just a flicker.
He held out a hand. “Mr. Blackwood.”
I placed My hand in his. “Gale Hollister,” I replied with a smile ,
I could feel some kind of Electric field when our hands touched
Something Addictive
the name i had rehearsed for months.
He nodded once. “Follow me.”
His office was a work of modern brutality floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, a black marble desk, no personal touches. No warmth.
“This isn’t a job for the weak,” Damien said, rounding the desk and sitting. “You’ll be exposed to sensitive information. I don’t tolerate gossip, laziness, or mistakes.”
“Understood.”
“You’ll speak to no one about what you see here unless I authorize it. You’ll answer only to me. Not my assistant, not legal, not PR. Me.”
“Got it.”
“Then let’s make this simple.” He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “Why should I trust you?”
The question hit like a slap. And he was watching me studying my reaction.
My stomach flipped, but I didn’t blink.
“Because I don’t make mistakes,” I said coolly. “And I don’t waste time chasing approval.”
There was a long, charged pause.
Then, the ghost of a smile touched Damien’s lips.
“We’ll see about that.”
The rest of the day passed in a blur of tasks, contracts, calls, meetings.
I moved like a shadow through his schedule, taking notes, memorizing codes, mapping out every piece of the empire from the inside.
He was sharp. Demanding. Inhumanly precise.
And yet human in flashes.
Once, i saw him pause after a phone call, rubbing the back of his neck like a man trying to push pain back into a box. Once, he winced when he stood too fast. He hid it well. But not from me
Damien Blackwood wasn’t invincible.
He bled.
I just had to find out where and when.
It was after seven when I finally stepped out onto the rooftop garden. My badge still worked. I needed air. Or maybe space. Or maybe just a second to remember why I was here.
The city stretched below like a bed of embers. Lights blinking. Horns in the distance. Stars barely visible through the haze.
He’d taken all of this from my family. My father had poured everything into Sinclair Holdings. Believed in honor. In legacy. And Damien Blackwood had gutted it in three weeks.
I closed my eyes, letting the wind lift strands of my hair.
“Admiring the view?”
The voice came from behind me, low and close.
I turned and there he was. Damien, jacket off, sleeves rolled, the sharp lines of his jaw catching the skyline.
I was almost speechless
“I didn’t expect you to be here this late,” he said.
“Neither did I.”
“Do you always wander the rooftops of your employers’ buildings after hours?”
“Do you always follow your assistants?”
A beat. Then, to my surprise, he smiled. Real. Unpracticed. Dangerous.
“I like knowing what moves in my territory.”
I took a step toward him. Just one.
“And what if something bites back?”
His smile didn’t falter. “Then I know it’s worth keeping close.”
As we gazed at each other’s eyes
The wind whipped between us, heavy with words neither of us said.
“Go home, Miss hollister,” he said at last. “You’ll need your strength.”
“For what?”
“For what comes next.”
He turned and walked away, leaving me alone on the edge of the city.
I stepped back into the elevator, my phone buzzed.
A single text.
From a number that was supposed to be disconnected.
UNKNOWN: He knows.
My breath caught.
And for the first time all day, I felt fear.
- Writer
