"You're bleeding on my Italian leather."
Lucien's voice sliced through the storm like a scalpel, his obsidian eyes locked on the crimson drops staining Vivian's knuckles. Outside the Maybach's bulletproof windows, rain transformed Star Harbor City into a impressionist nightmare of blurred neon and shadow.
Vivian clutched her mother's urn closer, the ceramic still warm from the chaos they'd left behind. "It's nothing."
"It's contamination."
The word hit like a physical blow. Before she could react, his hand shot out, iron fingers clamping around her wrist with bruising force. The antiseptic wipes materialized from his jacket—of course he carried them, she was learning his obsessions one violent revelation at a time.
He began scrubbing her skin with methodical brutality, each swipe deliberate and punishing. The alcohol burned like liquid fire, but she didn't flinch. Couldn't afford to. Every second of contact sent her life force climbing, his S-class energy field feeding her dying system like IV drip to a corpse.
**[LIFE FORCE: 76% AND RISING. MAINTAIN CONTACT FOR OPTIMAL SURVIVAL.]**
*Easy for you to say,* she thought, watching his pupils dilate with each violent swipe. *You're not being sanitized by a germaphobic psychopath.*
But there was something else in his touch—a desperate kind of care hidden beneath the clinical brutality. Like he was trying to erase not just the blood, but the memory of her being hurt at all.
When he finished, her skin was raw and pink but surgically clean. He released her like she'd burned him, immediately reaching for hand sanitizer with shaking fingers.
"Better," he muttered, more prayer than statement.
Vivian turned back to the urn, her pulse still hammering from his touch. Her fingers traced the ceramic surface until they found what she was searching for—a hairline fracture that wasn't quite natural. Her mother had been paranoid, brilliant, always three moves ahead even in death.
**[SCANNING HIDDEN COMPARTMENT... ACCESS DENIED. S-CLASS BIOMAGNETIC FIELD REQUIRED.]**
*Of course. Even dead, you're still protecting secrets, aren't you, Mom?*
"Are you even listening to me?"
Lucien's voice had dropped to that whisper-soft register that preceded bloodshed. She'd been so focused on the urn that she'd missed his words entirely.
"Sorry, what?"
His eyes went arctic. "I said we need to discuss your new position. Salary expectations. The small matter of you nearly committing murder on live television."
"I was defending myself."
"You were *enjoying* yourself." He leaned closer, invading her space with predatory grace. "There's a difference, and we both know which one turns you on."
The accusation hit like a slap, mostly because it was true. The air between them crackled with electricity—his barely leashed violence, her defiant hunger, and something darker that made her skin burn.
She could feel his electromagnetic field intensifying, responding to the spike in his emotions like a tuning fork struck against crystal.
**[S-CLASS BIOMAGNETIC FIELD DETECTED. OPTIMAL STRENGTH FOR UNLOCK SEQUENCE.]**
*Perfect.*
"You're right," she whispered, letting her voice drop to that breathy register that made powerful men stupid. "I did enjoy watching him bleed."
She shifted closer under the pretense of facing him, positioning the urn against his chest where his heart hammered against expensive silk. "Does that terrify you?"
Lucien's breath caught. His hands came up to frame her face, fingers tangling in her rain-damp hair with possessive force. "It should."
"But it doesn't." She pressed closer, feeling the hidden mechanism respond to his biofield like a lock recognizing its key. "You like your women dangerous."
"I like my women *obedient*."
"And where exactly do obedient women end up in your world?"
His thumb traced her lower lip with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. "Under me. Always under me."
The compartment clicked open with a sound like a whispered confession.
Vivian immediately pulled back, her fingers diving into the hidden space before his brain could process the betrayal. Her hand closed around something small and metallic—a military-grade data chip that felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"What the hell—"
She tried to palm the device, but Lucien moved like striking lightning. His hand clamped around her wrist, fingers finding pressure points that made her vision blur.
"Give. It. To. Me."
Each word was a bullet fired at point-blank range.
"I don't know what you're—"
His grip tightened until she could feel bones grinding together like tectonic plates. "The chip, Vivian. Before I decide you're more trouble than you're worth."
Her fingers opened involuntarily, the device dropping into his palm like a confession extracted under torture.
The moment he saw it, everything changed.
The predatory heat in his eyes died, replaced by something infinitely more dangerous—recognition mixed with the kind of rage that toppled governments.
"Where did you get this?" His voice could have frozen hellfire.
"I told you, I don't—"
"This is a Pei Industries master encryption key. Military classification. There are exactly three in existence." His eyes bored into hers like laser-guided missiles. "One was stolen from my father's safe ten years ago. The thief was never found."
**[CRITICAL WARNING: SUBJECT'S KILL INTENT AT 97%. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE EVASIVE ACTION.]**
Vivian's mind raced like a computer processing its own destruction. She could see the calculation in his eyes, the way he was already planning her disposal. In his world, corporate espionage wasn't just betrayal—it was a capital offense.
**[EMERGENCY SURVIVAL PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED:]**
**[OPTION A: VEHICULAR ESCAPE. SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 0.3%]**
**[OPTION B: EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION VIA INTIMATE CONTACT. SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 51%]**
*Fifty-one percent. I've survived worse odds.*
"Lucien," she whispered, injecting just the right amount of vulnerability into her voice. "Please, let me explain—"
"Explain how you've been playing me from the beginning? How every touch, every look was calculated manipulation?"
His hand moved toward the partition button—probably to signal his driver to take them somewhere screams wouldn't carry.
Vivian made her choice.
She lunged forward, crushing her mouth against his in a kiss that tasted of desperation and rain and the metallic tang of fear. For one heartbeat, he went rigid with shock.
Then he kissed her back with the kind of violence that left permanent marks.
His free hand fisted in her hair, angling her head for deeper access while his other arm banded around her waist like a steel trap. The kiss was brutal, claiming, designed to punish and possess in equal measure.
**[KILL INTENT FLUCTUATING: 97%... 89%... 74%... 68%...]**
*It's working. Keep going.*
She poured everything into the kiss—terror disguised as passion, need masquerading as desire, the kind of raw hunger that short-circuited rational thought. His grip on her wrist loosened as blood flow redirected to more primitive regions of his brain.
When they broke apart, both breathing like they'd run marathons, his eyes had shifted from arctic to molten silver.
"This changes nothing," he said roughly, his voice like gravel over broken glass. "You're still a corporate spy."
"Maybe," she whispered against his lips, tasting copper and possibility. "But now I'm *your* corporate spy."
The promise hung between them like a loaded weapon, and Vivian wondered which one of them would pull the trigger first.