The storm outside sounded like the world ending.
Vivian slipped through the hidden panel into Lucien's bedroom, her bare feet silent against Persian carpets that cost more than most people's annual salaries. Lightning illuminated the space in stark flashes—black silk sheets twisted like serpents, expensive electronics humming with malevolent purpose, and the stolen chip glowing like a digital heartbeat in its decryption cradle.
**[MISSION TIMER: 00:29:33 REMAINING]**
**[OBJECTIVE: ESTABLISH SKIN CONTACT FOR DATA TRANSMISSION]**
**[WARNING: CHIP WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IF DECRYPTION COMPLETES]**
She'd expected to find him sleeping peacefully, maybe snoring softly into Egyptian cotton pillows. Instead, Lucien lay sprawled across the bed like a fallen angel, his body contorted in what looked like exquisite agony. His white dress shirt was soaked through with perspiration, dark hair plastered to his forehead, and even from across the room she could hear his labored breathing—harsh, desperate gasps that spoke of a man fighting invisible demons.
*He's not asleep. He's barely conscious.*
The decryption progress bar crawled across multiple screens like a digital countdown to doomsday. Fifty-two percent complete. At this rate, her mother's secrets would be exposed in less than twenty-eight minutes—and then the chip would fry itself, taking those secrets to digital hell.
*No pressure, Vivian. Just save your mother's legacy while not getting murdered by a fevered billionaire. Easy Tuesday night.*
She approached the bed with the caution of someone who'd learned that sleeping predators were often the most dangerous kind. Every instinct screamed that this felt like walking into a bear trap, but the mission clock was ticking like a time bomb, and she was fresh out of alternatives.
Positioning herself above him, one knee on either side of his torso, she was careful not to make contact until the system gave her the green light. This close, she could see the fever flush painting his razor-sharp cheekbones, the way his lips moved soundlessly as if he were having heated arguments with ghosts only he could see.
The heat radiating from his skin was intense enough to make her own temperature spike in sympathy.
**[PREPARING DATA TRANSMISSION PROTOCOL]**
**[TARGET ACQUIRED: SUBJECT'S LEFT HAND]**
**[INITIATING CONTACT IN 3... 2... 1...]**
Her fingertips brushed against the back of his hand like a whispered prayer.
The reaction was instantaneous and terrifying.
Lucien's eyes snapped open, pupils blown so wide they looked like black holes in his skull. His hand whipped up to clamp around her wrist with bone-crushing force, and in one fluid motion that defied physics, he rolled them both, pinning her beneath him with the kind of violence that left permanent psychological scars.
"Gotcha, little spy," he whispered, his voice rough as broken glass dragged across concrete.
But something was catastrophically wrong. His skin burned against hers like he was running a fever that should have killed him hours ago, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw nothing but primal hunger and barely leashed madness swirling in storm-gray depths.
**[CRITICAL BIOMETRIC ALERT]**
**[SUBJECT TEMPERATURE: 103.8°F AND CLIMBING]**
**[TOXICOLOGY SCAN: POSITIVE FOR "RED SPIDER" NEUROTOXIN]**
**[WARNING: SUBJECT EXPERIENCING SEVERE HALLUCINATIONS AND VIOLENT TENDENCIES]**
*Red Spider.* The name hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest. She'd heard whispers about the designer drug in the darkest corners of the underground—a military-grade hallucinogen that turned rational CEOs into homicidal maniacs. The kind of chemical weapon used for enhanced interrogation and psychological warfare.
*Someone poisoned him. Tonight. Right before I needed to get close to him.*
*That's not a coincidence. That's an assassination attempt.*
Lucien's grip tightened until she could feel her wrist bones grinding together like tectonic plates. His other hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back to expose the vulnerable column of her throat. But instead of going for the killing blow, he pressed his burning forehead against her collarbone and shuddered like a man in the grip of withdrawal.
"So cold," he mumbled against her skin, his voice cracking with desperate need. "Everything's on fire, but you're... you're like ice. Need more. Need all of it."
*He's not seeing me as a threat. The fever is so intense that my normal body temperature feels arctic against his superheated skin.*
He was using her as a human cooling system, seeking relief from the inferno consuming him from within. Which meant she had exactly one advantage in this nightmare scenario—he needed her alive.
**[DATA TRANSMISSION: 34% COMPLETE]**
**[MAINTAIN PHYSICAL CONTACT FOR OPTIMAL TRANSFER RATE]**
*Just hold on. A few more minutes and the chip will be safe.*
But then his eyes focused with terrifying clarity, the drug-induced madness sharpening into something far more dangerous—crystal-clear recognition mixed with predatory intelligence.
"Vivian Ning." Her name rolled off his tongue like a death sentence. "What exactly are you doing in my bed at three in the morning?"
His hand moved to her throat with the casual expertise of someone who'd choked people to death before. His thumb found her pulse point and pressed just hard enough to make breathing an effort.
"Are you here to save me from whoever slipped poison into my nightcap?" His voice carried the kind of supernatural calm that preceded mass executions. "Or are you here to finish what they started?"
The question hung between them like a sword suspended by spider silk. Vivian could see the calculation behind his fever-bright eyes, the way he was weighing her potential threat against his desperate need for the cooling relief her touch provided.
**[DATA TRANSMISSION: 67% COMPLETE]**
**[CRITICAL: DO NOT BREAK PHYSICAL CONTACT]**
She had three options: fight and probably die, run and definitely fail her mission, or find a way to survive the next ninety seconds through pure audacity.
Vivian chose option four—seduce the devil while he was burning alive.
She stopped struggling entirely, letting her body go limp beneath his in a gesture of complete surrender. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the kind of sultry promise that could make billionaires forget their own names.
"I'm here because you're dying, and I'm the only cure you've got."
His grip loosened by a fraction. "Cure for what?"
"The fire eating you alive from the inside out." She shifted beneath him, deliberately pressing more of her cool skin against his burning chest. "I'm the only thing that can bring your temperature down, and we both know it."
Lucien's breathing hitched like a man drowning in shallow water. The hand at her throat trembled as conflicting impulses warred behind his eyes—the drug-fueled paranoia screaming that she was an assassin, and the desperate physical need for the relief only she could provide.
"You could be lying. This could all be an elaborate setup."
"Could be." She tilted her head, exposing more of her throat in a gesture of deliberate vulnerability that made his pupils dilate further. "So let me go. See how long you last without me."
For a heartbeat that lasted an eternity, she thought he might actually call her bluff. His fingers twitched against her pulse, and she could practically see him calculating whether the risk was worth the reward.
Then the fever spiked again, and his legendary control shattered like crystal hitting concrete.
He collapsed against her with a sound that was half-growl, half-whimper of desperate need. His face buried itself in the curve of her neck as his overheated body sought every possible point of contact. His arms came up to crush her against him, and she could feel the violent tremors running through his muscles as the toxin continued its systematic assault on his nervous system.
**[DATA TRANSMISSION: 94% COMPLETE]**
*Almost there. Just don't let him kill me in the next thirty seconds.*
"Don't leave," he mumbled against her skin, his voice cracking with something that might have been terror. "Can't think when you're not here. Everything's burning, and the voices won't stop screaming."
The raw vulnerability in his admission hit her like a physical blow to the solar plexus. This wasn't just about the poison—it was about the deeper addiction, the way her presence was the only thing that could quiet the chaos that had been tormenting him since childhood. Even drugged and half-mad with fever, he recognized her as his salvation.
**[DATA TRANSMISSION COMPLETE]**
**[CHIP SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY]**
**[MISSION STATUS: SUCCESS]**
Relief flooded through her so intensely it left her dizzy and breathless. The chip was safe. Her mother's secrets were preserved. But she was still trapped beneath two hundred pounds of fevered, poisoned billionaire who could snap her spine without breaking a sweat.
And judging by the way his grip was tightening again, the Red Spider was far from finished with either of them.
Outside, thunder rolled across Star Harbor City like the laughter of vengeful gods, and Vivian wondered if she'd just saved her mother's legacy—or signed her own death warrant in blood and fire.