Brandon's words echoed long after they left his mouth.
We end it.
He said it like a promise. Like a sentence.
Ariana stood motionless in the red room, the heavy silence swallowing her whole. Something in Brandon had changed—his calm was colder, more final. There was a shift in his energy, as if the line between protection and destruction had just blurred past recognition.
"What does that mean?" she asked quietly. "What does 'ending it' look like for someone like you?"
Brandon moved slowly toward her, unhurried and unflinching. "It means I stop playing chess. I take the king off the board."
"James?"
He didn't speak. Didn't need to.
She stepped back. "You don't even know the full story. You haven't spoken to him."
"I've seen enough."
His voice was sharp, but not cruel. There was something else beneath it—something twisted with fear. Fear of losing control. Of losing her.
"People can change, Brandon."
"They can also hide."
She wanted to argue. But the truth was, she didn't know James anymore. Not really. Not since that night she walked in on him and Nicole. Not since he disappeared from her life without a word of real remorse.
But that didn't mean she wanted him dead.
"I'm not asking you to trust him," she said. "I'm asking you not to become the villain you think he is."
Brandon's jaw tightened. He looked at her for a long moment, then turned toward the door. "You need air."
"I'm not leaving," she said immediately.
"I'm not letting you out. But you need a change of space." He opened the door. "Come with me."
She followed, reluctantly. The house was quiet, unnervingly so. He led her downstairs, past the glossy halls, into a side corridor she hadn't noticed before.
A set of stairs led down—stone, cold, dimly lit.
A basement.
"You said you didn't torture people anymore," she said cautiously.
"I don't. But I want to show you something."
Her heart pounded harder with every step.
At the bottom, there was a heavy steel door. Brandon keyed in a code and it hissed open.
The room inside wasn't a dungeon—it was cleaner than she expected. But sterile. Empty except for two things: a wall of screens, and a chair bolted to the ground.
Ariana's blood turned cold.
"This is where I used to interrogate people," Brandon said evenly. "It's also how I watched over you."
She looked at the screens—every angle of her apartment, her bookstore, the streets she used to walk. Live feeds. Old footage.
"You had cameras on me."
He nodded. "After the first threat. After Nicole started poking around where she shouldn't. I couldn't risk you being caught in someone else's crossfire."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"If I had, would you have believed I was trying to protect you—or would you have run?"
She stared at the footage, trying to process the violation, the intention, the obsession.
"It was never just about watching," he said. "It was about preparing. And now that preparation pays off."
He clicked on a new screen—grainy footage of a warehouse, timestamped just hours ago. James's face flickered into frame.
Ariana gasped.
He looked different. Harder. Scruff on his jaw, tension in his movements. He was speaking to someone off-camera, his voice muffled.
"He's been meeting with one of my enemies," Brandon said. "Ricco Tenna. Arms runner. Slime. He's been trying to buy protection."
Ariana watched James gesture, pacing, his voice rising even without clear sound.
"What's he saying?" she whispered.
Brandon tapped a button and a transcript appeared.
She read the words slowly, horror creeping in.
> "I just need her. If I have her, the leverage is mine. She's the key."
She turned to Brandon, stunned. "He's using me. He doesn't love me."
Brandon didn't gloat. He didn't say I told you so.
He only said, "Now do you understand why I need to end it?"
She nodded.
But something inside her broke.
The last piece of her hope—the part of her that thought James might have loved her once—crumbled.
She looked back at Brandon.
"You were right," she whispered. "And I was naive."
"You were human," he replied.
He walked over, brushing his fingers gently under her chin, lifting her face to his.
"I'm not showing you this to scare you. I'm showing you so you know that what I do next isn't about possession. It's about survival."
"I don't want blood on my hands," she said.
"You won't have to lift a finger."
"But if you do this," she whispered, "you won't be able to come back from it."
Brandon smiled faintly, a sad, quiet thing. "Darling… I was never planning on coming back."
That night, Ariana couldn't sleep.
She lay in a bed too big, too soft, too cold—haunted by everything she now knew. The truth about James. The depth of Brandon's obsession. The life she used to have and the life she was being pulled into like a whirlpool she couldn't escape.
In the quiet hours, she stood at the window, looking at the city that had once been her whole world. It seemed smaller now. Duller.
Her phone buzzed—just once.
No number.
A message.
> I haven't stopped loving you. He won't protect you forever. Let me prove I'm not the enemy. —J
Her breath caught.
She looked at the hallway outside, then slowly deleted the message.
She didn't know what scared her more:
That James had found her…
Or that some part of her still wanted to hear what he had to say.