Aria Quinn.
The name echoed in Lucien's mind like a code fragment refusing to decrypt.
They were deep in the lower levels of the SilvyrTech tower now, in a secure passage lit by flickering red emergency lights. Concrete walls, thick steel doors, and silence so heavy it felt like the world was holding its breath.
Lucien leaned against the cold wall, his hand pressed against the gunshot graze on his arm. Blood seeped slowly between his fingers.
He didn't flinch.
Aria stood across from him—soaking wet, bruised, eyes wide with fear but burning with something deeper.
Truth.
Or the best version of it she had left.
"I was born inside a lab, Lucien," she said softly. "Not in the way people say to be dramatic. I mean that literally. I was raised in a black site known only to its funders as Orion 7."
He narrowed his eyes. That name was familiar. Too familiar.
"Why would someone like you end up scrubbing floors?"
She looked away, hugging herself.
"Because I escaped. And I've been hiding ever since."
Lucien watched her.
No tears. No tremble in her voice. That wasn't innocence.
That was survival.
"You were trained," he murmured. "I saw it. The way you move, the way you scan rooms. You were built for more than janitorial work."
Aria nodded. "Orion raised me to become a cognitive asset. I could learn any system, memorize patterns instantly. But one day, I found a file. A red ledger with our names—experiments, not children. Project Storm Vault was part of it. So I ran."
Lucien's blood ran cold.
Storm Vault wasn't just a defense AI prototype. It was originally part of a memory extraction program—the same one he bought two years ago from a dissolved government shell company.
And now… she was the missing link.
"You think I'm lying," she said, eyes meeting his.
"No," he said after a beat. "I think you're dangerous."
She flinched—but didn't deny it.
Then, slowly, Lucien reached for a switch behind the wall panel.
Steel doors groaned open.
A hidden room.
Monitors, weapons, encrypted drives. A safehouse beneath a corporate empire.
"You'll stay here," he said. "For now."
"You're helping me?"
"I don't trust you," Lucien said. "But someone just breached my company, tried to kill us both, and left your name on the system log."
He stepped toward her.
"I'm not helping you, Aria. I'm keeping you where I can see you."
His hand brushed her arm as he passed.
It wasn't a threat. Not entirely.
It was control.
It was chemistry.
And Aria's heart, despite everything, began to beat faster.