The new biometric lock on Evelyn's suite was a thing of cold, minimalist beauty. Sleek, silver, and flush against the dark wood of the door, it was a silent testament to Damien's control. He intended it as the final, inescapable buckle on her gilded leash. He thought he had locked her in.
Evelyn saw it differently.
As she stood before it, she felt a familiar, thrilling hum in her veins, a feeling she hadn't truly experienced since her past life, just before a hostile takeover. This lock wasn't just a lock; it was a networked computer. It was a piece of proprietary Blackwood technology.
And every system, she knew with the certainty of a master architect, had a flaw. Every contract had a loophole. Every fortress had a crack in its foundation. Damien, in his quest to build the perfect cage, had made a critical error: he had handed her a piece of the blueprint. The cage itself might contain the key.
Her mission was no longer just about survival or revenge. It was about winning.
She couldn't begin tampering with the device directly; that would be amateurish, noisy, and would instantly trigger alarms in the central security hub Mr. Davies likely watched with an eagle eye. She needed information, and to get information, she needed a pretext. She needed a technician to come to her.
Her plan was one of meticulous, frustrating patience. For two full days, she used the scanner flawlessly, her fingerprint and retinal data logging perfect entries. On the third day, she began her subtle campaign of sabotage. She applied a nearly invisible layer of clear, non-damaging nail adhesive to the tip of her index finger.
ACCESS DENIED. BIOMETRIC DATA MISMATCH.
The red light on the panel flashed. She tried again, holding her eye just a fraction of an inch too far from the retinal scanner.
ACCESS DENIED. SUBJECT PROXIMITY ERROR.
She repeated the process five more times, creating a clear, undeniable log of "user errors." Then, she picked up her tablet and placed a call to Ms. Jennings, pitching her voice to a perfect frequency of apologetic frustration.
"Ms. Jennings, I am so terribly sorry to be a bother," she began, a slight, helpless tremor in her voice. "But this new lock… it's just so temperamental. It seems to have locked me out of my own suite. I feel rather silly, but I'm afraid I need some help."
There was a faint, weary sigh on the other end of the line before Ms. Jennings' professional mask slipped back into place. "Of course, Ms. Hayes. I will arrange for a technician to attend to it immediately."
The technician, a young man named Mark whose ID badge hung slightly crooked on his uniform, arrived fifteen minutes later. He was nervous, his eyes darting around the opulent suite, clearly intimidated to be in the private space of Mr. Blackwood's fiancée. Evelyn capitalized on it immediately, playing her role to perfection.
"Thank you so much for coming, Mark. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong, I'm just hopeless with this sort of thing," she said with a disarming smile.
As Mark opened his toolkit and connected a tablet to a small, discreet port at the base of the lock panel, Evelyn hovered nearby, a curious and clueless observer.
"Oh my, that looks complicated," she said. "What system is this? Is it the same one Mr. Blackwood uses for his office?"
Mark, eager to demonstrate his expertise, puffed up slightly. "It's a similar platform, ma'am. All our high-security zones use the Blackwood proprietary 'Aegis' series system. Your suite is on a closed-loop network, though, connected only to the central security hub."
Aegis. Closed-loop. Two critical data points.
"It kept saying 'Authentication Error,'" Evelyn continued, looking worried. "Does that mean it's sending an alarm somewhere every time I get it wrong? How embarrassing!"
"Oh no, ma'am," he reassured her, tapping at his tablet. "It just logs the errors locally for diagnostics. Mr. Davies gets a summary report, but it doesn't trigger a full alarm unless there's a sign of tampering."
She had him. He was trying to be helpful, to soothe the boss's fiancée. While he was distracted by the diagnostic screen, Evelyn feigned a cough, taking a step back toward the kitchenette. "Could I get you a glass of water, Mark?"
"Oh, thank you, ma'am."
As she walked away, she watched him from the corner of her eye. To reset her biometric profile, he had to access an admin panel on his device. For three crucial seconds, she had a clear view of the login interface. She couldn't see the password he typed, but she saw the rest: the sleek, black interface branded with the 'Aegis' logo, and the username field, pre-filled with a standard corporate format: bwe.tech.m.cross.
When she returned with the water, he was finishing up. "I've recalibrated the sensors and cleared your error logs, Ms. Hayes," he said proudly. "It seems there was a tiny smudge on the fingerprint reader. You shouldn't have any more trouble." He packed his tools, leaving with a sense of accomplishment.
Evelyn closed the door, the lock clicking into place with a quiet, satisfying finality. She was alone again, but the room felt different. It was no longer a cage; it was a battlefield she now understood.
She had the system's name. She knew its network structure. She had seen the login UI and understood the username convention. It wasn't enough to break in—not yet. But it was a thread. It was the first solid piece of a puzzle she could now begin to solve.
Damien's gilded leash was meant to restrain her. But in his arrogance, he had made a fatal mistake. He had put a piece of his most advanced technology directly into her hands. She ran her fingers over the cool metal of the lock. The fear she had felt was replaced by a surge of dangerous, focused energy. The game was on.