And in that moment, I realized. I was nothing. To him. To Dulcie. “Lock that bitch in the basement!” He ordered.
My heart dropped.
The door slammed behind me with a finality that shook the floor beneath my feet. The heavy clang of the lock echoed through the stone walls like a death sentence.
I was in the basement. No windows. One flickering lightbulb. A rusted metal cot in the corner. A chipped ceramic bowl of what looked like gray mush and a plastic cup of water sat on the floor like some sick offering.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t scream.
But my hands trembled as I sat down, the cold concrete seeping into my skin like poison.
Then came his voice.
Low. Icy. Dripping with power.
"You fucking exist because I allow it. Don’t forget that."
He leaned close, lips brushing my ear.
And then he walked away.
I sat there, frozen. Not just from the cold, but from the realization.
He wasn’t bluffing. Titanis wasn’t just a company—it was the vault of confidential defense data, global blueprints for weapons and technologies countries would go to war over.
He wanted inside. Through me.
And he was willing to destroy my father—hell, the world—just to own it.
The next days blurred.
Gray food. Half-cups of water. Silence.