Chapter 17 Elara
Elara
The hum of the vehicle faded as River drove, and for a moment, I let my eyes close. Not to rest—rest was a luxury I hadn’t trusted in years—but because sometimes the darkness made it easier to remember.
Hydra hadn’t found me in an alley with a gun to my head. That would’ve been too honest.
No, they came dressed in silk and smiles.
I’d been eighteen, too smart for my own good, too desperate to prove I could survive on my own. My father had left me alone a year earlier; my mother had gone before that. I was tired of scraping by on part-time jobs, always one bill away from losing everything.
Hydra offered something no one else had: a sense of belonging. What I didn’t know was that it was a trap.
They called it a foundation back then—scholarships, internships, glossy galas in glass towers.
They told me I was special. That I had a way of walking into a room and bending it around me.
They polished me, dressed me, whispered that I could make a difference if I just played along, and listened to them.
By the time I realized I was being used, I was already too deep. My face on billboards. My smile plastered across campaigns that promised change while Hydra chained girls in basements.
The first time I saw behind the curtain, it was bags of drugs. I told myself it was an exception. Just one account, one deal, one dirty secret. I could survive it. I could fix it later.
But then there was Mia. My one and only friend. I loved her like a sister.
She was nineteen, quiet, a translator Hydra used for overseas deals. She reminded me of myself—bright eyes, sharp mind, hungry for approval. We’d sit together after events, trading jokes, pretending the champagne tasted as sweet as the rich men said it did.
And then one day, she was gone. No transfer, no goodbye. Just gone. I saw the way Roger Grand watched her; he took her, it had to have been him. He would pay.
When I asked questions, Hydra smiled tightly, their grip colder. Not your concern, Elara.
But I knew. God help me, I knew. And that’s when the mask I’d built started to crack.
The SUV jolted, dragging me back. My eyes snapped open, heart thudding too fast, too loud. Across from me, Beckett was watching, his stare as steady as the rifle in his lap.
I wondered, not for the first time, what he’d do if he knew all of it—that I’d once stood on a stage and sold Hydra’s lies with perfect teeth and a polished voice.
Would he see me as an asset worth guarding? Or just another piece of rot to let burn?
“Two minutes before we ditch the vehicle,” River said.
I straightened, fingers tightening on the straps of my vest, the past shoved back into the dark where it belonged.
Masks were armor. They always had been.
But as Beckett’s gaze locked on mine, I wondered if maybe—just maybe—he’d already seen beneath it.