CHAPTER 22
Riven
Villain - K/DA ft. Madison Beer, Kim Petras
One hand is pressed flat against the wall beside my head, the other clenched into a fist.
I’m breathing heavily.
How the hell did I end up in that situation? It’s my fault.
Entirely.
The water hits my back, but it feels like a thousand daggers stabbing into me.
I can’t think about anything else.
What am I supposed to do now? I hate myself for even enjoying what he did to me, but more importantly, I hate him.
He doesn’t have an ounce of understanding of what boundaries mean.
He doesn’t care about consequences.
I knew it from the crash, from the break-in, and I still chose to get revenge.
The destruction felt good, but it’s not enough.
Especially after what he did, after how much my own body betrayed me.
I want him dead.
I turn off the water, wrap a towel around myself, and get ready for the studio.
It’s been two days since then, and I haven’t answered any of Liam’s texts or calls, refusing to see him.
I can’t.
I feel terrible about the way my body reacted.
And I don’t really know how Liam would react to this.
Just thinking about it—his mouth on me, consuming me like he was starving—makes my pussy ache. I can feel myself growing wetter.
I shift my legs, pressing them together, trying to calm myself down.
“Fuck!” I shout, frustrated with myself.
I drop onto the couch, bury my face in my hands, and let out a long, shaky breath.
What am I supposed to do? Seriously.
I feel like I betrayed my relationship with Liam, but I was forced into that situation in the car.
Then again, I was the one who went looking for revenge, and my body completely broke under Evren’s tongue.
I feel dirty, lost and angry.
I shouldn’t get involved with him anymore.
I can’t.
I should get going, take care of my studio, be with my girls.
But the need to make him pay is stronger.
“God...” I mumble to myself.
I’m stupid.
My comm buzzes.
A text message appears in the air, materializing as a hologram.
I lift my head to look at it, and everything stops.
My breathing and my heartbeat. Even time itself seems to freeze.
Is this a fucking joke? Now he has my number too?
I’m in deep shit.
I might as well dig my own grave, climb into it, and bury myself before anyone—him—ever finds me again.
I ignore his text and swipe it away.
Then I lean back against the couch, my damp hair dripping onto the cushions and the concrete floor of my loft.
I stare up at the ceiling. I’m not like this, I don’t let things happen and then just move on.
My body may have betrayed me, but my mind—and my pride—are crystal fucking clear.
This fucker licked me.
My body reacted before my brain could catch up, but that doesn’t change what happened.
It doesn’t make it okay. It doesn’t make me want it again. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean he had the right.
I stand up abruptly and storm up the stairs to my mezzanine bedroom.
I throw on a pair of pajamas, then head back down, snatching up my comm on the way.
I fire off a message to the girls’ group chat, DEGENERATES, telling them I won’t be coming into the studio today.
I have important things to deal with. I’ll give today’s clients a discount if they reschedule.
I don’t tell the girls anything about what happened with Evren.
Not yet. How could I?
Charlie would probably cry while trying to encourage me at the same time, and Jules would tell me I was a dumb bitch for going down there in the first place.
The worst part? She’d be right.
I was stupid. Reckless.
I walked straight into that mess knowing exactly who he was.
I need to make him pay, once and for all.
I sit down at my desk and start typing.
Thanks to my father, I have access to government files.
Years ago, he gave me his password so I could check my own school records because he wanted me to understand how problematic it was for his image.
The only thing he ever really gave me and the results had been catastrophic enough. He never bothered to change the password afterward.
For hours, I dig through file after file, searching for information about Evren, but I only find mugshots and Enforcers’ reports from before he was twenty years old.
I sigh and rub my temples.
I need to do something that will make him shut his mouth.
It needs preparation, it needs someone who can give me information the Central Authority doesn’t have.
Evren has a gang, I should hit it. Find out how it works and where it’s vulnerable.
My fingers fly across the Glass Panel, searching for a convicted hacker who’s already served their sentence and is back on the outside.
I need someone like that. Someone who knows how to break things, who knows how to make people regret crossing the wrong person.
Someone who can hack into his gang’s systems.
Because there has to be something else.
Racing alone isn’t enough to fund the kind of operation Evren runs.
The cars, the garages, the people on payroll, the protection, the bribes—it all costs money.
A lot of money.
Every organization has multiple streams of income.
Every single one.
Businesses do it, as politicians.
Nobody survives by relying on a single source of revenue.
Even members of the Central Authority don’t live solely off their political careers.
Maybe they’re invested in hologram technology. Maybe pharmaceuticals or even logistics. Something completely legitimate and highly profitable.
So, Evren’s gang must have something else on the side.
Either way, the money has to come from somewhere.
And if I can find where it comes from, I can find where they’re vulnerable.
Because if I don’t do something—if I don’t make him understand that he can’t fuck with me and walk away from it—then I might as well throw myself into the Lower Layers and be done with it.
After another hour, my brain feels like it’s pumping every drop of blood in my body.
I can feel it pulsing inside my skull. My headache is unbearable.
I push away from my desk and head to the kitchen.
Grabbing a bottle from the fridge, I drink deeply before opening the freezer and pulling out a syringe.
Without hesitation, I press it against my thigh and inject the medication.
Relief washes through me almost immediately.
I let out a long sigh and toss the syringe into the medical waste bin beside the counter.
I’d stocked up on the medication months ago. It has to be kept frozen to remain effective.
The injection is a powerful painkiller prescribed for migraines—one of the few things capable of cutting through headaches like this.
In the Upper Layers, every medication is designed for a specific purpose.
Most everyday ailments—headaches, stomachaches, muscle pain, fevers—can be treated with injections.
They’re fast, effective, and ridiculously expensive.
Moments like this make me grateful to be rich.
The more serious stuff, though, is left to professionals. Broken bones, internal injuries, surgeries—those aren’t things you fix yourself, no matter how much money you have.
For that, you go to a clinic and let the experts handle it.
For everything else, there’s a syringe waiting in the freezer.
In Kairo-9, medicine is so advanced that getting sick is almost optional.
There’s a cure for nearly everything.
STIs have been eradicated for decades, and getting pregnant is just as easy to prevent.
At the start of every month, anyone who doesn’t want to get pregnant—or get someone pregnant—gets a contraceptive shot.
One shot lasts a month with no hormones. No side effects and no messing with your period.
I have no idea how it works, I just know it does. I get the shot every month because it’s simple, and it works.
Suddenly, a message pops up on my Glass Panel screen. Slowly, I lean forward and open it.
An unknown sender.
A knot forms in my stomach. The screen flickers, and messages appear.
UNKNOWN: “Looking for a hacker?”
UNKNOWN: “Here I am.”
UNKNOWN: “Funny finding someone like you looking for someone like me.”
UNKNOWN: “So, what can I do for you?”
My pulse spikes.
For a moment, I just stare at the words.
No way. No fucking way.
I’d spent hours digging through government files, searching for a ghost, and somehow the ghost had found me first.
Couldn’t he have shown up before my headache?
I roll my eyes and type out a reply, telling him I need information. Enough information to sabotage someone’s business.
The response is immediate.
UNKNOWN: “I see.”
UNKNOWN: “Well, I’m glad you found me.”
UNKNOWN: “Actually, I found you.”
UNKNOWN: “I’ll need a name, a location, and the kind of information you’re after.”
UNKNOWN: “It’ll cost you credits. For my security, of course. And for my services, baby girl.”
I grimace at the pet name.
“Ew.” The word drags out of me as I stare at the screen.
I start typing back, telling him I have enough money to buy him a brand-new identity if I wanted to.
As for the pet names, he can keep them to himself.
A few moments pass before I send him exactly what I need.
Just something big enough to make Evren realize that fucking with me comes with consequences—and that he should leave me the fuck alone.
UNKNOWN: “Problems in paradise, baby girl? That man is a piece of work.”
UNKNOWN: “In less than ten minutes, you’ll receive the first part of the information. After that, you’ll transfer 50,000 credits to the account listed at the top of the file.”
UNKNOWN: “Once the payment is confirmed, I’ll send the rest.”
UNKNOWN: “Then we’ll go our separate ways.”
Fifty thousand credits?
That is given. For me, it’s nothing.
Not that I like flaunting the fact that I’m rich, but honestly, I’d expected a much higher price.
I type back that I agree and wait.
Exactly ten minutes later, a file lands in my inbox.
I open it, skim through the contents, and transfer the credits to the account listed at the top.
Less than a minute later, the second file arrives, I open it immediately.
And there it is. Something interesting.
I knew the fucker had a side business. An illegal one, on top of everything else.
Not that illegal street racing was exactly lawful, but this went deeper than that.
Evren’s gang, Crimson Velocity, operates primarily through racing.
That’s their public face.
But according to the files, they have other sources of income—contraband, illegal substances, and vehicle parts moving through channels that definitely aren’t regulated.
And the next major delivery is scheduled for a little over a month from now.
Perfect, I have time to plan.
I lean back in my chair, a smug smile creeping across my face.
Finally, I have something tangible. Something useful.
This is my revenge.
A hit loud enough to send a message, a message that says, loud and clear.
Leave me the fuck alone.