Chapter 7 – Lydia - Smoke and Mirrors
I don’t move after he leaves.
I stay exactly where I was when the door clicked shut, robe back on, skin still humming like it hasn’t realized the moment is over. My spine against the kitchen counter. My palms flat against the edge. My heartbeat thunders madly in my ears.
I can still feel his hands.
Not on my body, not anymore—but inside me, somehow. That’s worse.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. That kiss? That tension pulled tight between the line of want and too far? I let it happen. I asked for it. I dragged him into it, and then I let it crack like a snapped wire. I turned it off like a switch, and still, I’m the one who feels unfinished.
I touch my bottom lip. It’s still swollen. His mouth tasted like restraint and ruin.
I shut my eyes.
This is why I don’t let people in. It’s not the pain I’m afraid of—it’s the part of myself that wants to need. That clawing, choking feeling of wanting something that doesn’t come with a price tag or a codeword or a leash.
He didn’t ask for anything.
He just looked at me like I was the only real thing in the city.
That’s what scared me.
And now he’s gone.
I slide down the cabinets until I’m seated on the floor, knees pulled up, the robe bunched around my hips. The bourbon glass is still on the counter. I don’t reach for it.
I try to think about Drazen. About Dom. About the surveillance layer in this apartment.
But all I can think about is his hand, resting on the curve of my thigh—fingers digging in like he was holding on for me, not to me.
I should be angry.
I should be calculating how much damage this has done to the mask I’ve spent years perfecting.
Instead, all I feel is need.
The light in the room starts to change.
Not dramatically. Just a shift—the white-blue edge of morning peeling up through the windows, soft and accusatory. It makes everything in here look more exposed.
The counter.
The glass.
The crumpled knot of my robe at the waist.
I stand. Slowly. Each movement feels louder than it should. My joints protest like they’ve frozen in place, like I was carved into the floor hours ago and only now remembered how to be flesh again.
My mouth tastes like copper and whiskey.
I go to the sink and rinse it out.
The small mirror in the kitchen catches me as I move in half profile, one strap still falling off my shoulder, hair tangled, lips raw. I don’t look anything like the esteemed Lydia Carr.
I look like someone who cracked open the part of herself she never lets speak, then slammed the door before it could scream.
I pull the robe tighter, tying it around my waist like it's a shield.
Across the room, the phone on the kitchen island blinks once. I grab it immediately. Not a call. Just a notification.
Loop cycle ending in 8 minutes.
The surveillance system. The one Drazen installed after that club incident last month—when a client got too close, too handsy, too fucking confident the woman in the room had already been bought.
Like just because I was there, I somehow belonged to him.
I handled it, cutting his ego open with three words and a smile.
But Drazen didn't like the optics, and that's all that mattered.
He had cameras installed the next day. Not because he cared. Because possession is easier to monitor than trust. His way of saying "you're safe" while meaning "you're mine."
Three weeks ago, I paid someone very well to give me a workaround. Twelve-hour windows where the system plays recorded footage from a previous "safe" period. Me sleeping, reading, doing nothing that would raise flags.
Drazen caught it within forty-eight hours.
I thought I was done. Thought he'd punish me for tampering with his system, use it as proof I was planning something.
Instead, he called me to his office, poured two glasses of whiskey, and said: "You think I don't know what you're doing?
I installed this system to protect you, Lydia.
But if you need your... privacy, I understand.
Everyone needs to breathe. Just remember—I'm allowing this. And what I allow, I can take away."
That was three weeks ago.
Since then, I've used the loop sparingly. Maybe once a week, when the weight of being watched becomes too much. When I need to cry or scream or just exist without performing for an audience.
But every time I activate it, I know: he's letting me. He could revoke this privilege whenever he wants. Could use it against me. Could claim I'm hiding something and demand to know why I need privacy if I have nothing to hide.
The loop isn't freedom.
It's a leash that's slightly longer than the others. And he holds the other end.
I forgot I'd activated it last night. I'd wanted one night where no one was watching me fall apart.
The current loop shows footage from two nights ago—me coming home, showering, going to bed. Boring. Safe. Exactly what Drazen would expect to see.
But I need to be in position before it ends.
Eight minutes.
I know Drazen knows about the loop. But when I set this system up, I programmed it to sync with the footage timestamps—so when the live feed kicks back in, I'm exactly where I would be in the recording. Seamless transitions. No visual discrepancies.
Not because it fools Drazen. He knows what I'm doing.
But because I don't know who else might be watching. Dom has access to some of Drazen's systems. Other people in the organization might too. Better to keep the transition clean for the watchers I don't know about than to get sloppy assuming only Drazen is paying attention.
I move back toward the bedroom. In the looped footage, I'd been heading to the bathroom around this timestamp. Which means I need to be there when the live feed kicks back in.
I step into the bathroom and close the door behind me. Turn on the shower. Let the steam build.
My phone buzzes in the pocket of my robe.
Live feed restored.
I shed the robe and step under the water, letting it beat against my shoulders. The heat cuts through the fog in my head, sharp and clarifying.
I take my time. Not because I need to pretend for Drazen—he knows. But because I still need to feel like my body is mine before I hand it back over to performance.
When I'm done, I wrap myself in a fresh robe—soft cotton, cream-colored, nothing like the silk I'd been wearing before. I towel-dry my hair enough that it won't drip, then step back into the bedroom.
The city is fully awake outside. Traffic builds under the window. A garbage truck groans its way down the alley behind the building, hydraulics whining like something in pain.
I used to sleep through sounds like that.
Now I hear every decibel like it's someone calling my name in the dark.
Everything in the bedroom is where it was. The sheets never moved. The lamp's still on.
The camera in the corner is watching.
I can feel it.
And Drazen knows I know he's watching. That's the worst part. Not the surveillance itself, but the fact that he's aware I tried to escape it—and he's graciously allowing me these small windows of "privacy" as a reminder that nothing I do is truly mine.
I sit on the edge of the bed, robe tied securely, and reach for my phone like I'm checking the time. Normal. Routine.
Nothing to see here.
Then I speak out loud. Not to anyone. Just to fill the space.
“Fuck.”
It’s not elegant, but it’s true.
I rub a hand over my face, then let it fall.
There’s a burn in my chest I can’t name. Not shame. Not regret. Just friction.
The kind that comes from wanting something too much and pulling back before it destroys you.
The atmosphere still smells like him.
Not cologne. Not soap. Just something skin-deep and male. Leather and heat and the kind of restraint that leaves fingerprints inside you, not outside.
I reach back, grab the pillow behind me, and hold it to my chest.
It doesn't help.
There’s this electric ache under my skin, crawling like ants. Like I’m vibrating in my own body, unable to turn it down. Kissing him didn’t satisfy the need. If anything, it made it worse.
I wanted to be touched.
I wanted to feel like I belonged to no one.
And for one second, I almost did.
I told him to stop, that we needed to stop. And he did. But I’m still sitting here with a fire between my legs and a mind full of what-ifs that refuse to burn out.
I squeeze the pillow tighter. Try to remember who the hell I’m supposed to be.
The woman who walks into Dom’s club without flinching.
The one Drazen doesn’t own, even when he pretends to protect.
The one who smiles with knives in her mouth.
I’m not supposed to ache like this.
I’m not supposed to feel his hand on my thigh and remember it like a wound.
The phone buzzes.
Not loud. Just enough to jolt me.
I get up. Cross the room. Flip it over.
Dom.
I don’t open it right away.
Just stare at the name on the screen like it might reach out and bite me.
He never texts unless it’s something I can’t ignore.
I open the message.
“You’re expected at dusk. Wear the red.”
That’s it.
No greeting. No signature.
The red.
I know what he means. The dress Drazen had sent to my loft two weeks ago. Backless. Deep plunge. Designed not to impress, but to remind everyone who’s watching that I belong to the house.
My fingers dig into my palms.
I walk to the closet. Pull open the door. There it is, hanging like a threat: garnet velvet, slit up to the hip, neckline just shy of indecency.
I should ignore the message.
But I won’t.
I never do.
Not because I’m obedient.
Because I know what happens to women who pretend they’re untouchable when they’re not.
I lift the dress from the hanger.
And for a moment, I wonder what Silas would say if he saw me in it.
Then I hate myself for wondering.
I don’t put the dress on.
I don’t even take it off the hanger.
But I do stand there for a long time, staring at it like it’s a mouth just waiting to speak for me.
Drazen never says “this is what you’ll wear.” He just sends things. A dress here, a necklace there. A way of saying, You know what I expect.
I close the closet.