Chapter 7
SOREN
Iturn to my colleague, sitting to my right. He’s typing furiously on his mechanical keyboard, its distinctive clickety-clack cutting through the control room in a way that would irritate most people.
I find it reassuring. It means he’s getting shit done.
“Any luck yet, Jake?” I ask.
“Working on it, boss.” His brow furrows, attention locked to the screen. “I’ve got evidence of the affair, the abortion, but the trafficking part is proving more difficult.”
“ETA?”
“A couple of days, tops. Hopefully sooner. I’ve got a few leads out—people willing to talk for the right price.”
I smirk. “It helps when our target isn’t well-liked.”
Business is good. Better than good. A steady stream of clients who want problems handled cleanly, efficiently, and—most importantly—quietly. Information extracted. Situations resolved. Messes erased.
We’re not overly selective in who we take on, but we do operate by a code.
No women—unless they’re evil.
Definitely no children.
That adjustment was mine. One of the few changes I made when I took over the firm from the man who raised me.
Funny, inheriting a business before someone actually dies.
Practical, though, in the circumstances.
It’s difficult to run a business like this from inside an asylum for the criminally insane.
Where he’s rotting.
A life sentence for crimes that barely scratch the surface of what he’s done.
I considered killing him myself. There would have been something poetic about it—using the very skills he taught me against him, closing the loop cleanly.
But this suits me better.
Stripping him of control.
Reducing him to something powerless.
A man who built his life on dominance now confined to a space where every decision is made for him.
It’s fitting.
And this line of work affords me access to everything I could possibly need. Technology that borders on excessive. A network of experts who can make almost anything happen. A private jet at a moment’s notice. Financial freedom that was never meant to be mine.
There were, of course, consequences to being raised this way.
Growing up without parents leaves gaps.
Growing up with someone like him fills those gaps with something else entirely.
My soul is dark.
My coping mechanisms are… unconventional.
And my moral compass doesn’t align with most people’s expectations.
Personality disorder is the term they like to use.
It used to bother me. To fill me with rage.
Now I see it for what it is.
A strength. A lethal advantage.
I’m not burdened by the same constraints as most. Not limited by the need to justify every decision through a lens of socially acceptable morality.
Free to move about the world in a way that befits me.
I see things clearly.
I act accordingly.
And that clarity allows me to focus on what matters.
Like Ivy.
Not that she has any idea.
Even when I’m meant to be laser-focused on work, my mind can’t help but float to her.
When Ivy notices my posts, I can’t help but smile.
It’s not a reaction I indulge in often, or something that comes naturally. But when it comes to her, something shifts. Something lighter, sharper, almost unfamiliar. I find myself smiling like a man who doesn’t know better.
At first, the reaction was so foreign that it made me feel something uncomfortably close to sentimental, as if I were the type of man to be undone by something as mundane as attention. But now I’ve come to almost enjoy it.
Who knew it would be my spiders that would lure her into my web?
My black widows.
My girls.
I thought I was going to have to be more strategic. More deliberate. To force it by creating something compelling enough to catch her attention and hold it.
But it was almost too easy.
It happened naturally. Effortlessly.
Like it was meant to be.
People say spiders don’t have personalities.
They’re wrong.
I can tell my beauties from each other without hesitation. It’s not just their size or markings—it’s the way they move, the way they respond to stimuli, to food, to the subtle vibrations that ripple through their webs.
To prey.
They’re beautiful.
Precise.
Underestimated.
And I’ve always been drawn to females, so it makes sense that all my pets are.
People like to explain things, to reduce them down to something simple and digestible.
I don’t.
My mother dying in childbirth.
A subconscious attempt to reclaim something I never had.
Or perhaps it’s the opposite.
Growing up under the influence of a man who embodied control without softness, structure without care, leaving me with a… preference for something different.
Something that actually feels alive.
I’m selective, though.
Extremely.
Which is how I ended up with my queens.
I don’t get bored of them.
Yes, they bite, but usually only when approached by something or someone with nefarious intent. They’re not psycho killers going out looking for trouble. They’re just deadly when provoked.
They’re intelligent—building irregular, messy-looking webs that are surprisingly effective. A method underneath the chaos. A design that ensures nothing escapes once it’s caught.
They hang upside down—waiting, patient—using vibration signals to detect their prey. As if they’re saying I will let the world come to me, and then I will end it.
Once they do catch something, they move swiftly. They attack, biting with their venom, wrapping their prey in a cocoon of silk. There’s no hesitation or overthinking. Decision. Action. Done.
There’s a moment, right before the silk sets, where the prey still thinks it can move.
That moment is the most interesting part.
And yes, sometimes they do eat their males after mating. But it’s not guaranteed. It tends to happen if she’s hungry, if he sticks around for too long. If timing is simply… unfortunate.
It’s not their fault if a gentleman caller misreads the room. If someone enters their space without understanding the rules.
My lips curve slightly at the thought.
Because now they’ve done more for me than I expected. More than I planned for.
They led her to me.
And she followed.
My Ivy.
Sooner than expected.
Earlier than I planned.
And now that she’s almost here—now that she’s stepped, however unknowingly, into my orbit—I’m not going to waste that.
Not when she fits so perfectly.
Not when she moves exactly the way I thought she would.
Not when she hasn’t realized yet she’s already inside something she doesn’t understand.
Opportunity like this doesn’t come twice.
And I won’t make the mistake of letting it pass.