16. CONTAINED
alistair
I leave the private ward sealed behind my authorization and take the elevator alone. Before leaving, I personally assigned Dr. Voss, Dr. Morrow, and Dr. Khatri to their designated tasks.
My phone vibrates once in my pocket—confirmation pings cascading through Dominion channels already trying to reassert control.
The elevator dings open at the boardroom level, and I step out into the observation deck without slowing. The glass wall at the far end darkens as I approach, reflective coating engaging, the Dominion deciding that the meeting won’t wait.
They’re not here in person today. That alone tells me this is damage control, not deliberation. I press my palm to the embedded panel beside the glass and initiate the secure call sequence. The reflective surface ripples once before stabilizing, then fractures into light.
Within moments, three silhouettes begin to resolve imperfectly in the glass. Their holographic structures remain subtly distorted.
Behind them, faintly visible through secondary partitions, the Council takes shape—blurred figures stationed at consoles and terminals, operational heads who manage recruitment, cover narratives, logistics, and erasure. They don’t speak unless invited.
I start before they can. “Ariella Keinston. Heiress to CynoTech’s executive branch. This’ll complicate public erasure. You initiated elimination protocol without clearance and reclassified her as biological salvage.”
“She was surveilling you,” Luca counters, his silver mask catching the ambient light. “Pattern analysis crossed restricted thresholds.”
“She was under observation by me,” I lie smoothly, correcting him without raising my voice.
Luca’s gold mask tilts slightly. “Your message requested non-interference. Our analysts determined delay increased exposure probability beyond acceptable margins.”
“She’s a Keinston,” my voice carries a silent warning. “CynoTech Group doesn’t tolerate interfering with their heirs. This family will dig and leave nothing less than bloodshed.”
“Isn’t that wonderful? More dead bodies. More disposable experimental objects,” Victor says, a thin excitement threading through his tone.
That earns me the Crown’s attention.
He does not acknowledge Victor, but me. “Explain.”
“Dead assets invite questions,” I say. “Missing heirs invite investigations. Both create pressure vectors we don’t control. What you brought me instead is leverage, if handled correctly.”
Victor’s tone sharpens. “Are you trying to sabotage to initiate experimenting on her?”
Correction: I don’t want to perform any inhumane experiments on her.
“I’m asserting jurisdiction,” I reply calmly. “She falls under my anomaly scope. She was observing my operational patterns, and now entangled with my iteration integrity. More importantly, she’s my student.”
“And you’re asking us to let her go?” Luca says not as a question but a statement.
“I’m asking you to do what the Council exists to do,” I say calmly. “Control the narrative before it metastasizes.”
“How?” Luca asks.
Before I answer, I let my gaze move between them. “I need to know whether you intend to classify her as collateral or as an active variable. Am I mitigating a mistake, or am I cleaning up an order that still stands?”
“That’s none of your concern—”
The Crown cuts over him without raising his voice. “Jurisdiction determines liability, and liability needs discretion. Continue, Hertley. Let’s hear your thoughts.”
He doesn’t rescind the protocol. He doesn’t confirm it either. But he gives me exactly what I require—a solid ground to stand on.
“Elimination is efficient when the subject is expendable. She’s not.”
Victor shifts. “Every subject is expendable.”
“Incorrect,” I reply evenly. “Some subjects are pressure points.”
The Crown remains still. Luca watches.
“You selected impact over infiltration,” I continue.
“You turned a surveillance irregularity into a spectacle risk. Had she died on that road, CynoTech would already be auditing satellite feeds and cross-referencing emergency response times. They wouldn’t look outward first. They would look inward to find the root cause. ”
“She crossed a threshold,” Luca insists.
“She brushed against one,” I correct him again. “There’s a very fine difference.”
I step closer to the glass, watching my own reflection fracture across their projections. “She doesn’t yet understand what she was following. That ignorance is a resource that can be turned into an asset for us.”
Victor gives a short, humorless sound. “You want to protect her.”
“I want to control her and protect Triarch Dominion from public exposure,” I correct calmly.
“If she disappears, she becomes a catalyst. If she dies, she becomes a nemesis. If she wakes here, under observation protocols not calibrated for subtlety, you’ll definitely frighten her into reaching out to her family. ”
The Crown speaks. “What are you suggesting, Hertley?”
“Under me, she becomes manageable. She knows me as her professor. And I believe she has somehow developed some strange fascination with me.”
Behind the masks, the Council shifts.
“She’s my student,” I remind them again, not defensively but factually.
“Her presence near my operational patterns can be justified without invoking Dominion infrastructure. If questions arise, I answer them. If curiosity resurfaces, I redirect it. Bottom line is,” I take a deep breath, “I take full responsibility for her.”
“What if she continues digging?” Victor presses.
“Then I’ll decide whether she’s salvageable or not,” I say, holding his gaze through distortion.
The Crown’s voice lowers. “You’re asking for discretionary authority, Hertley. That’s an exception.”
“I’m trying to prevent a chain reaction that you’d initiate by choosing a Keinston. Additionally, she doesn’t have any serious allegation that we can use as leverage.” I reply.
“Stalking is a crime,” Luca points nonchalantly.
“I agree, but she’s just a twenty-year-old girl who’s always been sheltered by her family if I’m correct. She’s too na?ve to physically target a Traich member,” I pause, needing this to solidify.
“If she were of any other last name with the slightest criminal record, I wouldn’t bother at all,” I take a deep breathe, mentally preparing myself for what I’m about to say.
“And if this restraint backfires, then the failure on me,” I say before they can ask about it without hesitation. “Not the Triarch Dominion. There’s still time to make things right. Let me be more useful than just authorizing Project Synthète.”
The Crown studies me. “You’re unusually invested.”
I ignore the implication completely, not letting it interrupt my flow. “And you’re testing my limits by putting me under such situations. Have I not proved my loyalty by marrying Delilah Crosswave?”
That renders them silent for a beat.
“What are you proposing now, Hertley?” Luca asks.
“I know how to keep her contained without letting her know what she’s been contained from.”
The Council stirs faintly behind the glass.
“You’re asking for exclusion from Council oversight,” one of the Council member says.
“I’m preventing Council liability,” I correct. “If this becomes public, the Dominion answers. If it remains private, I do.”
Luca considers for a long moment. “No logs. No cross-department access. If the Keinstons escalate you’ll personally absorb the impact, Alistair Hertley.”
That is the language that closes doors.
The Crown inclines his head almost imperceptibly. “Temporary jurisdiction. No archival logs. No Council observation unless reactivated. You can have her,” he gives the final decision.
Victor exhales through his teeth but says nothing.
I almost let out a sloppy sigh of relief, but then he says in a cold timbre, “She remains your liability, Hertley,” the Crown finishes with an unnerving calmness.
I know what it implies—should she retaliate, I pay the ultimate price.
Even after knowing that, I met his masked gaze and say, “She already is.”
When I return to the private ward, the lights are still low.
She hasn’t moved.
The monitors hum softly. Sedation holds her under deep and complete control, lashes resting against bruised cheeks. The assigned doctors have done exactly as instructed while I was gone. No deviations. Nothing I didn’t authorize.
Good. But I should leave.
Reports are waiting. Classes tomorrow. Oxford doesn’t tolerate absence, even from men like me.
Every additional hour of her being unconscious collapses risk of collapse. So is if she wakes up before I make her absence look valid.
The trickiest part is to take care of her family.
I need to breach where she leaves, get myself authorized into all her devices—her phone and backpack are already brought here in a plastic bag.
I need to carefully craft a lie to convince her family that she’ll be offline for at least a month, and they can’t come to visit in the meantime.
And also take care of her academic life so that nothing gets flagged or raises any sort of suspicion.
Instead of doing anything worth requiring my immediate attention, I pull a chair to sit by her bedside.
This is temporary, I tell myself.
She’s safer sedated than waking, confused, frightened, throwing questions at me—she isn’t yet ready to know the answers.
I study her face—the slack vulnerability of someone who’s unfortunately infatuated with the very wrong person.
Stalking me, of all people. Foolish girl.
I watch the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. My mind subconsciously counts her breaths, guarding the silence surrounding us.
I adjust the blanket when she shivers, a reflex I pretend not to notice. My hand lingers a second too long before I pull it back.
She’ll not wake until I think she’s ready. Months, if necessary. Longer, if required. I won’t hand her over to any institutional curiosity.
After all, we only die once, so live before we do. And Ariella Keinston just wanted to live by chasing a recklessly dangerous thrill.