Nyra’s POV

I should have turned back!

That thought came to me the moment my foot slid on loose gravel and the night seemed to pause, as if it had been waiting for me to make that mistake. The street behind me looked harmless enough. One flickering lamp. Cracked pavement. Air that smelled faintly of rain and metal. Ahead, the road disappeared into shadows broken by tall fences and unfinished concrete.

A construction site.

I stopped walking.

It was stupid. I had taken the wrong turn. People did that every day without something terrible happening to them. Still, my chest tightened, my pulse jumping like it knew something my mind refused to accept.

Then I heard voices.

They were not loud or chaotic. They were controlled.

I froze.

One voice sounded calm, measured, almost bored. The other was strained, pitched too high, rushing through words as if speed alone might save him. I could not make out what they were saying, but the sound crawled under my skin.

This was not an argument.

This was not a misunderstanding.

I should have left.

I did not.

That was the moment everything changed.

The gap in the fence was narrow, jagged where metal bent inward. I did not remember deciding to step through it. I only knew that I was suddenly inside, my breath shallow, my ears ringing. The ground beneath my shoes was damp and uneven. The earth looked freshly disturbed.

I smelled soil.

Then I saw them.

Two men stood several feet apart. One of them was kneeling.

The man on the ground looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped as if they had carried too many secrets for too long. His hands were raised, palms open. Not dramatic. Not desperate. Careful. Like he still believed there was a sentence that could save him.

The other man stood over him.

He was tall, dressed in a dark coat that did not belong in a place like that. Everything about him was composed. His clothes were clean. His posture was unhurried. He did not look like someone who had stumbled into violence.

He looked like someone who had arrived prepared.

He listened while the kneeling man spoke, his head tilted slightly, his expression unreadable. There was no anger there. No impatience. Just attention.

That frightened me more than anything else.

This was not a man losing control.

This was a man deciding an outcome.

My breath stuttered. The sound was barely audible.

It was enough.

His head lifted.

Our eyes met.

For a moment, I thought he was speaking to me.

Then I realized he was not.

Time seemed to compress into a single unbearable second. I waited for shock. For rage. For panic. None of it came. Instead, his gaze sharpened as it swept over me with unsettling precision. My face. My coat. The bag slung over my shoulder. I felt catalogued, measured, understood in a way that made my skin prickle.

I was not a surprise.

I was a complication.

The kneeling man turned when he noticed where the other man was looking. When he saw me, his expression changed completely. Hope flared there, sudden and reckless.

“There is someone here,” he said quickly. “You cannot do this. She saw. She can tell someone.”

The standing man lifted a hand.

The gesture was calm. Almost gentle.

The kneeling man stopped speaking at once.

Silence settled heavily around us. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. My feet refused to move. Every instinct told me to run, yet my body stayed locked in place.

The standing man finally spoke.

“Go home,” he said.

His voice was even. Low. Unstrained.

For a moment, I wondered if he meant me.

Then I knew he did not.

The kneeling man laughed, the sound cracked and disbelieving. “You do not mean that.”

The standing man exhaled slowly and turned his head just enough to look at me again.

“This was not part of the arrangement,” he said quietly.

The word struck hard.

Arrangement.

I stumbled backward, my heel scraping against stone. The sound felt too loud in the stillness. His eyes flicked to the movement.

“Do not,” he said.

It did not sound like a threat.

It sounded like advice.

I stopped.

He studied me, and something cold settled deep in my chest. He was not deciding whether I mattered.

He was deciding what I cost.

“I did not mean to be here,” I managed to say, my voice shaking. “I am leaving.”

I turned and forced my legs to move. I did not look back. I slipped through the fence opening and ran the moment I was clear.

I did not stop until I reached the streetlight. I bent forward, hands braced on my knees, pulling air into my lungs that did not feel real. My hands shook violently. I clenched them until it hurt.

I told myself it was over.

I told myself I had been lucky.

I told myself nothing had followed me.

But even as I locked my apartment door and leaned against it, I knew that was not true.

I remembered his face too clearly. The way he had looked at me like I was a problem he would eventually solve.

I did not sleep that night. Every sound dragged me back to the construction site. Footsteps in the hallway. A car slowing outside. A door slamming somewhere below. Morning arrived without mercy.

By evening, exhaustion convinced me I had imagined the worst. Powerful men did not chase strangers who wandered into places they should not be. Nothing had happened to me.

Nothing bad, at least.

My phone rang just after dusk.

Unknown number.

I stared at it until it stopped. Then it rang again.

I answered.

“Hello?”

“Nyra Vale,” a man said.

My stomach dropped.

“Yes.”

“There is no need to panic,” he continued smoothly. “This is a courtesy.”

“A courtesy for what?”

There was a pause.

“For last night.”

My grip tightened. “I think you have the wrong person.”

“No,” he replied. “I do not.”

Silence stretched between us.

“I would like to speak with you,” he said. “In person.”

“I am not interested.”

“You do not have to be,” he answered. “You only have to listen.”

I closed my eyes. “And if I refuse?”

Another pause followed.

Then he said quietly, “Then this becomes less pleasant for everyone.”

The call ended.

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, my heart pounding painfully.

Understanding settled over me with terrifying clarity.

I had not escaped that night.

I had been released.

And whatever came next, I knew one thing for certain.

Lucien Blackwood had seen me.

And men like him did not forget what they were forced to notice.