Chapter 4. The Art of Exposure

Midnight. Room 7

It was more gallery than room—floor-to-ceiling glass, dim blue uplighting, and a curved conference table. At the far end sat three people.

One was Knox.

The other two were masked. Not cheap theatrics—elegant, full-coverage eye-masks in black leather, each marked only with initials: J and R.

They didn’t speak. Knox did.

“This is a dry run. Your target is fictional. But the scenario is real. One move. One message. Everything else is a consequence.”

He gestured to a tablet. Live feed. A man pacing inside a glass-walled room, unaware he was being watched.

“Your prompt: leak a single message to this man’s inbox that alters the trajectory of his firm.”

No name. No backstory.

She studied the profile. Spotted the missing piece: he was the CFO of CamberEdge. LinkedIn said he had a twin brother in the SEC’s legal division.

That was her thread.

She tapped the screen.

Message sent:

Your brother’s client just made a deal. You weren’t supposed to know. Act surprised when it implodes.

Seconds passed.

On the feed, the man’s posture changed. He checked his phone. Froze. Picked up a second. Dialed.

Knox smiled.

Mask R leaned forward and tapped a control.

The feed vanished.

“You passed,” Knox said. “You exposed nothing. Tipped the right domino. Maintained shadow.”

Harper kept her voice even. “And the real test?”

Knox didn’t answer.

Instead, he stood, circled the table, and stopped a step too close.

“You’re starting to think like us,” he said.

She looked up. “I’m starting to think like me. You just gave me better tools.”

His gaze lowered—just for a moment—to the ring on her hand.

“Wear that too long, and it stops being a tool. It becomes skin.”

He leaned in, close enough to feel, but didn’t touch.

“You don’t have to become what I am, Harper. But you won’t survive if you stay what you were.”

She didn’t back away. Didn’t breathe. “Then maybe we redefine survival.”

He looked at her a long moment, then nodded once.

“You’ve earned your first contract.”

He handed her a sealed envelope.

This one had a name.

Lilah Vance.

Crypto heiress. Former classmate. Current Ledger affiliate.

Inside the envelope: three photos, one contract, and a warning.

No one touches Lilah. No one wins. Until now.

***

The invitation was folded like a trap.

Cream cardstock. Gold trim. One line of embossed text:

Lilah Vance requests your presence.

No RSVP. No address. Just coordinates and a time: 10:00 p.m. sharp.

Harper memorized it, then fed it to a fireproof shredder she’d bought the same night Knox handed her the assignment. He hadn’t said how to approach Lilah—only that she had to “extract the truth.” But in a place like Van Hollen, truth was a currency, and extraction meant seduction, leverage… or both.

She wore black silk, cut sharp. Not flashy. Lethal.

The location wasn’t listed on any school registry. An old bank downtown, converted into an event space: glass dome ceiling, marble lions guarding the entrance, and a guest list curated for scandal.

Inside, it smelled like expensive danger—roses, whiskey, and the lingering tension of reputations barely held together by NDAs.

Harper stepped through the gilded archway and felt the shift immediately.

Every gaze clocked her. Not because they knew her. Because they didn’t.

Lilah stood at the center of it all.

She was wearing silver like it was armor. Her hair coiled at her neck in a style so precise it felt like a challenge. When she saw Harper, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t smile. She simply raised a glass—and summoned.

Harper approached with the calm of someone who’d already rehearsed twenty outcomes, ten escapes, and at least one kiss she’d pretend didn’t happen.

“Quinn,” Lilah said, not waiting for an introduction. “You clean up nicely. For a ghost.”

Harper tilted her head. “And you throw a party like a warning label.”

Lilah laughed. Soft, rich, and tinged with cruelty. “That’s cute. You came with claws out. Let’s hope you know how to use them.”

They danced around conversation like it was a duel.

Lilah sipped her drink. “What’s your angle? You didn’t come here for the deviled scallops.”

“I don’t do angles,” Harper said. “I do outcomes.”

“Good. Because there’s a camera in that orchid arrangement, and the man behind you sells footage to private investigators with very flexible ethics.”

Harper didn’t turn. Didn’t blink.

Lilah leaned in, voice suddenly lower. “The Ledger wants something from me. And they sent you. Why?”

Harper met her gaze evenly. “Because I know how to ask the question without needing the answer.”

A flicker. There it was. Intrigue. Maybe attraction.

Lilah looked her over again—not like a rival. Like a wager.

“You’re not like the others,” she said. “You don’t dress to impress. You dress like you’re already halfway through the heist.”

“And you don’t host galas to celebrate. You host them to distract.”

Lilah’s gaze cooled. “We all want to survive Van Hollen. But some of us want to change what survives after it. That’s why I host these nights. Not for vanity. For inventory.”

Harper clocked that—filed it. Lilah wasn’t flirting. She was recruiting.

Their glasses clinked, soft and sharp.

The string quartet shifted to something darker. The room dimmed a few degrees. Harper knew it wasn’t by accident.

Lilah leaned in closer, her breath tinged with jasmine and champagne. “You should leave before midnight,” she murmured, voice low and smooth. “The real people arrive after.”

Harper didn’t step back. She shifted slightly—just enough to close the sliver of air between them. Their arms touched. Skin on silk. It wasn’t accidental.

“And if I stay?” Harper asked, eyes locked on Lilah’s.

“Then I hope you brought more than claws,” Lilah said, her voice thickening.

“I brought teeth.”

There was a pause—a beat suspended between danger and desire.

Then Lilah’s fingers moved, slow and deliberate, brushing Harper’s wrist. Not a touch for contact’s sake, but a reading. Measuring her pulse. Gauging what lived beneath the calm.

“You’re steady,” she said. “I’ve made CEOs stutter with less.”

“You haven’t tried hard enough,” Harper replied, and this time her smile curved with heat.

Lilah stepped behind her, breath grazing Harper’s neck. “You’re going to be trouble.”

Harper turned her head just enough for her lips to nearly brush Lilah’s jaw. “The kind you invite back, or the kind you regret in a locked room?”

Lilah didn’t answer.

Instead, she trailed a finger down Harper’s spine—barely there, but unmistakable. “Midnight,” she said, walking away without looking back. “If you stay… come to the library vault. Ask for the red door.”

Harper watched her disappear into the crowd.

She didn’t know yet if this was seduction or surveillance.

She didn’t know if Lilah had meant it as a dare. But Harper never walked away from fire.