Long after Alexander Kane left, Isabella still curled up on the sofa like a snail trying to hide itself in its shell after being startled. The patch of skin on her shoulder still retained the illusion of being scorched, the contradictory sensation of cold and burning refusing to fade, along with his low, domineering whisper echoing again and again in her mind.
"Remember this feeling, fear, or comfort, can only come from me."
That sentence was like a spell, pinning her firmly in the whirlpool of contradictory emotions. Humiliation, fear, anger, and that paradoxical, twisted sense of safety born of absolute power intertwined into an invisible net that bound her tighter and tighter. She hated this feeling of being controlled, hated her body's instinctive reaction to his pheromones, and hated even more the shameful flicker of wavering within her—caused by his expelling Lucas and by the fact that, in the end, he had not truly harmed her.
She did not know how long she remained on that sofa until the magnificent crimson-gold sunset outside completely sank beneath the horizon, replaced by the deep indigo night. The lights of the Amber Pinnacle tower gradually lit up, illuminating the suite in brilliance, yet still unable to dispel the sense of cold luxury.
When David brought dinner, he keenly noticed her unusual silence and slightly pale complexion, as well as the confusion and daze that lingered deep within her emerald eyes. But he asked nothing. Like the most precise of instruments, he silently and efficiently set the table, and even deliberately moved a small lamp that glowed with soft orange light closer to her.
"Miss Isabella, you look somewhat weary tonight. The soup will help calm your nerves." He suggested calmly, his voice as steady as ever, yet at that moment carrying a strange, non-intrusive sense of care.
Isabella murmured her thanks, picked up the spoon, and mechanically brought it to her lips. The taste was savory and warm, yet it could not truly warm the chill in her heart. She ate very little, barely moving her chopsticks before setting them down again.
"Not to your liking?" David inquired.
"No… just not very hungry." Isabella shook her head, her voice faint.
David did not press her, only quietly cleared away the almost untouched dishes. Before he left, Isabella suddenly raised her head and softly asked, "Mr. David… does he… usually act like this?" She asked incoherently, not even knowing exactly what she wanted to ask—whether he often appeared and disappeared so suddenly? Or whether he often showed that kind of invasive intimacy? Or whether he treated other "possessions" the same way?
David paused at the door. He turned back, his gaze behind the gold-rimmed glasses falling on her calmly, as if he understood the unspoken question. After a few seconds of silence, he cautiously said, "Mr. Kane's style of action has always been this way. He does not like losing control—whether over matters or people." He paused, then added, "But you are different."
The final sentence was spoken with extreme plainness, yet it was like a small stone cast into the lake of Isabella's heart, rippling outward. Different? In what way? A more precious possession—or… something else?
But she dared not ask further. David's loyalty was unquestionable; his words would always remain separated by an impenetrable wall of glass.
After David left, the suite sank once again into suffocating silence. Isabella tried to stand, enduring the slight discomfort in her ankle, and slowly walked to the vast floor-to-ceiling window. Outside was the dazzling city nightscape, ten thousand lights scattered like stars, outlining the prosperity of Star City. Such a vast world, seemingly within reach, yet completely sealed off by the unbreakable glass.
Freedom. The word had become so distant and extravagant.
She subconsciously raised her hand, fingertips brushing the spot on her shoulder where he had kissed her. The skin there seemed to retain some sensation still, leaving her restless. She rubbed at it hard, as if trying to erase the mark, but only succeeded in reddening the skin.
That night, Isabella slept fitfully. Her dreams were bizarre and fragmented—at times running through an endless labyrinth of code, with Alexander Kane's cold gaze at her back; at times drowning in warm seawater, yet dragged downward into the abyss by tendrils like seaweed; the burning spot on her shoulder magnified in the dream, sometimes cold as ice, sometimes searing as a brand.
The next morning, she awoke in exhaustion, faint shadows of blue-black under her eyes. The doctor came as usual to examine her ankle and replace the suppressant patch.
When the old patch was torn off, the familiar numbing emptiness washed over her again, even more intense than yesterday, carrying a subtle, deep unease and restlessness, like the muffled rumbling within a dormant volcano. When the new suppressant patch was applied, the powerful chill pressed down to suppress it, yet Isabella keenly sensed that it seemed to take longer to take full effect—as though her body was gradually developing some kind of resistance, or rather, that some deeper change was slowly taking place.
This change filled her with fear. More than ever, she longed to grasp that straw of hope from the network vulnerability.
After breakfast, she picked up the tablet once again. This time, she no longer probed aimlessly but carried an unprecedented urgency and focus. Alexander Kane's behavior yesterday had been like a potent drug, intensifying her desire to escape. She had to do something, had to find a way to exploit that tiny crack.
She resumed those carefully disguised searches, breaking down, recombining, and concealing technical terms. Her expression was managed flawlessly—sometimes furrowing her brows in thought, sometimes feigning sudden realization, like a diligent student eager to learn. Yet her heartbeat remained rapid, nerves taut, ears alert to any sound outside the door. She feared he might appear suddenly, yet in some strange way… anticipated it? This contradictory anticipation made her despise herself all the more.
Her efforts seemed to yield a sliver of reward. After one extremely complex sequence of combined searches, she unexpectedly landed on an ancient, nearly forgotten archive page of a technical blog! The page was crudely designed, its content frozen more than a decade in the past, discussing a long-obsolete vulnerability in an early encryption protocol.
The blog post itself was worthless. But the small section of the comment area beneath it caught Isabella's eye! A few long-defunct usernames had left behind traces of discussion, and within the signature of one comment appeared an extremely unusual, non-standard string of characters—one that, years ago in her university lab, she and a few like-minded friends had agreed upon in private as a code meaning "help" or "be careful"!
Her breath stopped short.
That string of characters appearing here—pure coincidence? Or… some faint, almost impossible thread of connection woven by fate?
Her fingers trembled with excitement as she tried clicking on the inactive username. Nothing happened. She typed the string into the search bar. The result was a blank page; the firewall remained unmoved.
The spark of hope that had just ignited was doused almost instantly by the cold water of reality. It was most likely nothing more than a startling coincidence. That string of characters was not all that rare.
But… what about the one-in-ten-thousand chance?
What if somewhere in this world, one of her old friends was still out there, using this archaic, hidden method to leave behind a trace—or to seek something?
The thought grew wild in her heart like weeds. She stared fixedly at that string of characters, trying to decipher more from it, but nothing emerged. It was like a lone pebble in the desert, silent and still—yet it might point toward an oasis, or merely be a mirage.
For the entire day, Isabella was consumed by this mix of elation and anxiety. She studied that page repeatedly, searching for more clues, yet found nothing. That string of characters became the only bizarre gleam of light in her gray world—faint, yet stubbornly flickering.
She didn't even notice that, when David brought her lunch and dinner, there was a subtle new trace of caution in his gaze. She had spent too much time absorbed in the screen; that focus, and the flashes of excitement that occasionally crossed her face, were different from her earlier listless curiosity.
And none of it escaped the cold eyes in the study.
Alexander Kane sat behind the vast obsidian desk. Before him, the luminous screen was divided into several interfaces—the follow-up reports on the Emerald Harbor leak incident, the corporation's stock fluctuation charts, and… in an inconspicuous corner, the real-time surveillance feed of the "Silent" suite.
On screen, Isabella was curled on the sofa, her slender figure nearly swallowed by its enormity, her face half-lit by the glow of the tablet. She could walk on her own now, though still moving with some caution. But most of the time, she remained in that same posture, wholly absorbed in the tablet in her hands.
Alexander's gaze swept over her slender neck and shoulders, and the image from yesterday flashed briefly in his mind—the feel of her delicate skin, her trembling lashes in terror, and that single warm tear. A faint ripple, so subtle even he did not notice it himself, passed through his eyes, only to be quickly smothered by cold scrutiny.
He pulled up the past twenty-four hours of network request logs sent from Isabella's tablet. The dense list was mostly filled with searches on aerospace, technology, and documentaries. At first glance, nothing unusual—perfectly matching the behavior pattern of someone in captivity trying to kill time.
But his fingers slid swiftly across the screen, eyes sharp as a hawk's sweeping over the data. Too frequent. Too concentrated. And those combinations of search terms… they looked casual, but hidden within was a faint trace of logic—an attempt to slip past keyword filters through subtle loopholes.
A cold curve tugged at the corner of his lips.
So, she was not a completely docile canary. Even under these conditions, her clever mind had not stopped working. Was she merely seeking comfort—or plotting some futile rebellion?
He noticed the access log to that archaic technology blog. His finger tapped it open, scrolling quickly through the worthless page and the comment marked with that peculiar string of characters. His expression didn't change at all. At this level, such information posed no threat whatsoever.
Almost laughable. Was this really the fruit of her day's effort? An expired, coincidental old code that might mean nothing at all?
And yet, the very act of searching for an escape unsettled his instincts.
He could allow her small, harmless gestures. He could allow her the occasional flash of defiance. He could even, once in a while, grant her a fragment of cold "tenderness." But all of this rested on one absolute foundation: his control. Any sign of breaking free from it had to be smothered at birth.
He shut down the log interface, eyes returning to the surveillance feed. Isabella looked weary after her long concentration. She tipped her head back, rubbing her sore eyes, her slender neck stretching into a graceful line, completely exposed and defenseless in the air.
His gaze darkened, like the depths of a sea heavy with storm.
He picked up the internal communicator and patched through to David.
"David."
"Sir." David's voice came immediately, steady as ever.
"Miss Isabella seems very interested in the network," Kane said evenly, his tone devoid of emotion.
There was a brief pause on the other end, then David replied, "Yes, sir. She has been watching the documentaries you assigned her."
"Let it remain limited to documentaries," Kane said lightly, though his voice carried the finality of judgment. "Ensure her network experience is… pure and beneficial to her wellbeing. Any unnecessary interference or noise has no place in her world. Do you understand?"
"Understood, sir." David accepted the order without hesitation.
The call ended.
Alexander's gaze returned to the surveillance feed, his fingers tapping the desk in an absent rhythm. That little bird, cautiously testing the edges of its cage, would never know that the faint glimmer of a crack she thought she had found had already been sealed the moment it caught her eye—quietly, imperceptibly, under his control.
Perhaps, it might even serve as bait. A lure drawing her to fly straight into another web.