CHAPTER 32
After returning from Switzerland with nothing but sunburned patience and a stack of unanswered questions, Lux Donnelly refused to let her trail go cold. The mountains had given her no answers, only silence — a silence she found intolerable..
She knew the government still had eyes on her — every exhale, every bank transfer, every phone call was being quietly monitored. The price of walking free after prison was living in a glass box. But Lux had never been one to accept walls, even invisible ones.
Pulling strings came naturally to her. Wealth had always been her weapon, but this time, she used it with surgical precision. She activated old favors, whispered through private channels, and traded information in boardrooms where deals weren't made for profit but for power. With each move, she blurred her own outline until her steps disappeared from the surveillance net.
From there, she began the real work — discreet inquiries into Vivienne Blythe Wrenford. Every scrap of rumor, every paper-thin lead, every name even remotely connected to her became part of Lux's private map. She knew Viv wasn't just a ghost from prison — she was something far more layered, someone who could not simply vanish without leaving fingerprints in the right (or wrong) places.
Lux didn't care if it took months or years. She had survived Switzerland' silence; she could survive the world's indifference. But Viv had made the mistake of catching her attention — and Lux wasn't the kind of woman who let go once her claws were in.
She leaned against the leather seat in the back of her car, sunglasses hiding the fatigue under her eyes. Her phone buzzed — a discreet message from an old contact in the U.S. intelligence community. "Still hot on their radar. Lay low."
Lux smirked. "Lay low" was not in her vocabulary.
Lux's Penthouse – Night
Lux poured herself a glass of red wine and sat on the marble countertop, scrolling through a digital dossier. She had already instructed her lawyers to make certain records vanish — the kind of records the government used to keep tabs on ex-convicts. Officially, she was still under "light supervision" after her prison release, but unofficially, she had just paid a quarter of a million dollars to make sure her probation officer's files got... conveniently misplaced.
She tapped her phone, initiating an encrypted call.
"Don't call me unless it's important," a man's voice answered gruffly.
"This is important, Elliot," Lux replied, her tone lazy but sharp. "I need everything you can find on a certain woman. Name: Vivienne Blythe Wrenford. Goes by Alexine Iris Vause in certain circles."
There was a pause on the line. "You really want me to dig into her? Word is, she's—"
"I don't care what the word is," Lux cut in. "Find her. And make sure the government doesn't know I'm looking."
Two Days Later – Secret Meeting
A black sedan slid to a stop in an underground garage. Lux stepped out, dressed in an immaculate black coat, her hair tied back. Elliot was already waiting, holding a slim folder.
"This woman's... tricky," he said, handing it over. "No digital trail that lasts more than a day. Everything about her looks clean — too clean. Like someone's wiping her footprints as soon as they're made."
Lux flipped the folder open, scanning the sparse documents. One of the photos caught her attention — Viv outside a small antique bookstore. The image was grainy, but it was her.
"That's recent?" Lux asked.
Elliot nodded. "Taken less than a week ago."
Lux's lips curled into a slow smile. "Then she's not a ghost yet."
She'd been outmaneuvered by Viv before — in prison, in subtle games of control — and that was unacceptable. Now, with her freedom bought and her influence still intact, Lux wasn't just going to find Viv. She was going to take her apart, piece by piece... or pull her closer until Viv had no choice but to see her.
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