*Chapter 3: On My Desk*
The outer office wasn’t empty.
That was the first problem.
I sat at a desk bigger than my old kitchen table, surrounded by three assistants who didn’t look at me. Not once. Like I was invisible. Or contagious.
Probably both.
9:03 AM.
I’d been “filing” for three minutes. The folders were empty. Dummy work. A test.
Then his voice came through the intercom, cold and clipped:
“Opaline. My office. Now.”
The others still didn’t look up.
They knew.
I stood. My legs were shaky from this morning.
I smoothed my skirt, breathed once, and walked through the glass doors.
Ignis was on a call.
He didn’t look up when I entered. Just gestured to the spot on the floor in front of his desk.
Rule one.
I knelt.
His office was quiet except for his voice. Low, precise, cutting through whoever was on the other end.
“—don’t care what the board thinks, Gareth. If the numbers aren’t clean by Friday, I pull funding. Is that understood?”
Gareth. The investor from the contract.
Ignis’s eyes flicked down to me. No expression.
Then he said, “Hold on,” and muted the call.
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
“Rule one,” he said quietly. “No sound. No movement. No reaction. Can you do that while I finish this call?”
I nodded once.
He muted.
“Gareth. I’m back.”
His hand moved under the desk.
I felt it before I saw it.
Fingers on my thigh. Slow. Deliberate.
Hidden from the camera, from anyone who might walk in.
My breath hitched.
I bit it back.
Rule one.
His fingers slid higher.
He wasn’t even looking at me. He was watching his monitor, talking about quarterly projections like he wasn’t touching me like I was a problem to be solved.
“Your proposal is weak,” he said into the phone. “And your tone is worse.”
His thumb brushed the edge of my underwear.
I gripped my hands together in my lap hard enough that my nails left marks.
Don’t move.
Don’t make a sound.
Don’t come.
“Gareth, I’m going to say this once,” Ignis said, voice dropping. “You don’t threaten me in my own building.”
His fingers slipped under the fabric.
No warning.
Just pressure, slow circles, exactly where I didn’t want him to touch me and exactly where I needed him to.
My thighs clenched.
My eyes stung.
Tears or anger, I didn’t know.
“Good girl,” he murmured. Too low for the phone to pick up.
I wanted to kill him.
I wanted to beg.
“Gareth, you have until 5 PM,” he said. “After that, we’re done.”
He ended the call.
The office went silent.
He pulled his hand back. Wiped his fingers on his handkerchief like I was a mess he’d cleaned up.
“Stand up,” he said.
I stood. Shaking.
My face was hot. My lips were wet from where I’d bitten them.
“Did you break rule one?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No, sir.”
“Good,” he said.
He stood, walked around the desk, and stopped in front of me.
Too close. I could smell cedar and something darker.
“You didn’t make a sound,” he said. “Even when I knew you wanted to.”
He tilted my chin up.
“Control,” he said. “That’s what I bought. And you’re learning fast.”
He let go.
“Back to the outer office,” he said. “There’s a file on your desk. Finish it by noon. No mistakes.”
I walked out without looking back.
The second the door closed, my knees nearly gave out.
I made it to my desk before they did.
The three assistants still didn’t look at me.
But I caught one whispering to another.
“—heard her in there. Thought I did.”
I sat down.
My hands trembled over the fake file.
I hadn’t broken.
But I wanted to.
And that scared me more than the collar ever could.
I tried to focus. The file was labeled _Q3 Projections_. Inside was a single sheet with random numbers. Useless.
A test inside a test.
My phone buzzed under the desk.
I glanced down. Unknown number.
_I saw what he did. We need to talk._
My stomach dropped.
I deleted the message.
Rule one applied outside his office too. Don’t talk. Don’t react. Don’t give them anything.
But the message stayed burned into my head.
Someone was watching.
Someone knew.
At 11:47 AM, the intercom crackled again.
“Opaline. Lunch is cancelled. Stay at your desk.”
Of course it was.
He didn’t want me out of his sight.
I stared at the screen. My reflection looked wrong. Eyes too bright. Mouth too red from biting.
The collar was gone, but I could still feel it.
At 12:00 sharp, his door opened.
He walked out in his suit jacket, tie loosened, and stopped in front of me.
“File?” he asked.
I slid it across the desk.
“Done.”
He opened it, scanned the sheet for two seconds, and nodded.
“No mistakes,” he said. “Good.”
The assistants finally looked up. All three.
Surprised.
He caught it.
“Something to say, Ms. Rook?” he asked the one who’d been whispering.
She went pale.
“No, Mr. Heliox.”
“Good,” he said. “Then get back to work.”
He turned back to me.
“Stay late tonight,” he said. “Training begins at 7.”
I nodded.
He walked away.
The moment he was gone, the whispers started.
“Training,” one muttered. “Right.”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Rule one.
But my pulse was racing for a different reason now.
Fear.
And something else I refused to name.
I looked down at my phone.
The deleted message was still in my recent apps preview.
_I saw what he did. We need to talk._
I closed the app.
I’d deal with that later.
Right now, I have to survive until 7 PM.