Page 67 of Her Soul to Own

Declan. Harper. Their handlers. The wires that are tying it all together.

But this is public. This isopen war. The worst thing is, I missed something.

I scramble through the morning’s security logs and pull up the mailbox cam near the front gate. The timestamp is 6:12 a.m.

A letter, unmarked with no post office tag. Slipped in by hand. And by the time the estate staff went out to check, it was already gone.

Which means shesawit. Which means I was too slow.

I’d intercepted twenty-six letters since I took this job. Twenty-six messages scrawled in too-precise handwriting, each one designed to destabilize her.

Fuck! How did I miss this one?That can’t happen again.

I shift feeds, pull up Lyra’s social graph, and then switch to Zara’s. Her phone’s already lighting up with dozens of texts. All anonymous, all venomous.

“Why are you covering for a manipulator?”

“Heard you were paid off to keep her secrets.”

“How long until you crack too, little sidekick?”

She hasn’t answered any of them. But I see her pause. Her thumb hovers, then drops. She sets the phone face down on the bar counter and stares into the distance like the storm’s inside her skull.

I zoom out. Harper’s account goes private. Ten minutes later, she quietly blocks Lyra.

No message. No warning.

Just gone.

Silas Creed, digital voyeur and human firewall, watches every reaction in real time.

Every dropped call, every paused group chat, every story reposted without tagging Lyra, every friend who “accidentally” forgets to invite her to next week’s launch party.

It’s not chaos. It’s asymphony.And someone else is conducting. I growl, wanting to tear the whole town down.

I want to drag Declan by the collar and Harper by the extensions and make them explain themselves to Lyra’s face.

But I can’t. Not yet.

Because I don’t just need proof, I need tocontrol the fallout.

Lyra’s been betrayed before. She’s been lied to and isolated. I’ve read her medical files, her therapy logs, the unsent emails to her mother, written in the middle of the night like a prayer and confession in one.

And if I drop this on her now, I won’t just break the illusion.

I might breakher. So I keep watching. I keep cataloging and preparing.

Because the moment I make a move, there won’t be a second chance. And when I do strike, no one in this town will ever fuck with Lyra Vane again.

Chapter 15 – Lyra - Temptation’s Edge

The past three days have been a fucking circus.

My phone hasn’t stopped vibrating. Articles, screenshots, and half-assed apologies from brands who “value their partnership” but are “closely monitoring social sentiment.” One skincare company paused our deal pending a PR review while another wants me to fly to LA next week to “reaffirm the vision,” whatever the hell that means. My agent has been on speaker nonstop, and my DMs are a battlefield. Some people are defending me, but most of them are tossing me to the wolves.

And still… I’m back.

In the spotlight, trending, being whispered about.

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