Somewhere along the ride they put a blindfold on me.

After that, time stopped making sense.

The car moved. Turned. Slowed. Accelerated. Every direction felt identical to the last and I had no reference point, no window.

Nobody spoke to me.

The only sounds I heard were the engine, the occasional crackle from a radio somewhere in the front, and my own heartbeat thudding louder every time the vehicle slowed down.

Then finally the car stopped.

A door opened.

Hands grabbed my arms.

"Move."

I stumbled forward.

My legs felt stiff from sitting for so long.

The air outside was colder.

I heard metal doors opening, heavy ones, the kind that belonged to industrial spaces. Concrete under my feet. The sound of our footsteps coming back from walls that were close but not too close.

Then another door.

A hand on my shoulder forcing me down into a chair.

Rope tightened around my wrists. My chest. My ankles. Each loop pulled tight with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this before.

Then the blindfold came off.

A light hit me so directly that I shut my eyes before I had decided to. White behind my eyelids. Spots that took several seconds to dissolve. I opened them slowly and let the room assemble itself.

The place looked abandoned, like some kinda of storage warehouse.

Concrete walls with dark watermarks running from the ceiling. Exposed pipes along the upper edges. Dust suspended in the beam of the spotlight aimed directly at my face, making everything beyond its radius dark and shapeless.

But not dark enough to hide the equipment.

Cameras. Three of them on tripods. Streaming lights arranged on adjustable stands. Microphones on clips and booms. Monitors stacked against the far wall, their screens dark for now. Ring lights still in their cases but laid out and ready.

A complete streaming setup.

In an abandoned warehouse.

With me tied to a chair in the center of it.

My stomach turned over slowly.

This was not improvised. This had been planned. The equipment was not grabbed in a hurry, it was selected, transported, arranged.

My pulse quickened.

What the hell was this?

I turned my head and spotted Tengu standing behind one of the cameras.

"Tengu, what is this?" I demanded.

I shifted against the ropes.

"What are you doing? Let me go."

His face tightened.

For a second he almost looked guilty.

Almost.

"I’m sorry, Raina."

"I can’t."

"Oh yeah?" I snapped.

"And why is that?"

The ropes bit into my wrists as I struggled.

"You fucking rat."

His jaw clenched.

"How could you betray me? How could you betray my grandfather’s trust?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

That finally got a reaction.

Tengu’s expression darkened immediately.

"Betray his trust?"

He took a step forward.

"No. No. No"

His voice rose.

"I did everything he asked of me. Everything."

He pointed at himself.

"I spent years cleaning up his messes."

Years carrying out orders nobody else wanted.

Years being loyal.

"The moment I had one screw-up he threw me away like garbage."

His eyes hardened.

"He betrayed me first."

"I’m only returning the favor."

"Tengu, listen to me—"

"Alright."

The familiar voice cut through the room.

All the anger drained from my face instantly.

Kuro.

He walked into the spotlight like he owned the entire building.

He looked at me sitting in the chair in the center of the streaming setup and he looked satisfied in the specific way that only people who have imagined something for years looked when it was finally in front of them.

"Now that that’s out of the way," he said pleasantly. "Let’s have some fun."

"Kuro."

My voice came out sharper than intended.

"What is happening right now?"

He blinked.

"Oh?"

"You can’t tell?"

He began walking a slow circle around my chair. Not pacing. Deliberate. Like a person inspecting something they owned. "You, Himari Ishigami, are going to be on VTube."

He came around to my front and stopped, tilting his head slightly.

I mean Lumi♡Live is already popular. But Raina or is it Himari." A small laugh. "Honestly I can’t keep up with all your names. I’ll go with Raina. Because it looks like you haven’t been Himari in a very long time."

He leaned down slightly so his eyes were level with mine.

"You, Raina, are finally going to get the spotlight."

Something in those last words was not metaphor.

He meant it literally. He had built this. A streaming setup in a warehouse with a spotlight and cameras and whatever he intended to broadcast, with me tied to a chair in the middle of it... It was something that is gonna shatter my current reality as we know it .

This was not revenge anymore.

This was years of hatred that had curdled into something that had one clean name .." OBSESSION "

One that has been brewing for a long time ...

He nodded toward Tengu, who moved toward the back of the space without a word.

"Oh."

Kuro suddenly snapped his fingers.

"Before I forget." He reached into his jacket pocket and produced something I recognised immediately.

My phone.

"Your boyfriend texted earlier," he said. He was looking at the screen with the relaxed curiosity of someone flipping through a magazine. "My , My . He sounded pissed."

"What?"

Kuro waved the phone casually.

"He sent about six messages." Kuro scrolled with his thumb.

"And the tone shifts rather dramatically between the first and the last one." He looked up. "Did you know he does this thing where he gets very quiet when he’s upset? Not loud. Just... very precise?"

"What did you do." It was not a question. My voice had gone somewhere flat and cold.

"I kinda sent him a picture of Himari earlier today " He shrugged. "Just to give him something to think about." He tilted his head again. "But judging from what’s in this inbox, I think he pieced it together himself. Didn’t even need the caption."

Something that might have been genuine admiration crossed his face. "That’s what I’ve always liked about Ethan. Sharp when it actually matters."

"Kuro." My voice was shaking now and I was past caring that it was shaking. "Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t."

He was already typing.

"Kuro."

"We can’t have all the fun by ourselves."

"Kuro, don’t you dare—"

"He should be part of this."

My chair scraped loudly across the floor as I struggled.

"Kuro!"

He simply walked away.

Humming something tuneless and Typing on my phone

Completely ignoring me.

I pulled against the ropes so hard the chair scraped sideways across the concrete. It did not matter. The ropes held. The chair held. Tengu was somewhere else and Kuro had left to text Ethan on my phone and I was tied to a chair in the middle of a streaming setup in a warehouse I could not identify and I had nothing.

I scanned the floor within the spotlight’s reach. Any edge. Any nail head. Any piece of broken material that could help. The concrete was swept clean. The tripod legs were too far. The nearest camera was three metres away.

Nothing.

I stopped struggling and focused on breathing.

How did this happen?

How did everything go so wrong?

I lowered my head and pressed my eyes shut ...

Think.

Think about what you still have.

My grandfather would notice I was missing. Malik would notice. Malcolm, wherever he was, had some interest in keeping me functional. Someone would start looking.

The question was when.

And whether when was soon enough.

Then I heard something.

A voice. Behind me, back in the darkness past the edge of the spotlight. Not close. Small and tentative.

"Hello?"

I went completely still.

"Hello?" The voice again. Frightened. Young. Female.

I turned my head as far as the ropes allowed.

"Is someone there?"

The spotlight made the darkness behind me absolute. I could see nothing past its edge.

"Hello," I said.

The relief in the voice was immediate and terrible in the way that hearing someone relieved that another person is also imprisoned was terrible.

"Oh thank God. Can you let me out? I just want to go home."

I looked at my bound wrists. At the rope across my chest. At the concrete floor and the empty space between me and anything that could help.

"I’m sorry," I said. "I can’t." A short sound escaped me that was not quite a laugh. "I’m tied up too."

A small gasp.

"Oh no ! " The voice said "He got you too?"

"Afraid so."

Silence between us. The kind that came when two people were trying to find the shape of a situation neither of them had chosen.

I forced calm into my voice. " My name is Raina ".

"What’s yours?"

The answer came immediately.

Soft and shaking .

"Rhonda," the voice said. "My name is Rhonda."