CHAPTER 5: THE VIEW FROM THE THRONE
The security feed played on the obsidian screen that covered an entire wall of Kian's private office. It was a silent, black-and-white stream, one of two dozen feeds he monitored constantly. But this one was the only one that mattered.
Feed 17: The Studio.
He watched her dance.
It wasn't Le Corsaire. It wasn't the fluid grace he had first seen on the stage of the Sydney Opera House over a year ago, a performance that had felt like watching a star being born. This was different. It was raw, discordant, filled with sharp, angry lines. A primal scream translated into movement.
He saw the soldier's posture, the doctor's precision. He saw the stumble—a grotesque parody of a car crash. He saw the final, defiant fist.
A muscle in his jaw tightened. She was communicating. Not to him, but at him. At the cameras. At the system he had built around her. She was testing the walls of her cage, not with force, but with intelligence.
He was impressed. And that terrified him.
His private line buzzed, pulling him from the feed. The caller ID displayed a single, encrypted initial: S.
He swiped to answer, the live feed of Elara shrinking to a small box in the corner of his screen.
"She's adapting more quickly than the last specimen," a cool, female voice said without preamble. Seraphina. His sister. Her voice always sounded like shattered glass.
"She is not a specimen," Kian replied, his tone dangerously low. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth, a lie he had to maintain.
"Oh? Then what is she, brother? A pet project? Your attempt to fix the past?" Seraphina's laugh was a dry, rustling sound. "Dr. Wu is concerned. She says the girl's psychological profile shows extreme resilience. Not ideal for Phase Two integration."
Phase Two. The words sent a cold dread through him, a feeling he hadn't experienced since he was a boy, watching his own mother fade under the "care" of their father and the first iteration of this project.
"My methods are sound," Kian said, forcing a detached, corporate tone. "Isolation and dependency are proven techniques. The foundation launch will accelerate her acclimation. Public exposure under controlled conditions will reinforce the narrative."
"Your 'narrative' is that she's your lover, the face of your philanthropic endeavor. Our narrative is that she is the key to perfecting the Phoenix Protocol," Seraphina countered. "Do not confuse the two. The board is growing impatient. Especially after the incident in Berlin last spring. They need a success story, Kian. Not a romance."
The Berlin incident. A "specimen," a brilliant political activist, had broken conditioning and leaked information to the press before they could contain him. It had cost them millions and nearly exposed the entire European network. The failure had put the pressure squarely on Kian's shoulders to deliver the next subject: Elara.
"I am aware of my responsibilities," he said, his voice clipped.
"Are you? Or is your judgment clouded? You moved her into your own home. You surround her with art and music. Our father never made those mistakes."
*Our father was a monster who broke everything he touched.* The thought was a venomous whisper in his own mind, a truth he could never speak aloud. He was using his father's tools—the control, the manipulation, the project itself—for the opposite reason. Not to break Elara, but to shield her. To keep her in a carefully controlled environment where Seraphina and her doctors couldn't get their hooks into her, while he dismantled the project from the inside.
It was a perilous, two-front war, and he was losing on both. She was fighting his protection, and his enemies were questioning his resolve.
"My judgment is what has kept this project afloat while you and your scientists play with people's minds," he snarled. "Deliver your reports and let me handle the asset."
He hung up, the silence of the office rushing back in. His eyes went back to the small screen in the corner. Elara was gone. The studio was empty.
He pulled up another file on the main screen. It was a secure dossier on Detective Julian Zheng. He'd been flagged by their internal systems weeks ago, a low-level threat now escalating. The man was tenacious, digging into Sterling Dynamics, getting closer to the secrets Kian was trying to keep buried. Zheng's persistence was becoming a liability. A wild card that could ruin everything.
He had to protect Elara from Seraphina's ambition, from the ghosts of her mother's past, and now from a detective whose search for justice could inadvertently get her killed.
His cage, he realized, wasn't the penthouse.
It was this throne. This empire built on a rotten foundation. And he was just as trapped as she was.
He picked up his phone and sent a short, encrypted text to a single contact: Nico Ren, Head of Security.
Zheng. Escalate from surveillance to containment. No casualties. I want to know his every move.
He put the phone down. He had just tightened the bars on one cage while pretending to decorate another. It was a monstrous contradiction, the price he paid every single day. He looked at the empty, silent feed of the ballet studio and felt the crushing weight of it all.