Chapter 38 Chapter 38 - The Violet Venum

Chapter 38 Chapter 38 - The Violet Venum
While the digital gears were turning in Quinn’s basement, the rest of the world was being fed a very different kind of data.

I sat in the back of a cab, my eyes fixed on the small screen embedded in the headrest. Sloane Van Doren was live on Sports Center. She was wearing a dress the color of a mourning veil, her blonde hair perfectly tousled, her eyes glistening with the kind of tears that only a lifetime of privilege and acting lessons could produce.

"It breaks my heart, truly," Sloane told the interviewer, her voice a delicate, practiced tremor. "Reid came to me because he felt he had nowhere else to turn. He loves the Academy, of course, but he’s a man built for the heights. He told me he felt like a ghost in that warehouse. He misses the glamor, the intensity... he misses the life we shared before everything got so complicated."

The interviewer, a man who clearly smelled a career-making exclusive, leaned in. "And what about his fiancée, Iris Harper? The reports say they are inseparable."

Sloane let out a long, theatrical sigh, a sound of profound pity that made my skin crawl. "Iris is a remarkable girl, truly. But Reid is a hero by nature. He feels a crushing sense of duty toward her because of her injury. He told me, in confidence, that he feels more like her primary caregiver than her partner. He’s staying out of guilt, not out of love. He just wants to be free to be the Golden Boy again, without the weight of... someone else’s tragedy."

I slammed my fist into the back of the seat. The cab driver glanced in the rearview mirror, but I didn't care. The sheer, calculated cruelty of her words was a physical blow. She wasn't just trying to win me back; she was trying to poison the one thing that made my life worth living. She was turning Iris’s strength into a burden and my love into a cage.

"She’s lying!" I shouted at the screen, though only the driver could hear me.
"She looks pretty convincing to me, pal," the driver muttered. "Women like that usually get what they want."

"Not this time," I hissed.

I pulled out my phone and called Quinn. "Is it ready?"

"The upload is at ninety percent, Reid. The Academy’s server is going to take a hit, but the mirror sites are live. The graph is trending on Twitter as we speak. People are starting to ask questions about the 'Aversion Index.'"

"Good. Now, I need you to find Iris. She’s not answering her phone, and her father’s house is surrounded by reporters."

"I’ve got her pings, Reid. She’s not at her father’s. She’s at the pond. The old one near the Northfield border. She took the bus two hours ago."

The pond. Of course she was at the pond. It was the only place where the ice didn't have a price tag.

"Get the car ready," I said. "And Quinn? Send the link to the interviewer’s producer. Right now. I want her to see the data while she’s still on the air."

I watched the screen again. Sloane was still talking, her hand resting delicately on her chest. But then, a change occurred. A producer walked onto the set, whispering into the interviewer’s ear and handing him a tablet.

The interviewer’s eyebrows shot up. He looked at the tablet, then back at Sloane. "Miss Van Doren, we’re getting some... unusual reports. The North Star Academy has just released a set of biometric data from Reid Carter’s internal sensors—data that was recorded at the exact moment of your 'reunion' today."

Sloane’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. "Biometric data? That sounds very technical."

"It is," the interviewer said, his tone shifting from sympathetic to predatory. "It shows Mr. Carter in a state of extreme physiological distress. His cortisol levels were at a toxic peak, and his heart rate was in a flight-response zone. The experts are calling it the 'profile of a man being trapped.' Do you have a comment on why his body would react with such intense aversion to your presence?"

The camera zoomed in on Sloane’s face. For the first time, the mask slipped. The "wronged woman" vanished, replaced by a cold, jagged panic.

"That data is... it’s doctored! It’s another one of his games!" she stammered.

"The data is encrypted with a Volkov-level digital signature, Miss Van Doren," the interviewer countered. "It’s as real as a heartbeat. And right now, it’s telling a very different story than yours."

I turned off the screen. I didn't need to see the rest. Sloane was a ghost, and the world was finally seeing the chains she was trying to rattle. Now, I had to find the girl who had actually taught me how to breathe.

The Northfield pond was a world of grey and white, a silent expanse of frozen water caught in the grip of an early autumn mist. It felt like a place outside of time, far removed from the neon lights of the city and the violet-scented lies of the Van Doren penthouse.

I saw her from a hundred yards away. Iris was sitting on the old, weathered wooden bench where we had first sat together as a "fake" couple. She wasn't wearing her skates. She was just sitting there, her shoulders hunched against the damp cold, staring out at the ice as if it held the answers to a question I was too afraid to ask.

I walked toward her, the dead grass crunching under my boots. Every step felt like I was walking through deep snow. I didn't know if she would look at me. I didn't know if the "Violet Venom" had already done its work.

"Iris," I said softly when I was a few feet away.

She didn't turn around. Her voice was flat, a hollow sound that carried across the frozen water. "She’s very good at it, Reid. The way she talks about me. The way she makes it sound like I’m a project you’re too tired to finish. I sat here and I thought... maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m just the girl you saved, and now you don't know how to leave without looking like the villain."

"Iris, look at me."

She turned slowly. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face pale in the twilight. "I saw the photo, Reid. I saw the way she was holding you. It didn't look like a fight."

"Because a photo is a single second of a lie," I said, sitting down beside her. I didn't try to touch her. I knew I had to earn that right again. I pulled out my phone and opened the graph. "This is the truth, Iris. This is every second of that meeting, recorded by the sensors Nikolai put in my leg."

I held the phone between us. I pointed to the jagged red line at twelve-oh-eight.

"Look at the heart rate. One hundred and forty-six. That’s not attraction, Iris. That’s panic. Look at the cortisol levels. My body was reacting to her as if she were a physical threat. I went there to save the lease, to save the Academy, because I was an arrogant idiot who thought he could handle a snake without getting bitten. But the whole time I was in that room, my body was screaming to get back to you."

Iris looked at the screen. She was a skater; she understood the science of the body. She knew what those spikes meant. She traced the line with her thumb, her breath hitching in the cold air.

"You were afraid," she whispered.

"I was terrified," I admitted. "Not of her. I was terrified of losing what we built. I was so busy trying to be the hero—the guy who handles everything behind the scenes—that I forgot that we’re a team. I lied to you about where I was going because I didn't want you to worry about the building. But I realize now that the building is just glass and steel. You’re the only thing that’s real." I leaned in, my voice shaking. "Sloane said I’m with you out of pity. She said I feel like your nurse. But the truth is, Iris, you’re the one who saved me. You’re the one who took a spoiled, empty 'Golden Boy' and showed him that there’s a world outside the spotlight. I’m not staying because I have to. I’m staying because I don't know how to exist in a world where you aren't the center of it."

Iris looked up from the phone, her eyes searching mine. The mist seemed to lift slightly, the grey light catching the honest, raw desperation in my expression.

"You should have told me," she said, a single tear finally tracking down her cheek. "You should have let me fight her with you."

"I know," I said. "And I’ll never make that mistake again. From now on, no secrets. No backroom deals. Just us. If the warehouse falls, we’ll build another one on the rubble. But I'm not going back to that world, Iris. Not even to save the lease."

Iris reached out, her hand trembling as she cupped my cheek. Her skin was ice cold, but her touch was the only thing that made me feel warm.

"I don't care about the warehouse, Reid," she whispered. "I just want the man who skated with me on this pond when he had everything to lose. That’s the only hero I need."

I pulled her into my arms, the weight of the lie finally dissolving into the mist. We sat there on the bench for a long time, two shadows against the frozen white, finally realizing that the strongest bond isn't made of contracts or PR—it’s made of the truth that lives in the heartbeat.

"Let's go home, Reid," she said.

"Yeah," I replied, kissing the top of her head. "Let's go home."