➵PROLOGUE
➵PROLOGUE
A message blinked on Damian’s screen. It was terse, almost demanding. “It’s easy.”
He glanced up, then back at the phone. Another message arrived immediately. “I have your back, you have mine. I’ll be your eyes, and you’ll be mine.”
The words felt…calculated. An offer, not a conversation. Damian hesitated, then typed a reply. “You attack me, I attack you.”
The response was instant. “It’s that simple. What do you say, friend?”
Damian traced the lines of the message with a finger. He didn’t recognize the number, the source of the texts remained unknown. Yet, the invitation—or perhaps the demand—held a strange allure. He agreed. He replied.
Days turned into weeks. The messages continued, a constant stream of fragmented information, observations, and requests. They spoke every day, late into the night, sharing snippets of their lives. Damian found himself drawn into a world he hadn't known existed, a world woven with shadows and veiled promises.
It wasn't the information that captivated him, but the intensity of the connection. A strange, unwelcome warmth began to blossom within him—a feeling he desperately tried to ignore. It was a love built on secrecy and manipulation.
But with every message, every shared confidence, came a subtle, insidious ambiguity. He was receiving mixed signals, a tug-of-war between intimacy and detachment. The messages were laced with hints of affection, yet always shadowed by an undercurrent of something cold and calculating. Damian was falling, and he wasn't sure if he was being led to salvation or into a trap.