Duality Power Unleashed

For five years, I was the ghost in the machine, the secret architect of my boyfriend Coleton' s brilliant career. I was "Aura," the anonymous creator of our company's billion-dollar software, and I used my hidden influence to make him the star project lead in a new city 1,500 miles away.

I did it all for us, for the future we were supposed to build together.

But when I finally transferred to his office to surprise him, I found him wrapped up with his new assistant, Kyra-the same girl I' d seen laughing on the back of his motorcycle in a video just days before.

He called her his "climbing partner," a friend, nothing more.

Then, she made a mistake that cost our company millions. When I confronted her, Coleton didn't hold her accountable. He defended her. In front of the entire executive floor, he turned on me, blaming me for her failure.

"If you can't handle the pressure here," he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt, "maybe you should just go back to headquarters."

The man whose entire life I had built was firing me to protect another woman.

Just as my world shattered, the elevator doors chimed. Our CTO stepped out, his eyes taking in my tear-streaked face and Coleton's furious one.

He looked straight at my boyfriend, his voice dangerously quiet.

"You have the audacity to speak to the owner of this company in that tone?"

Chapter 1

Erika POV:

The two-year, fifteen-hundred-mile gap between my boyfriend and me was closed not by a plane ticket, but by a fifteen-second video on my phone.

The office was dead quiet, the kind of crushing silence that only exists at two in the morning. The only sounds were the low hum of my computer and the frantic thumping of my own heart against my ribs. I was waiting for a massive data package to compile, a process that could take anywhere from five minutes to an hour. To kill time, I did what I always did: I scrolled.

My thumb flicked mindlessly past photos of friends' babies and Caribbean vacations until it stopped on a video. A girl I didn' t know, her face bright and animated, was laughing into the camera. She was vibrant, with a spray of freckles across her nose and a messy ponytail of dark hair. She was perched on the back of a motorcycle, her arms wrapped tightly around the driver.

The driver' s back was to the camera, but I knew that leather jacket. I' d bought it for him for our third anniversary.

The girl leaned forward, her lips close to the driver' s ear, shouting over the roar of the engine. The wind whipped her hair across her face, but her voice was surprisingly clear. "Race you to the top, Ruiz! Loser buys tacos!"

The caption below the video was a string of emojis-a rock-climbing wall, a taco, and a winking face-followed by the hashtag #climbingpartner.

Ruiz.

My breath hitched. My entire world narrowed to the small, glowing screen in my hand. He turned his head slightly, just for a second, and the streetlight caught the sharp line of his jaw.

Coleton.

My fingers felt numb as I tapped his contact. The phone rang once, twice, three times before he picked up.

"Hey, babe. What' s up? It' s late." His voice was muffled, distant.

Behind him, I could hear a cacophony of noise-loud music, people shouting, the clinking of glasses. It sounded like a party.

"Where are you?" I asked, my own voice sounding hollow in the sterile quiet of my office.

"Oh, just out with some of the guys from the gym," he said, a little too quickly. "We just wrapped up a big project, celebrating a bit."

A woman' s laugh, high-pitched and familiar, echoed close to his phone. It was the same laugh from the video.

"Coleton," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Who are you with?"

"Just the team, Erika. Don' t worry. I' m heading home soon." His words were meant to be reassuring, but they felt like sandpaper scraping against my raw nerves.