The Mirror's Lie

Trapped I

“I want you to stop sleeping with my father.”

The words hit like a thunderclap.

“What?”

Zayn’s eyes narrowed. “You heard me.”

For a heartbeat, she could only stare, the air sucked from her lungs. Then she let out a stunned, incredulous laugh. “I’m sorry—what did you just say?”

“I said,” he repeated slowly, every syllable cutting, “that whatever… arrangement you have with Alexander Specter ends now.”

Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Shock and confusion battled inside her until finally indignation sparked through the haze.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” she burst out.

He raised a brow, cold amusement flickering. “You really want to pretend you don’t know who I am? You were approached this week, weren’t you? My head of security offered you a generous sum to walk away.”

Her stomach dropped. The man with the file. The NDA. The check.

She stared at Zayn, speechless.

He mistook her silence for guilt. “So you do know,” he said, leaning forward, his hands braced on the desk. “And since money didn’t convince you, I’m here to make sure you understand that you’re done with him. Permanently.”

Lena’s voice trembled as she pushed herself to stand. “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not—whoever you think I am.”

Zayn’s laugh was soft and disbelieving. “That’s a new one. I’ve heard ‘it’s not what it looks like,’ but claiming not to even know the man? Impressive.”

“I’m serious!” she insisted, her cheeks flushing with anger now. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else. I don’t even know your father!”

He came around the desk, closing the distance between them in slow, deliberate steps. Lena’s breath hitched; his presence filled the space, magnetic and suffocating all at once.

“You expect me to believe,” he murmured, voice low.

“I’m telling you the truth!” she whispered, but her voice betrayed her nerves.

Zayn studied her closely, his piercing gaze scanning every inch of her face. Something flickered there—doubt?—before he masked it behind a smirk.

He opened the drawer, pulled out a heavy, black folder, and set it on the desk between them with a slap that made the papers jump. The sound in the office seemed to shrink—the city’s hum outside muted by the charge in the air. He pushed a thick envelope toward her and then, with a practiced, deliberate motion, laid an NDA on top of it.

“Sign.” His voice was flat, commanded, final.

Lena stared at the neat stack: a crisp non-disclosure agreement typed in legal language she only half-understood, and a check with numbers that made her eyes blur. Her breath hitched when she looked at the figure. Half a million, printed in a font that made the amount gleam on the paper.

Half a million.

Her hands shook as she picked it up. The paper felt unreal—heavy not because of weight but because of consequences. For a single heartbeat she almost believed that money could fold problems away, buy silence like it bought anything else. Then her chest clenched and she set it down.

“I won’t sign that,” she said, voice thin. “I’m not involved with your father.”

Zayn’s jaw tightened—an almost imperceptible movement that made her stomach knot. He was a man who preferred transactions. He preferred to pay, to erase, to move on. When money didn’t work, he did something far worse: he escalated.

He walked around the desk with long, slow steps and dropped another item in front of her—photographs, glossy and merciless. The restaurant’s lighting caught the faces in them: Alex Specter laughing, a hand on a woman’s back, a champagne glass raised. The woman looked up, bright and lit like she belonged at the table. Lena’s chest went cold when she recognized the smile… her sister Lana!

Her brain scrambled to fit the pieces together. The man at the airport, Samson’s file, the offer, the words thrown at La Bodega—everything snapped into place with a brutal clarity. For a second she did not breathe. A hollow, hot whisper skittered across her thoughts: for God’s sake, Lana—what did you get yourself into?

Zayn watched her, eyes dark. “You can be clever all you like,” he said, voice low and dangerously amused. “You can say you’re not involved. But I have evidence. I have photos. I can go wherever I need to take them.” He tapped the top photo with a finger as if punctuating the sentence.

Lena swallowed. The promise she had made to their mother—tight and binding—tangled through her like an iron chain. She could not tell him the truth without dragging Lana into a risk neither of them had counted on. She could not confess they had swapped places; the fallout could be legal and professional and ruinous in a way money might not fix… especially if someone so enraged as Zayn Specter was involved.

“Those are fake,” she heard herself say, the words brittle and immediate. She stood, paper trembling in her hand. “They’ve been staged. You’re making a mistake.”

Zayn’s laugh was short and humorless. “Forged? Convenient.”

He moved to the window, folded his hands behind his back, and watched her like a man watching a small animal pace the cage. “If they are staged, prove it. Otherwise, you have some choices, Ms. Pearson. Sign and walk away with enough money to disappear, or refuse and watch me do what I must to protect my family.”

“You can’t—” Lena began, anger flaring—then forcing herself to clamp down on it. Every syllable she didn’t use saved her from revealing the swap. Revealing that she wasn’t the woman in the photos would mean saying the word twin in this context, and that could explode into a legal and personal nightmare.

Zayn’s face hardened. “You think I’m bluffing.” He slid the pen across the desk with a slow, casual movement. “Sign here.”

She could see the calculation in him: intimidate, buy, remove. He wanted neat solutions. He wanted a signature that cleaned the stain.

He wanted her out of his father’s orbit as cleanly as possible. He had underestimated her earlier—but not anymore.

Lena set her jaw. “I will not—” She stopped herself. Saying she would not sign was one thing; saying why would risk everything. She could not let his fists of leverage smash through the promise she’d made to their dying mother.

Zayn’s patience narrowed like a blade. For a long moment the two of them simply stared—predator and prey with roles blurred. Then, quietly: “You are not leaving until this is sorted out.”

“You can’t be serious” she said, each word a scrape. “You can’t—”

“I can,” he interrupted, calm and absolute. “And I will, if I must. But I’d prefer resolution.”

Lena’s fists clenched. The moral map she’d carried all her life—protect Lana, keep the promise—pulled at her again.

“I am leaving…” she announced as she made her towards the exit door, but to her horror it was locked.

“Open the door,” she spoke with a trembling voice, but to her shock his next words froze her in place.

“You will not leave until these documents are signed” he announced in a cold voice.

“This is coercion… kidnapping!” she screamed at him.

Zayn let a cold laugh as he spoke, “Miss Pearson, I always get what I want. And earlier I did not joked… you are not going anywhere.”