Zero-Sum Game | NEON LIT

The moment I realize I'm fucked is approximately six seconds after the most successful hack of my career.

Neo-Shanghai's quantum encryption—the one three hundred forty-seven netrunners had failed to crack—shatters around me like spun glass. I'm in. I'm in, swimming through data streams that flow like liquid gold, terabytes of corporate secrets brushing past my consciousness like schools of glittering fish.

The virtual champagne I coded for occasions like this rains down in the neural space. Confetti bursts. Somewhere in meatspace, my body is grinning like a maniac in a cramped apartment that smells like instant ramen and victory.

Then the feedback loop hits.

It crawls up my neural interface like ice crystallizing through my veins—a trace so elegant, so surgical, that I don't even notice it until it's already inside. Not just my VPN. Not just my node. My real address. My real name. My real face, captured through the camera I could have sworn I'd disabled three months ago.

The screen flickers.

A woman's face appears. Silver hair swept back from a face carved from marble and malice. Dark eyes that look straight through my avatar, through my defenses, through the walls I've spent my whole life building.

She smiles.

It's the smile of a cat who's already calculated the exact trajectory of the mouse's death.

"Ren Vasquez," she says. Her voice is low, controlled, the kind of voice that never needs to shout because it's already the loudest thing in any room. "They call you Glitch."

The connection cuts. The champagne freezes mid-fall. And somewhere in the real world, boots are already climbing the stairs to my door.

Twenty minutes later, I'm standing in a penthouse that costs more than the GDP of most collapsed nations, my wrists zip-tied behind my back and my heart trying to punch its way out through my ribs.

Dominique Cross.

I know her, of course. Everyone in the sprawl knows her. Fifty-two years old. CEO of Cross Dynamics—the megacorp that owns everything from neural implants to private armies to the very air filtration systems that keep Neo-Shanghai from choking on its own smog.

Rumored to have three husbands, all of whom died under mysterious circumstances. Rumored to maintain black-site prisons where corporate enemies disappear. Rumored to have personally executed a board member who tried to stage a coup, cutting his throat with a letter opener during a shareholders' meeting.

She looks like expensive poison dressed in white silk.

"You broke my encryption," she says, circling me slowly. Her heels click against marble floors the color of fresh cream. The penthouse stretches around us—all glass and clean lines and furniture that probably costs more than my organs on the black market. Beyond the windows, Neo-Shanghai sprawls like a circuit board on fire, neon arteries pulsing through a body of steel and smog.

"In six hours," she continues. "My security team estimated the minimum viable crack time at eighteen months. You did it in six hours."

"Could've done it in four." My voice is steadier than it has any right to be. "My neighbor was playing bass music. Very distracting."

She stops in front of me. Close enough that I can smell her perfume—something dark and floral with an undertone of something sharper. Something that smells like the moment before a storm breaks.

"Do you know what happens to people who steal from me, Ren?"

"I've heard rumors."

"The rumors are conservative." She lifts one manicured hand and traces her finger down the line of my jaw. My skin burns where she touches. I hate myself for leaning into it. "But I'm willing to offer you an alternative."

"I'm listening."

"Work for me. Exclusively. Live here, in my penthouse. Hack my enemies. Burn their systems to the ground. And when I want company..." Her finger traces lower, along my throat, finding my pulse point and pressing lightly. "You'll provide it."

"And if I say no?"

"Twenty years in a Cross Dynamics detention facility. The black-site kind." She leans closer, her lips brushing my ear, her breath warm against my skin. "No one will ever find you. No one will ever remember you. You'll simply... cease to exist. Like you were never born at all."

I should say no. I should take the prison, hold onto my dignity, go down fighting like the street rat I am.

But I'm twenty-four and terrified and looking into the eyes of a woman who could unmake me with a phone call. And there's something else, too—something dark and traitorous coiling in my gut as she looks at me with those calculating eyes.

She doesn't look at me like I'm nothing.

She looks at me like I'm interesting.

"Fine," I hear myself say. "It's a deal."

Her smile sharpens. Something dangerous gleams in her expression—satisfaction, maybe, or something hungrier.

"Welcome home, Glitch."

The first month, I tell myself a lot of things.

This is survival. This is strategy. This is a long game, and I'm playing it.

She gives me a room in her penthouse—not a cell, an actual room with a bed that could fit six people and sheets that feel like water against my skin. The window overlooks the neon sprawl, towers of light stabbing through an eternal haze of industrial smog. At night, the city looks like something dreaming, its streets pulsing with holographic advertisements and the distant thunder of mag-lev trains.

She gives me tech I've only dreamed about. Neural interfaces with response times measured in picoseconds. Quantum decryption rigs that make my old gear look like children's toys. A workspace all my own, filled with hardware that could buy a small nation.

She gives me targets.

Corporate rivals who've crossed her. Politicians who've forgotten their place. Rivals and competitors and anyone stupid enough to think they could play in Dominique Cross's sandbox without paying the price.

I burn through their systems like a wildfire. Crack their encryption, steal their secrets, leave their networks in smoking ruins. I'm good at this—the best, maybe. Better than I've ever been, with resources I never imagined having.

And every night, when she summons me to her bedroom, I tell myself it's just part of the deal. Just survival. Just a transaction between a woman who owns me and a body that doesn't mind being used.

I'm lying, of course.

I figure that out the first night she doesn't summon me.

The call doesn't come.

I lie awake until 3 AM, staring at the ceiling, my body humming with restless energy. The sheets feel too smooth. The bed feels too big. My skin itches like something's crawling under it.

You're relieved, I tell myself. Finally, a night to yourself.

But when I try to sleep, all I can think about is the way she touches me.

Not rough. Not hurried. Deliberate. Like she has all the time in the world. Like I'm something to be savored, explored, taken apart and put back together in configurations that please her. She never asks—she takes. But somehow, in the taking, she makes me want to give.

I think about the way she looks at me afterward, when we're both breathing hard and the sheets are tangled around us like battlefields. That small, satisfied smile. Those dark eyes, soft for just a moment before the walls go back up.

I think about the way she says my name.

Ren. Not Glitch. Not boy. Ren.

Like she actually sees me.

By 4 AM, I'm hard and furious and aching for something I don't want to name. By 5 AM, I'm out of bed, stalking through the penthouse like a caged animal. By 6 AM, I'm standing outside her bedroom door, my hand raised to knock, my pride screaming at me to walk away.

I don't knock.

But I don't walk away, either.

When she emerges an hour later, dressed in a grey silk robe with her silver hair loose around her shoulders, she finds me sitting in the hallway like a lost dog.

"Trouble sleeping?" she asks. Her voice is amused. Knowing.

"The bed was too soft."

"Mmm." She walks past me, trailing fingers through my hair—a brief, possessive touch that makes my whole body shudder. "Poor baby."

I want to hate her. I want to snarl and snap and prove that I can't be tamed.

Instead, I follow her to breakfast like I was born to it.

"You're distracted."

Her voice cuts through my concentration, and I jerk back from the holoscreen. She's standing in the doorway of my workspace, dressed in a black suit that probably costs more than most cars, her silver hair twisted into an elegant knot. She looks like power incarnate—sharp and sleek and utterly untouchable.

"I'm fine."

"You've been staring at that firewall for twenty-three minutes. You cracked harder systems in your first week."

"Maybe I'm tired."

"You're not tired." She crosses the room, heels clicking against the floor, and stops behind my chair. Her hand settles on my shoulder—light, but I feel it everywhere. "You're sulking."

"I don't sulk."

"You've been sulking ever since I had dinner with Director Chen."

I go very still.

Director Chen. The new head of Neo-Shanghai's regulatory authority. Young—thirty-five, maybe. Handsome in that chrome-enhanced corporate way. He'd looked at Dominique across the dinner table like she was water and he was dying of thirst.

I'd watched the whole thing through the security feeds I wasn't supposed to have access to. Watched him lean too close. Watched him touch her hand. Watched her smile that cool, amused smile that meant nothing but looked like everything.

I'd broken three encryption keys that night without even noticing, my fingers tearing through code like it had personally offended me.

"I don't care who you have dinner with."

"Don't you?"

Her hand slides from my shoulder to my throat. Not squeezing—just resting there, a reminder. My pulse kicks against her palm, traitor that it is.

"You're mine, Ren. I bought you. I own you." Her voice drops, soft and dangerous, her lips brushing my ear. "But I don't share. And I don't let go of what's mine."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"It's supposed to make you feel honest." She turns my chair to face her, and I find myself looking up into those dark, knowing eyes. "You were jealous."

"I wasn't—"

"Don't lie to me. You're not good enough at it."

I clench my jaw. My hands are shaking. I hate how much I want her to touch me again.

"Fine. I was jealous. Are you happy?"

"Very." She smiles—a real smile, one of the rare ones that softens her whole face. "Jealousy means you care. It means this isn't just survival for you anymore."

"And what is it for you?" The words come out rough. "A game? A power trip? Am I just another thing you collected?"

Her smile fades. Something flickers behind her eyes—something almost vulnerable, quickly suppressed.

"No," she says quietly. "You're not."

She kisses me before I can ask what she means.

She teaches me things.

Not just about hacking—though she does that too, sharing corporate secrets and strategic insights that would make a data broker weep. She teaches me how to move through her world. How to read a boardroom. How to calculate the exact words that will make a powerful man's confidence crumble.

She teaches me how she takes her coffee (black, one sugar, brewed exactly two degrees below boiling). She teaches me what books she reads late at night when the insomnia hits (pre-Collapse philosophy, poetry, the occasional trashy romance novel she pretends doesn't exist). She teaches me the way her shoulders tense when she's stressed and the way her voice drops when she's aroused and the exact pressure of fingers on her scalp that makes her melt.

And I teach her things too.

How to swear in dock worker Spanish. How to eat street food without looking like a tourist. How to laugh without calculating the strategic value of the sound.

I teach her that she can be soft with me. That she doesn't have to be a CEO in my arms. That the woman under all that armor is allowed to exist, even if only in the dark, even if only for minutes at a time.

We don't talk about what this is. We don't name it.

But somewhere between the second and third month, I stop thinking about escape.

"You're looking for an escape route."

We're in her bedroom. The city burns neon beyond the windows, and she's sitting on the edge of the bed in a silk robe, watching me pace the room like the caged animal I am.

"Wouldn't you?"

"I would." She crosses her legs, the robe parting to show a slice of thigh that makes my mouth go dry. "But you won't find one."

"You're confident."

"I'm realistic." She tilts her head, studying me. "The doors aren't locked, Ren. They never have been. You could leave anytime. Walk out the front door, disappear into the sprawl. I'd give you a head start before I started looking."

I stop pacing. "What?"

"You're not a prisoner. Not really." She rises, crosses to me, cups my face in her hands. Her palms are cool against my overheated skin. "You're a guest who stays because he wants to."

"I stay because you'll throw me in a black site if I leave."

"Will I?" Her thumbs trace my cheekbones. "You've had access to my security systems for two months. You've had a dozen opportunities to run. To expose me. To sell my secrets to the highest bidder." Her eyes are very dark. Very deep. "Why haven't you?"

I open my mouth. Close it.

Because I don't want to, the truth whispers in my head. Because you're the first person who's looked at me like I'm worth looking at. Because I hate the way my chest aches when you're in the room and I hate the way it aches worse when you're not.

"Because you're convenient," I manage.

She laughs. It's not mocking—it's almost fond.

"Liar," she says, and kisses me.

I run in month three.

Not because I want to leave. Because I need to know if I can.

I slip out at 3 AM, disable the security with tricks she taught me, and make it six blocks into the neon-drenched maze of the lower city before I realize I'm not being followed. No drones. No security teams. No sleek black cars cutting through traffic to intercept me.

She's letting me go. Just like she said.

I stand on a rain-soaked corner, holographic advertisements flickering overhead, and I wait.

For a trap. For pursuit. For some evidence that this is all a game, that I'm still a prisoner, that leaving was never really an option.

Nothing comes.

Just the rain. Just the city. Just the endless churn of humanity flowing around me like water around a stone.

I last forty-seven minutes.

Then I walk back.

She's waiting in the lobby.

She's still in her robe, her feet bare on the cold marble floor. Her silver hair is mussed like she's been running her hands through it. She doesn't look angry.

She looks afraid.

"Forty-seven minutes," she says.

"You were counting?"

"I always count." She takes a breath. It shakes. "Why did you come back?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

I'm dripping rain onto her expensive floors. My hair is plastered to my skull. I'm shaking—from cold, from adrenaline, from something bigger than either.

"Because the city felt empty," I finally say. "Because I walked six blocks and all I could think about was what you were doing. Whether you were awake. Whether you'd noticed I was gone." My voice cracks. I hate it. "Because when I tried to imagine never seeing you again, it felt like—"

I can't finish.

She crosses the lobby in four steps and kisses me.

It's not controlled. Not deliberate. This is desperation—her hands shaking as they grip my wet jacket, her breath hitching against my mouth, her whole body pressed against mine like she's trying to climb inside me.

"I thought you'd leave," she whispers when we break apart. "I thought you'd finally realize you could do better than a woman twice your age who doesn't know how to love without controlling."

"You're not twice my age."

"Twenty-eight years, Ren."

"And?" I cup her face, tilt it up. In the lobby's low light, she looks younger than her years. Vulnerable. Human. "You're also the most brilliant, terrifying, beautiful woman I've ever met. You made me better. You made me want to be better. Do you really think I care about a number?"

"You should."

"I don't." I kiss her forehead. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth. "I came back. I'll always come back. Not because you own me—because I choose you. Every time. Even when it scares the hell out of me."

She pulls back. Looks at me with eyes that are bright with unshed tears.

Dominique Cross, who makes empires tremble. Dominique Cross, who never shows weakness. Crying in her lobby, barefoot and vulnerable and mine.

"I don't know how to do this either," she admits. "I've never... wanted someone to stay. Not like this."

"Then we'll figure it out together."

"And if you wake up one day and realize you want out?"

"Then you'll let me go." I brush a tear from her cheek. "And I'll spend the rest of my life regretting it."

She laughs—wet, raw, real.

"You're insufferable."

"You love it."

"I love you." The words come out like they've surprised her. Like she didn't know she was going to say them until they were already in the air.

Everything stops.

"Say that again."

"Don't push your luck, Glitch."

"Say it again, Dominique."

She rolls her eyes. But she's smiling—really smiling, the kind that makes her look ten years younger and a thousand times more dangerous.

"I love you," she says. "God help me, I love you. And if you tell anyone I said that, I'll have you assassinated."

I grin. Pull her close. Kiss her until neither of us can breathe.

"I love you too," I tell her when we finally break apart. "Even though you're terrifying. Even though you could destroy me. Even though this whole thing started because I was stupid enough to hack the wrong woman."

"Not stupid," she corrects. "Bold. I like bold."

"You like owning things."

"I like owning you." She takes my hand, leads me toward the elevator. "Now come upstairs. You're soaking wet, and I have plans."

"What kind of plans?"

She glances back at me, and her smile turns wicked.

"The kind that remind you why you came back."

The collar comes six months later.

Not platinum—silver. Thin and elegant, with no tracker, no voltage, nothing functional at all except a single line of code engraved around the inside: the algorithm I used to break her encryption the night we met.

She fastens it around my throat in the quiet of her bedroom, her fingers steady, her eyes dark and soft.

"You don't have to wear it," she says. "It's not a contract. It's not a chain. It's a—"

"Promise," I finish.

She smiles. "Yes."

I touch the cool metal. Feel it settle against my pulse.

"I'm never taking it off."

"Good." She pulls me close, her hands on my hips, her lips brushing my ear. "Because you're mine, Ren Vasquez. Now and always."

"Zero-sum game," I murmur against her throat.

"What?"

"Nothing." I pull back, grinning. "Just thinking about how badly I lost."

"You didn't lose." She cups my face, and her eyes—dark, deep, home—hold mine. "You won something that can't be counted. So did I."

Outside the window, Neo-Shanghai blazes like a fever dream. Somewhere in the sprawl, a young hacker is trying to break through a firewall, chasing the same thrill I used to chase. They don't know yet that the best heists aren't about what you steal.

They're about what you choose to keep.

I chose her.

She chose me.

And in the end, that's the only math that matters.