Calixta couldn't shake the image of Xeda from her dream. The lifeless body, the whispered warning. The name lingered like smoke in her thoughts, too heavy to ignore.
The morning after, while Lucien was away at work, she opened her laptop and began searching. Xeda Veyra. A name once shining in headlines, now buried in scandal and whispers of tragedy.
She learned about her family, old money, strict, a lineage of politicians and artists. She learned about her lovers, high-profile, mostly actors and musicians. But one detail made her heart skip.
In one paparazzi photo, blurred and grainy, Xeda was stepping out of a car... and behind her, almost hidden by the door, was a man with sharp features, unmistakable even in shadows.
Lucien Kael.
Calixta's stomach twisted.
Scrolling deeper, she found scattered reports of the case: the night of the murder, the neighbors who testified hearing shouts, a gunshot. But one statement chilled her: "Only one man might've seen what happened. His rest house was close enough to Xeda's. But weeks later, he was found dead in his home. Suicide, they called it."
A lead gone cold. A witness silenced.
Her hands shook as she closed her laptop. But she needed more. She needed the truth.
That evening, she went to the same club Rob had been last seen before everything spiraled. The bass pounded through her chest as she stepped inside, lights flickering across sweat-slicked bodies.
At the bar, a woman with fiery red lips and sharp eyes slid up next to her, swirling a glass of something deep amber. She looked Calixta up and down, smirking knowingly.
"Well, well." the woman purred, her voice dipped in venom and charm. "So you're the apple of the Adam now?"
Calixta stiffened. "I... don't know what you mean."
The woman leaned closer, her perfume thick, intoxicating. "Oh, darling. Don't play innocent. Men like him, they always need their Eve. Until she bites too deep."
The way she said it—him—was heavy with unspoken truth. And Calixta knew instantly: this wasn't some random club girl. This woman knew something.
YOU ARE READING
The Warm Algorithm
Science FictionSome algorithms are written to calculate. Others are written to feel. Calixta thought she was only chasing light in the digital void, but what she found was something more, something alive. The Warm Algorithm unravels the hauntingly beautiful story...
