Lena reached the office the next morning with a steadiness she didn’t entirely trust. The elevator doors opened onto the thirty-second floor, releasing the quick burst of cold air that greeted her every day. People moved with their usual precision, tapping through spreadsheets, trading muted greetings, organizing morning routines. Nothing looked out of place.

But she felt it—the shift.

Small, almost imperceptible, like a draft slipping under a closed door. A few glances lasted slightly too long. A conversation paused when she passed. Nothing overt, nothing she could report, but the tension threaded beneath the surface like a fine wire drawn too tight.

She settled at her desk and opened the Harborline models she had revised the night before. Numbers steadied her, the way clean lines and predictable logic always did. She adjusted the projection curve, then the weighted average, tightening a few assumptions to keep the narrative consistent with Lauren’s feedback.

A notification appeared at the corner of her screen.

—from: s.trent  

40th floor. Room 403. Now.

Her pulse jumped.

She checked the time. 8:42. Too early for a routine check-in. Too direct to be administrative.

She stood, smoothing her blouse as if the fabric could help flatten the rising tightness in her chest. She walked toward the elevator with an even pace, aware of three pairs of eyes turning toward her and then away as if caught in the act.

The ride to forty was different from the day of her interview. Slower. Heavier. The numbers above the door blinked one by one instead of rushing upward in a seamless rise. Her throat tightened at the familiar beginning of an allergic reaction, but she inhaled through it—four counts in, four counts out—until the pressure eased.

The doors slid open.

The fortieth floor was quieter than she expected. Not silent—nothing in a working firm ever was—but muted, deliberate. The lighting felt warmer, the hallways narrower, the carpet so thick it softened every step.

Room 403 sat near the end of the corridor. The door was cracked open, as if someone inside wanted her to know she wasn’t interrupting.

She pushed gently.

Silas stood near the far table, sleeves rolled slightly, a stack of printed documents beside him. He didn’t look surprised to see her. He never looked surprised.

“Close the door,” he said.

She did.

He watched her for a moment, his eyes as unreadable as the redacted pages she had tried not to think about all morning.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

A question that should have been simple. But coming from him, it felt calibrated.

“I’m steady,” she said.

He seemed to examine the honesty of that answer, then nodded once, as if entering a private piece of data into an internal ledger.

“There are things you need to know,” he said. “Not all of them. Not yet. But enough to keep you from walking into something blind.”

Her pulse ticked upward. “What kind of things?”

He slid one of the documents across the table. It wasn’t the file from yesterday. This one was thinner, the margins narrower, the headers printed in a softer gray used for internal-only notes.

“Your father,” he said, “contacted someone in this building in 2015.”

Her breath hitched. “Who?”

Silas’s gaze flicked toward the window, as if considering how much he was willing—or allowed—to reveal.

“Someone whose name isn’t in the visible version of the report.”

She felt the tension in her spine tighten. “Why hide it?”

“Because the investigation he triggered wasn’t supposed to exist,” Silas said. “Not officially. Not on record.”

That landing was heavier than she expected. “But he wasn’t part of this firm.”

“No,” Silas replied quietly. “But the case he was reporting intersected with someone here.”

The room felt smaller.

She forced her voice steady. “And the connection is dangerous.”

“Yes,” he said. “If handled poorly.”

A beat passed before he added, “Which is why I’m handling it.”

That sentence sat between them longer than it should have. Her breath thinned, not from panic, but from the precision of his tone—an articulation of responsibility and something else she didn’t want to label.

A knock broke the moment.

Silas stiffened just slightly, a shift so controlled she almost doubted she saw it. He moved past her and opened the door only halfway.

“J.D.,” he said flatly.

The law department associate stood with a folder tucked under his arm. His expression was polite, but his posture carried tension.

“Didn’t know you were using this room,” J.D. said. “I was told to bring—”

“It can wait,” Silas said.

J.D.’s eyes flicked toward Lena. Not hostile. Not curious. Merely aware.

“Understood,” he said. “I’ll hold it.”

He stepped back. Silas closed the door.

Lena released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding.

“You’re drawing attention,” she said quietly.

“No,” Silas corrected. “Your clearance is.”

That distinction sent a chill along her skin.

He returned to the table. “You’ll keep working as usual. You’ll stay on the thirty-second floor. And you will not access the redacted pages again unless I’m with you.”

A pause.

“Do you understand?”

She met his eyes. “Yes.”

He searched her face, perhaps for hesitation, perhaps for fear. Whatever he saw, his expression softened by half a degree.

“You didn’t choose this,” he said. “But you’re in it now.”

Lena swallowed. “And there’s no stepping back.”

It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Silas said. “There isn’t.”

He opened the door for her.

She stepped into the quiet corridor, pulse steady but stretched thin, like a wire pulled taut between two fixed points.

As she walked toward the elevator, she felt the shift again—stronger this time, unmistakable.

Not danger.  

Not yet.

But movement.

Something had begun turning around her, narrowing the hallways, tightening the angles, pushing her forward whether she was ready or not.

She pressed the elevator button, the cold metal grounding her.

Then the doors opened, and she stepped inside.