FAZER LOGIN{Morningstar}The doors opened.Everything else fell away.The voices in the corridor, the movement, the quiet hum of the hospital— none of it held long enough to matter. Attention shifted all at once, drawn toward the same point, held there by the man stepping out from behind those doors.It was the same doctor.The one who had told me to stay back.He didn’t rush. Didn’t slow either. His pace was steady in a way that suggested control, but not certainty. That difference settled before he spoke.“She’s stable.”The words landed cleanly and for a second, nothing followed them.Not relief.Not movement.Just a pause long enough to understand what had been said.My shoulders eased slightly before I noticed it, the tension that had been sitting there loosening just enough to shift.Then he continued.“She was severely dehydrated. Exhaustion as well. Her system was under strain and there were also traces of infection.”His gaze held mine as he spoke, not confrontational, but direct.“As a
{Morningstar}The screen had already changed.Whatever had been playing before was gone, replaced by something else that didn’t hold long enough to register. The corridor had returned to itself—voices low, movement steady, people shifting in and out of spaces that had nothing to do with me.But I hadn’t moved.Not yet.The image stayed where it had settled, clear enough that it didn’t fade with the rest of it. The way he had stood in front of her. The way his hand had moved. The force of it.I exhaled slowly, the breath controlled, measured.Then I turned.Sebastian noticed before I reached him.“You’ve been moving around like something’s off,” he said, pushing himself up from where he had been sitting. “What is it?”I didn’t answer immediately.The words weren’t difficult to find. They were already there, fully formed. It was the space between deciding to say them and letting them out that held for a second longer than it should have.Then—“Someone put their hands on her.”Sebastian
{Morningstar}The doors had been closed for too long.I didn’t measure the time.Not by minutes. Not by anything I could name.But I knew it.I had been standing in the same place when they took her in, watching those doors as though they would open simply because I hadn’t looked away long enough. At some point, that stopped being enough.So I moved.The corridor stretched out in both directions, long and sterile, the light overhead too bright to soften anything it touched. I walked without choosing a direction, my steps steady at first, then slower, then picking up again without reason.There were people around.I noticed them.A man seated with his head bowed, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. A woman pacing a few steps ahead, stopping every few seconds as though she expected something to change if she waited long enough.Voices moved through the space in low tones. Nurses passed by with purpose, their attention fixed on things that had nothing to do with me.
{Morningstar}The ambulance doors opened before the vehicle came to a full stop.Everything moved at once.Hands reached in. Voices overlapped. The stretcher was pulled out in one smooth motion, its wheels hitting the ground and rolling forward without pause. The paramedics didn’t wait for space to clear— they created it as they moved, guiding her through the entrance with practiced urgency.I stepped out right behind them.No one told me to follow.No one stopped me either.**The hospital doors slid open, and the air changed immediately. Brighter. Sharper. The smell of antiseptic cut through everything else, clean and cold.“Female, mid-twenties,” one of the paramedics was saying as they pushed her forward. “Unconscious on arrival. Pulse weak. Breathing shallow.”A nurse joined them, already walking backward as she took in the information.“How long has she been unresponsive?”“Unknown.”“Any trauma?”“None visible.”They didn’t slow down.Neither did I.“Sir—”The voice came from my
{Morningstar}We left the main road sooner than I expected.The man from the café walked ahead of us, his pace uneven, as though he was trying to remember the path while following it. The street he led us into narrowed gradually, the buildings losing their finish the farther we went. Paint gave way to exposed concrete. Windows became openings without glass.The ground beneath our feet shifted from even pavement to rough patches that forced slight adjustments with every step.“This way,” he said, glancing back once before continuing.The men spread out slightly, not enough to lose sight of one another, but enough to cover more ground. The DPO walked just behind me, speaking briefly into his phone before slipping it back into his pocket.I didn’t respond to anything around me.My attention moved ahead as the space grew quieter.Not empty, but reduced. Fewer voices. Less movement. Even the air seemed heavier, carrying the faint scent of dust and something unsettled.The man slowed.He loo
{Morningstar}By the time I stepped into the security wing, they were already assembled.The room was not small, yet it felt contained with the number of men standing inside it. Some stood with their hands behind their backs, others with their arms at their sides, all of them facing forward with the same alert posture. The moment I entered, their attention shifted completely.No one spoke.I walked past the first line and stopped where I could see all of them clearly.“Who saw her last?”The question moved through the room without resistance, but the answer did not come immediately. There was a brief exchange of glances before two men stepped forward.“I did, sir,” one of them said.The other nodded. “Same, sir.”I looked at the first one. “When?”“Two mornings ago, sir. Early. Just after sunrise.”“She was leaving?”“Yes, sir.”“Alone?”“Yes.”There was no hesitation in his answer, but there was something else missing from it. I shifted my attention to the second man.“You saw her as
{Alora’s POV}Morningstar stood outside my door… and for half a second, my brain refused to process what I was seeing.Then instinct took over.My hands flew to my breasts and I slammed the door in his face.The sound echoed through the room.I stood there frozen for a moment, heart racing, before
{Alora’s POV}I knocked on his door and for a moment, nothing happened.The hallway outside Morningstar’s room was quiet, the kind of quiet that only existed in houses too large for ordinary life. While I waited, the ocean wind slipped through the tall windows at the end of the corridor, carrying t
{Morningstar}The boardroom was quiet in the way rooms become quiet when decisions are expected.The city stretched beyond the glass, restless and indifferent, but inside the room every movement carried weight. Directors spoke in measured tones, sliding reports across the table and outlining projec
{Alora’s POV}They escorted me through the executive floor as though I were fragile glass— handled carefully, removed quietly.No one looked at me twice… and no one spoke to me.The dismissal wasn’t loud. It was worse than that. It was orderly.The elevator descended in polished silence, and my refl







