LOGINKelly’s POVThe doors of the Donovan building slid open with a soft, mechanical hiss as I approached it. The cool air from the lobby hit my face, a sharp contrast to the humid morning air outside. I adjusted the strap of my laptop bag on my shoulder, making sure it was secure before I started walking across the wide expanse of the marble floor. I still felt every bit of the tension from last week still sitting in the base of my neck, making my muscles feel tight and unforgiving. “Morning, Kelly,” the receptionist called out from behind the wide, circular desk in the center of the lobby.I stopped for a second and looked at her, because I didn’t want to look like something was wrong with me. “Morning,” I replied. But I didn't stop to chat like I usually did, I just kept moving toward the elevators.Everything in the building looked exactly the same as it had last week, but I didn’t feel the same. I felt like the world had shifted just a few inches to the left, and I was still tr
Michael’s POVThe security office of the company was located in a windowless corner of the basement levels, far away from the polished marble and glass of the executive floor. The air inside the room was dry and smelled faintly of ozone and electronics. A dozen high-definition monitors lined the walls, casting a flickering blue light over the faces of the three analysts on duty. I stood directly behind Miller, the lead analyst, who had been with the Donovan Corporation for several years. He was usually a very stoic man, but today I noticed a slight tension in his shoulders as he navigated the video archives. “Play that again,” I said.Miller didn't say a word, he simply tapped a few keys on his keyboard, and the main monitor rewound the footage. The image was clear and captured in colors, showing the storage corridors of basement level B2. A digital timestamp in the bottom corner of the screen ticked away with mechanical indifference.The screen showed a long, narrow hallway lin
Kelly’s POVI didn’t feel even remotely out of danger until I was safely behind my own front door. Even then, it took a long moment for my breathing to slow down to a regular rhythm. I stepped into the apartment and closed the door making sure I turned the deadbolt, hearing the solid click of the mechanism. And then I turned the secondary lock again, just to be absolutely sure that I was truly alone and secure.The silence inside the apartment wrapped around me immediately, but it wasn't a comforting silence. It felt too quiet, like the air was charged with mysteries. I dropped my bag by the small entryway table and stood perfectly still in the foyer as I found myself listening without even meaning to, straining my ears for any sound that shouldn't be there. It was as if I half-expected to hear something move in the bedroom or to see a shadow shift in the corner of my eye. I wanted to make sure that the terrifying feeling that had followed me all the way from the company's parkin
Kelly’s POVThe meeting started at eleven in the morning and somehow stretched into almost two hours of talks that never quite said anything directly. And it was held in a massive glass-walled conference room on the twenty-third floor of a partner firm that Owen worked closely with. The room had a large table, filtered light, and overly confident people who smiled far too easily while choosing their words even more carefully to ensure they never committed to anything solid. I was there strictly to observe because that was exactly how Owen put it when he told me. “Just watch, take notes, and speak if you notice something important,” right before we walked through the doors. It sounded incredibly simple in theory, except absolutely nothing about the tense atmosphere in the room made me comfortable. Two senior executives and one sharply dressed external consultant sat around the table with Owen positioned at the head, looking completely relaxed like he owned the entire space witho
Dylan’s POVThere were cases I took as a corporate lawyer because they paid exceptionally well, and there were cases I took because I genuinely believed in the cause. But then there were cases exactly like this one where I accepted the retainer far too quickly only to realize halfway through the discovery process that walking away might not be a survivable option anymore. I stood by the massive floor-to-ceiling window of my corner office and looked out over the grey Seattle skyline without actually seeing the rain-slicked streets or the towering glass buildings. Meanwhile the file remained open like an unexploded bomb on my desk behind me. The name on the front of the folder didn't mean much on the surface, because it looked like just another corporate logistics entity with a clean organizational structure. Also it had spotless tax records that wouldn't raise a single red flag if an auditor didn't know exactly where to look. When I first opened this law firm five years ago, I
Michael’s POVI shut down my laptop, because the numbers on the screen had stopped making sense nearly an hour ago. And I realised that I wasn't going to get anything else done tonight since my focus was completely off. My house was far too quiet for my current state of mind, which only served to make the threats Ryder had uncovered feel more pressing. Especially since I now knew someone was working against me from the inside. I pushed my chair back and stood up, deciding that I needed a break from this environment before the walls started to close in on me. So I reached for my keys and walked out of the room to leave the weight of the company behind.The rain was light and steady as I drove across the city, coating the streets in a sheen that caught the glow of the headlights while the world moved at its normal pace. I felt out of sync with everything around me as I observed the pedestrians and the traffic from my car.By the time I pulled into the parking garage of Owen’s buil







