INICIAR SESIÓNSeventeen hours.The number pulsed on the screen like a heartbeat Dominic couldn’t quiet.Lila stood beside him in the dim light of his office, arms folded tight against her ribs, watching as he expanded the timeline again—sliding it back, forward, back again—like repetition might make the gap close.It didn’t.From 06:14 in the morning…to 23:31 that same night…Nothing.No location data.No camera footage.No biometric trail beyond the most basic vital signs.Just absence.“If I agreed to forget,” Dominic said slowly, “it wasn’t before the hospital.”Lila looked at him. “What makes you sure?”“Because whatever they needed my consent for,” he replied, eyes locked on the empty stretch of time, “they already had me.”He expanded the window again, overlaying Hale Enterprises’ internal access logs.The blank space didn’t stay blank.Patterns began to emerge.Not movement, but activity.Restricted clearances were activated in clusters.Security protocols initiated and terminated.Medical
The idea that he had chosen to forget her sat between them like a third presence.Lila stood at the edge of Dominic’s office, arms wrapped around herself, eyes fixed on nothing. The morning light had fully arrived now, implying normalcy where none existed. The city outside the glass walls went about its business, unaware that six years ago, something had been quietly erased in one of its brightest towers.“You’re sure?” she asked at last.Dominic didn’t look up from the console. “As sure as I can be about something I don’t remember doing.”“That you consented,” she said. The word tasted wrong in her mouth. “That you signed away your memories.”He exhaled slowly. “Consent doesn’t always mean freedom. Sometimes it just means the absence of alternatives.”She turned to him then. “What were they holding over you?”He hesitated. Not because he didn’t want to answer, but because the answer was still forming.“That’s what we’re about to find out.”He tapped a sequence into the console. The m
Dawn arrived without ceremony.A thin line of pale light crept across the penthouse windows, turning the city below from shadow to steel. The storm had washed everything clean, but inside Hale Tower, nothing felt settled.Dominic hadn’t slept.He stood just outside Eli’s bedroom, leaning one shoulder against the wall, watching Lila where she’d finally succumbed to exhaustion. She sat on the floor beside the bed, back against the frame, head tilted slightly, one hand resting on the blanket as if she might lose Eli if she let go.Eli slept peacefully now. His breathing was slow. Even. Innocent.Too innocent for the things he’d said.Forgetting was safer.The words echoed again, steady and relentless.Dominic straightened slowly, careful not to wake either of them, and turned toward his office.Inside, Dominic closed the door without engaging the automatic lock. He didn’t want the sound. He wanted silence.The phrase replayed in his mind, not as fear, not as panic, but as language.Forge
The penthouse didn’t settle after the storm.Lila felt it in her bones as she moved through the living area, tidying without purpose, straightening pillows that didn’t need straightening.Dominic stood near the windows, arms folded, gaze fixed on the city. He hadn’t moved much since the revelation. Since the words that had cracked something open between them:He’s been watching you ever since.Eli sensed it. Lila knew before he said a word. Children always did.He sat cross-legged on the rug with his crayons spread in a careful semicircle, coloring slower than usual, pressing too hard. The wax squeaked faintly on the paper. He didn’t hum. He didn’t chatter. He didn’t look up when Lila passed.She crouched beside him. “Hey, bug. What’re you drawing?”He shrugged, eyes on the page. “The tower.”Her stomach tightened. “That’s a lot of windows.”“Some of them aren’t real,” he said.She stilled. “What do you mean?”He hesitated, then added quietly, “The dark ones.”Dominic turned from the
For a heartbeat, no one moved.The word still seemed to hang in the air like a ghostly echo vibrating beneath the table:“Begin.”The listening device blinked twice, then went dark.Lila sat frozen, every muscle tightened painfully. Dominic’s fist closed around her wrist, not hard enough to hurt her, but with a tension that warned her not to make a single sudden movement.Around them, the board watched in puzzled silence.“Dominic?” Serena Vale tilted her head, studying him with eyes keen as needles. “Is something wrong?”Dominic’s voice was smooth, too smooth, the way a polished blade hides its edge.“Just a malfunctioning personal device. Nothing to concern yourselves with.”But Lila saw what the board couldn’t: the way Dominic’s pulse hammered at his throat, the tightness in his jaw, the storm gathering behind his eyes.Meredith burst through the door before Serena could question further.“Mr. Hale,” she announced with crisp urgency, “you’re needed upstairs immediately. A security
For a moment, Lila couldn’t breathe.Dominic stood frozen beside her, the photograph still clutched in his hand; her in the hospital bed, Eli only hours old, and a stranger in Hale Enterprises clothing watching from the doorway like a ghost stitched into her past.She felt sick.Eli tugged at her shirt hem, oblivious. “Mommy, what’s wrong?”She knelt quickly, kissing the top of his head. “Nothing, sweetheart. Go get your crayons. I’ll be right there.”Eli ran down the hall.Only then did she whisper, “Dominic… why would someone from your company be watching me that day?”His throat worked as he stared at the photo. “I don’t know. I swear to you, I don’t know why this exists.” His pulse beat visibly at his jaw. “But this wasn’t accidental. Someone put this under my door tonight.”“And they were at the hospital six years ago,” Lila whispered.He lifted his gaze to hers.It wasn’t anger.It was fear.“We need to find him,” Dominic said. “Whoever he is.”Lila swallowed hard. “What if he f







