CHAPTER 4: CARTER TERRITORY

The security guard at the front desk of Carter Industries said her name before she said his.

"Miss Sullivan." He didn't ask for ID. He glanced at a screen, nodded once, and gestured toward the bank of elevators like she was expected, like her arrival had been logged somewhere the moment she left her apartment. "Top floor. Someone will meet you when the doors open."

Maya stood very still for a second. "I didn't give anyone my name downstairs."

"You didn't need to, ma'am."

She said nothing else, just walked toward the elevators with her spine straight and her stomach in knots, acutely aware of the marble floor beneath her heels, the glass walls stretching two stories above her, the sheer, deliberate silence of a building designed to remind visitors exactly how small they were. Power didn't need to announce itself here. It just existed, ambient and cold, in every surface.

The elevator rose without a sound. Maya watched the floor numbers climb and tried to steady her breathing, tried to remember the version of herself who'd walked out of Halloway's office that morning with her spine straight, who hadn't let humiliation show on her face even when it was eating her alive inside.

You can do this, she told herself. You survived worse than a building.

The doors opened onto a floor so quiet it felt sacred. No open office chatter, no ringing phones — just long hallways of dark wood and frosted glass, and at the end of one, a woman in a sharp gray suit waiting with her hands folded.

"Miss Sullivan. This way, please."

Maya followed her past a series of closed doors, past windows that looked out over Manhattan like the city itself was something Carter Industries merely rented space above. She'd expected, somewhere in the back of her mind, an older man — grandfatherly, silver-templed, the kind of "uncle" figure Damien's tone had implied without ever quite confirming.

She was not prepared for the man who rose from behind the desk when she was finally shown into the corner office.

Elias Carter was younger than she'd braced for — mid-thirties, maybe, though something about the stillness in his eyes made him seem both younger and far older at once. Dark suit, no tie, sleeves rolled to the forearm like he'd been in the middle of something before she arrived. He wasn't handsome in the practiced, camera-ready way Damien had been. He was something sharper. Coiled. A man who looked like he'd learned early that showing nothing was safer than showing anything at all.

"Miss Sullivan," he said, and his voice matched the one from the phone exactly — low, unhurried, entirely too calm. "Thank you for coming."

"I wasn't sure I would."

"I know." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Please."

She sat, mostly because standing suddenly felt like giving something away. He remained standing a moment longer than necessary, studying her the way she imagined he studied quarterly reports — carefully, thoroughly, like he'd already memorized everything about her file and was simply confirming it against the woman in front of him.

"You're not what I expected," she said, before she could stop herself.

"Neither are you." He finally sat, folding his hands on the desk. "Though I suspect I had the advantage of knowing more going in."

"That's the second time you've implied that. I'd like you to stop implying and start explaining."

"Fair." He studied her a moment longer. "You grew up in Ohio. Your mother worked nights so you could take dance classes you outgrew by twelve. You hated it — the dancing — but you never told her, because she'd sacrificed too much for you to admit you didn't want it anymore."

The air went out of the room.

Maya sat frozen, every muscle in her body suddenly rigid. "How do you know that?"

She had never told Damien that. She had never told anyone that — not even Viv, not in so many words. It was a small, private humiliation she'd buried so deep she barely let herself remember it, a childhood kindness she'd swallowed rather than voiced.

"There's a lot about you I know, Miss Sullivan," Elias said, his expression giving away nothing. "That's exactly why you're here."

"That's not an answer. That's a violation."

"I understand why it feels that way."

"Do you?" Her voice climbed, sharp enough to surprise her. "Because from where I'm sitting, a stranger just recited a piece of my childhood back to me like a party trick, and I would very much like to know how, and why, before this conversation goes any further."

Elias opened his mouth — and for one fraction of a second, something flickered behind the careful composure, something that looked almost like he wanted to answer her honestly.

The door opened without a knock.

His assistant, the woman in gray, stepped halfway into the room, her face carefully neutral in the way of someone delivering news she didn't want to deliver. She crossed to Elias and leaned down, murmuring something too low for Maya to catch.

Whatever it was, it worked instantly. Elias's expression — composed, controlled, unreadable a moment ago — went hard and tight, something close to alarm flashing behind his eyes before he smoothed it away.

He turned back to Maya, and when he spoke, his voice had lost its earlier calm, replaced by something clipped and urgent.

"We need to move this conversation somewhere more private. Now."