The office had fallen silent long before midnight, yet Elna remained, her body rigid against the leather of her chair. The reports on her desk lay untouched, their crisp edges mocking her with a discipline she no longer felt capable of. She tried to read the numbers, but Adrian's voice replayed in her head, steady and cruelly unshaken.
The night that started all of this.
What night? Which night? Her mind circled the question until it became a noose. Adrian had dropped the words like a stone into water, leaving her drowning in the ripples.
She pressed her fingers to her temples, massaging away the phantom ache. It didn't help. Adrian's eyes had been too confident, his words too calculated, as though he had grasped a truth she had spent years burying beneath carefully built walls.
And if he brought it back to the surface now…
Her breath caught. A shiver worked through her, so slight she hoped no one—if anyone were watching—would see.
The soft click of the lock jolted her upright.
"Elna?"
James's voice—low, careful, hesitant yet deliberate. She looked up, startled, and there he was. Framed by the glass wall, his shoulders tensed beneath the sterile corridor light, his silhouette carved against the night beyond.
"You're still here?" she asked, her tone sharper than she intended, almost defensive.
He stepped inside, letting the door fall shut behind him with careful silence. The gesture was precise, controlled. His hesitation wasn't weakness; it was restraint, and somehow that restraint unsettled her more than if he had stormed in demanding answers.
"I could ask you the same," he said at last, his voice even but carrying a weight that made her pulse quicken. His eyes lingered on her face, not with pity but with unsettling attentiveness, as though he could see cracks she thought invisible.
She exhaled slowly, forcing composure. "Go home, James. This isn't your hour to worry about."
But he didn't leave. He didn't even step back. He simply remained, his body a quiet anchor in the empty room. "That man—Adrian, wasn't it? He walked out of here earlier like he owned the place. And you…" His words trailed as he searched for them. "You shut down after he left."
Her spine stiffened. "I didn't shut down."
"Yes, you did."
The denial hung in the air like glass stretched too thin. She turned back to her desk, her vision blurring the words on the page. If she didn't look at him, maybe he'd stop.
"You don't have to carry it all alone." His voice was softer now, but no less steady.
Her throat tightened. Not him too. Not James.
She snapped her gaze up, her eyes locking with his. Unlike Neby's suffocating stare, unlike Adrian's cutting one, James's gaze didn't demand. It offered. And somehow, that frightened her more.
"James," she said, her tone sharp and cold enough to sting. "Don't make me your burden."
The words landed heavier than she meant them to, slicing through the space between them. His jaw flexed, his shoulders stiffened, but he didn't argue. He didn't retreat either. He only stood there, silent, the weight of her dismissal settling against him like stone.
Still, he didn't leave.
He stepped closer, slow enough that she could have stopped him with a glance, with a word. But she didn't. "I'm not blind, Elna. You don't have to explain anything. But I see the way you fight—like you're keeping something from swallowing you whole."
She froze, her heart tripping. His nearness wasn't yet invasive. But it pressed against her defenses, warm where everything else around her felt cold.
"You don't know what you're saying," she whispered.
"Maybe not." His voice didn't waver. "But I know what I'm seeing."
The silence that followed was fragile, suspended on a thin wire. She could feel it straining. She couldn't let this continue. His concern, his closeness—if he kept pressing, he would stumble into the web Neby had spun, into the shadows Adrian had reopened. And once James was inside, once he saw—she would never forgive herself.
"Go home," she repeated, softer this time.
He hesitated, studying her face as if searching for something she wouldn't give him. Finally, he nodded. But as he turned for the door, his hand lingered against the frame, his back tense as though he still wanted to say more.
When the door clicked shut, Elna sagged forward, her palms flat against the desk's cold surface. Her chest ached with the effort of holding herself upright.
The silence didn't last.
A soft hum broke it, followed by measured footsteps. Elna turned sharply, startled.
Aresy stood in the doorway, her frame poised with the grace of someone designed to erase the line between human and machine. Her eyes held an unnatural steadiness, too precise.
"You shouldn't push him away," Aresy said, her voice calm, carrying the weight of observation rather than reproach.
Elna closed her eyes briefly. "Not now, Aresy."
"I have observed James's interactions with you. His intent is protective, not manipulative." Aresy stepped further in, her movements seamless, her presence strangely grounding and unsettling all at once. "Statistically, alliances reduce the risk of collapse."
Elna let out a dry laugh—short, humorless. "You make it sound like I'm an empire under siege."
Aresy tilted her head, replied curiously. "Are you not?"
The words landed with too much precision, cutting deeper than they should. Elna's hand trembled before she curled it into a fist.
"No. I can't drag him into this. Not James. Not you."
Aresy's gaze softened, though her face remained almost perfectly still. "Keeping others out will not prevent collapse. Isolation is not strength."
"Stop." Elna's voice cracked sharper than she intended. She turned away, shoulders tense. "I don't need analysis. I need silence."
For a moment, Aresy didn't move. Then, with a slight incline of her head, she stepped back, leaving Elna alone with her words.
But the silence that followed wasn't empty. It pressed against Elna like a second skin, suffocating.
Above, in the shadowed gallery where executives rarely wandered, Neby hadn't moved for hours. He had been there all evening, watching. Watching Adrian stride into her office with that quiet arrogance. Watching James linger like a loyal shadow, reluctant to leave. Watching Elna fold into herself the moment they were gone.
His pen lay forgotten in his hand, idle. His eyes burned against the glass, unwavering.
If she breaks, it will be in my hands, not theirs.
The thought steadied him. It was enough to quiet the storm Adrian's return had stirred in him. He would not allow another man to trespass on ground he had already claimed. Not Adrian with his cryptic provocations, not James with his quiet patience.
When she shattered, it would be only his grasp that caught her. His and no one else's.
And when that day came, she would see the truth—that there had never been another choice but him.
Back in the office, Elna pushed away from the desk and walked to the window. The city spread below her, restless lights scattered across the dark. To anyone looking up, she would appear composed—another executive working too late.
But the glass reflected her truth. Her face pale, her eyes shadowed, her shoulders rigid from the effort of standing tall.
Adrian's words still gnawed at her, dragging memories she couldn't quite pin down. Neby's gaze haunted her in the corners she couldn't see. James's kindness pressed too close, too steady, threatening to undo her from another angle.
But as she stood there, alone against the glass, she felt the trap tighten.
The night stretched on, and the walls of her silence drew closer.