The air in the room had thickened, no longer merely laced with tension but charged with the unmistakable hum of danger. The anonymous message glowed coldly on Eric's screen, its flippant tone belying the threat beneath.
"Cute hideout. Wonder what else you're hiding. ;)"
Lena's face had frozen, not with fear, but with calculation. Her eyes didn't widen—they narrowed.
"Someone's watching us," she said, voice flat, clipped.
Eric met her gaze. "Or they want us to think they are."
Lena walked to the window, pushing aside the blinds just an inch. Her posture betrayed nothing, but her breath hitched when she scanned the alley. "I don't like this."
"You're not supposed to."
He glanced back at his phone and tapped the message again. No number. No reply option. Whoever sent it had erased their tracks well.
Lena paced slowly, arms crossed. "We're off the map now."
Eric considered their next move. "We stay quiet. Whoever's watching wants a reaction. Let's not give it to them."
But they both knew it wasn't that simple.
Across the city, the dim light of early morning filtered into a cozy, upscale café nestled across the street from the Orion Group headquarters.
Sasha was curled in a plush velvet seat by the window, iced Americano in one hand, her phone in the other. Her legs were crossed, her posture relaxed—but her eyes were sharp as razors.
She had followed Eric the day before. Something about his sudden confidence, his unusual behavior around Lena… it triggered her instincts.
And instincts were never wrong.
What she saw last night, that little performance in the hallway—the fake "couple act" with Lena pressed to the wall, lips almost touching—was far too natural to be staged. Sasha replayed the memory in her mind, again and again. The way Lena had flushed, the way Eric had whispered in her ear like it wasn't the first time.
"I see you," she whispered into her coffee. "But do you see me?"
She slid her phone into her coat pocket and stood. Time to dig a little deeper.
Back in Eric's apartment, Lena finally sat. For a moment, she looked exhausted—not physically, but emotionally. Like a fortress finally admitting it had cracks.
"Why are you calm?" she asked.
Eric leaned on the kitchen counter. "I've been watched before."
Lena's brows rose. "You've had someone stalk you before?"
He didn't answer directly. "Let's just say… I learned early not to panic when someone wants you to."
She stared at him, perhaps seeing something new—or something buried. "Who the hell are you, Eric?"
He gave a lopsided smile. "Your assistant, remember?"
That earned a bitter laugh. "You're nobody's assistant. Not really."
Silence stretched between them again, thick with unspoken thoughts.
Then, Eric moved.
He walked to her, slow and deliberate. She didn't flinch as he approached, didn't blink when he leaned down, resting his hand on the chair behind her.
Their faces were inches apart.
"If they're watching," he said quietly, "let's give them something to really worry about."
Lena's breath caught in her throat. "You're enjoying this too much."
"Maybe." He smiled without humor. "But you started it."
And just like that, the tension snapped into something else—an electric charge neither of them dared touch, but couldn't look away from.
Lena stood abruptly, brushing past him. Her voice wavered, but only slightly. "We need to know who's behind this."
Sasha had already begun her digging.
She sat in the HR database room with the excuse of "shadowing" the personnel records officer. But what she was really doing was scanning through internal transfers and old disciplinary reports. One name came up—twice—in completely unrelated departments.
Gerald Wong.
She frowned. Finance. Then IT. Then legal, all within eighteen months. Each time promoted, each time clean evaluations. Too clean.
"Who are you, Gerald?" she muttered.
A few keystrokes deeper, and there it was. Linked to an internal review for data manipulation—flagged, but not pursued.
And now… assigned to Lena's team.
Sasha's pulse quickened. She printed a copy of the file and slipped it into her bag. She needed more.
Eric and Lena regrouped later in the morning. The apartment was no longer safe, so they met in a small co-working space Eric had rented months ago under a different name. Lena's brows lifted at the foresight.
"I like to be prepared," he offered.
They pored over the leads again—the missing documents, the deleted reports, the altered timestamps. Eric traced it all back to a single internal IP that had accessed the server at odd hours.
And that IP had recently been reassigned—to Gerald Wong.
"Who is he?" Lena asked.
"Cleaner. Not the kind with mops," Eric replied. "The kind who buries things."
She froze. "You think he's covering for someone?"
Eric didn't blink. "I think he's being paid to."
Lena sat back, her expression unreadable. "I've been in this company for years. How did I never see this?"
"Because they never needed you to," Eric said softly. "Until now."
She looked at him, something breaking open behind her eyes. A kind of shame, maybe. Or guilt.
"Do you trust me?" she asked suddenly.
The question came like a crack of thunder—raw, exposed.
Eric didn't answer right away. He studied her. Then nodded. "I trust that you want the truth. That's enough for now."
She breathed out, almost a laugh, almost a sob. "That's more than I deserve."
That night, Sasha returned to her apartment. She laid out the files she'd copied—Gerald Wong's profile, cross-referenced with company audits and security access logs.
A pattern emerged.
He wasn't just a cleaner. He was a ghost—a fixer embedded in every crisis the company had hushed up. And now he was watching Lena. Which meant, indirectly, watching Eric.
Sasha knew she had to move faster.
She opened a locked drawer and pulled out an old recorder.
She hadn't planned to use it so soon.
But something about Eric—the way he moved like he'd been burned before, the way he talked to Lena like he was playing chess with ghosts—made her blood race.
She whispered into the dark, "Time to find out who you really are, Eric Chen."
Meanwhile, Lena sat alone in her car.
The city lights blurred as rain streaked the windshield. She stared ahead, but her mind was a whirlwind.
How had things spiraled so far?
How had he—Eric—become the only person she could even begin to trust?
Her phone buzzed. A message.
This time, from an unknown sender. Again.
"Check your rearview mirror."
Her stomach dropped.
She did.
And in the distance, a man in a hood leaned casually against a lamppost.
He raised his hand slowly, mockingly, and pointed two fingers to his eyes—then to her.
Watching.
Lena's grip tightened on the steering wheel.
The chains of trust were tightening—and she didn't know who was holding the key.