The office was quiet that morning.
Lucas liked it that way.
The entire top floor of the Bai Financial Tower was polished to minimalist perfection; black stone, frosted glass, matte steel.
No artwork. No clutter.
Just power, pared down to its purest form.
He stood at the window, hands in his pockets, staring down at the city below. Twenty-eight floors of traffic noise muffled beneath engineered silence.
His phone buzzed once.
Receptionist.
Angel's here. No appointment. Should I send her up?
He tapped Yes.
He didn't move.
Didn't sit. Didn't turn.
He waited.
Exactly four minutes later, the door opened behind him with a chime that was far too soft to be an accident.
"Lucas," Angel's voice chimed, sweet as sugar glass, "I brought your favorite."
She glided into the room like she owned it.
Her white dress caught the morning light, crisp and delicate, hugging her like something from a magazine spread. She carried a matte black coffee tray with two gold-foiled pastries and a steaming Americano.
Lucas said nothing.
She crossed the space between them slowly, her heels silent on the marble. When she reached his desk, she set the tray down with practiced grace and turned to face him.
"I thought we could share breakfast," she said lightly. "You left the party so quickly last night."
Lucas finally turned.
He studied her face. The careful makeup. The slight tilt of her smile.
"You weren't invited to the party," he said.
Angel blinked. "I wanted to surprise you. I figured if you saw me, you'd smile."
Lucas didn't.
"I didn't see you," he said.
She paused—too long. Then laughed, light and effortless. "Maybe I got there too late. Or maybe you were too distracted by your admirers."
Lucas stepped away from the window, slow and deliberate.
"You were late," he said.
Angel's eyes narrowed a fraction before the mask slid back into place.
"You sound like you're upset," she said softly. "Are you?"
Lucas walked to the desk, picked up the coffee she brought, and set it down again—untouched.
"You tell me."
Angel moved around the desk until they were facing each other across the polished surface. Her expression softened, her voice dropped.
"If I've done something to upset you, Lucas, I want to fix it."
Lucas watched her.
She was good.
Too good.
Every word, every move, every breath was rehearsed.
Not desperate, not panicked—just measured. She didn't know what he knew. But she knew something had changed.
He let the silence stretch. Let her fill it.
"I love you," she said, finally. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I can't do that if you shut me out."
He didn't speak.
She leaned forward, placing a hand on the edge of his desk. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Please… talk to me."
Lucas met her eyes, perfectly still.
"Where were you last night?"
Angel didn't flinch.
"At home," she said smoothly. "I wasn't feeling well. I texted, but maybe it didn't go through."
A lie.
Delivered like truth.
Lucas nodded slowly.
Not because he believed her.
But because now he knew something else:
She was going to keep lying.
Which meant he didn't need to confront her yet.
He needed to wait and he wasn't the only one waiting.
From the rooftop across the street, Ava knelt behind a ventilation unit, one knee in gravel, elbows resting on the metal ledge. The city skyline burned silver in the morning light.
She lifted the binoculars slowly.
There Lucas's office. Eighth window from the left. Tinted just enough to conceal most of the room from the outside, but not from her. Not with the angle she'd chosen. Not with the magnification lenses she'd built herself in a world that no longer existed.
Angel's white dress came into view first, soft and fluttering like a signal flag—look at me, I'm innocent.
Ava adjusted the focus.
Lucas stood behind his desk. Still. Silent. Watching.
Angel reached for his hand. He didn't take it.
Ava lowered the binoculars and smiled, just a little.
He wasn't ready to confront Angel. Ava could tell. He was gathering data, as he always did—observing. Measuring. Watching her trip over her own perfect shoes.
That meant he was thinking clearly.
That meant there was still time.
A soft buzz ticked on the ground beside her.
The drone.
She turned her attention to the screen of her control panel, where a sleek, bug-like device hovered near the edge of the Bai Tower's 29th floor. Its audio sync was encrypted, feeding directly into her earpiece through filtered ambient capture.
Angel's voice crackled faintly through the line:
"—know something's wrong. I can feel it."
Lucas's response came after a pause:
"You're good at that. Sensing things."
Angel's tone softened, voice laced with careful vulnerability:
"I only want to protect us."
"From what?" he asked.
"From everything."
Ava rolled her eyes.
Classic Angel.
Always with that little tremble in her voice like she was scared of losing what she didn't even care about.
Ava watched the screen closely as Angel leaned forward. Her lips moved just out of range of the drone's mic. Whatever she said, it was meant to stay private.
Lucas didn't lean back.
He didn't flinch.
But his hand slowly turned his phone face-down on the desk.
Noted.
Ava pressed her thumb against the corner of the drone controller, locking the camera angle as Lucas turned his phone facedown. His posture hadn't changed. But Ava saw the difference. The slight shift in tension around his shoulders. The way his eyes didn't fully settle on Angel.
He was off-balance.
Still controlled—but questioning.
Perfect.
She pulled her notebook closer on the rooftop ledge and wrote with fast, precise strokes:
Lucas knows. Holding pattern. Testing her story for cracks.
She paused, then added:
No confrontation. Not yet. Waiting for leverage. Wants to control timing. Classic Bai.
Another pause.
Then, underlined three times:
Time to move.
A gust of rooftop wind blew her hair across her face. She tucked it back and glanced at her watch. Angel would leave soon. She always did once her script ran out. Ava didn't need to follow her.
She needed to remind Lucas she was still in the game.
Ava pulled her phone from the side pouch of her gear pack and tapped into a secondary app—an anonymous delivery service she'd used a dozen times before, never from the same IP twice.
Recipient: Lucas BaiLocation: Bai Financial Tower, Executive Floor — Private OfficeDelivery Time: Within the hourItem: Orchid arrangement, whiteCard:"I missed you last night. Let's not drift apart."From: Angel Lin
She stared at the confirmation for a moment, then added the final touch.
Billing Name: Locke
She hit send.
The drone drifted into hover mode, the soft buzz fading under the rooftop wind.
Ava sat back on her heels, eyes still on the Bai Tower's glass wall.
There would be no explosion. No confrontation. Not yet.
Just the click of a trigger sliding into place.
One lie, wrapped in pretty paper and white petals.
Lucas would know exactly who sent it.
And more importantly—
He'd know exactly who didn't.