The arrangement arrived forty-three minutes later.
Lucas was alone again.
Angel had left not long after her performance — full of soft apologies and barely disguised calculation. He hadn't stopped her. He hadn't said anything, really. Just let her speak. Let her lie.
He hadn't needed to push.
She was already slipping.
Now, a receptionist's voice rang through the intercom.
"A delivery just arrived for you, sir. Shall I send it up?"
He didn't answer right away.
He watched the light on the panel blink.
"Sir?"
Lucas pressed the button.
"Yes."
He didn't ask who it was from.
Because he already knew.
The arrangement came in a long white box, carried in by a nervous-looking assistant. Lucas dismissed her with a nod. The box clicked gently against the desk as he set it down.
He opened it.
Orchids. White. Pristine.
Angel's favorite.
His mother's favorite, too.
Which was precisely why Angel had chosen them. He'd told her that once, in a passing conversation. She'd remembered—not because she cared, but because it made her seem like she did.
A card rested atop the petals, elegantly folded.
He opened it with two fingers.
I missed you last night. Let's not drift apart.—Angel
The handwriting was perfect.
Feminine. Familiar.
Almost too familiar.
Lucas stared at the card for a long time.
Then his eyes shifted to the corner of the box.
A receipt.
Still attached by mistake—or perhaps not a mistake at all.
His gaze narrowed.
It wasn't from Angel's usual boutique. It wasn't even addressed to him.
He pulled it out and read the sender line.
To: Angel Lin
From: Major Locke
No message. No signature. Just the names.
No accident.
Lucas closed the box slowly, his fingers tightening just slightly on the edges.
He stood still for several seconds.
Then he poured himself a glass of wine.
Red. Dry.
He didn't drink it.
He set it down.
Picked up the card again.
Folded it.
Tucked it into the orchid box.
Then turned to face the window, white flowers reflected in the glass like ghosts behind him.
The truth wasn't a surprise.
But the precision was… unsettling.
Lucas stood motionless, the city light gleaming off the wine glass he hadn't touched. His reflection hovered in the window: suit pressed, eyes narrowed, orchids like a silent witness on the desk behind him.
The delivery wasn't a prank.
It wasn't luck.
It was surgical.
Someone had anticipated exactly what Angel would do and had chosen that moment to intervene. Not before. Not after. Not to expose her publicly. Just enough to stain the illusion. Subtle. Sharp. Controlled.
Lucas hated that it was working.
He also hated that only one person made sense.
The girl.
Ava Zhang.
The name had appeared in his mind more than once over the past few days, each time uninvited.
He remembered her eyes when she'd said it—I love you. Calm. Flat. No tremble, no need. She didn't ask for anything. Didn't wait for a reaction.
And she'd left like it didn't matter.
That unsettled him more than the declaration itself.
Most people wanted something. Ava hadn't.
Or at least, she hadn't asked for it yet.
He pulled her up in the internal system again—high school student, just graduated, quiet record. No clubs. No scandals. No red flags.
Nothing of interest… which was interesting.
There were no digital fingerprints.
No selfies. No tagging. No traceable friend network. No footprints except academic records and test scores.
Which meant either she was the most boring 18-year-old in the city…Or she'd erased herself on purpose.
Lucas sat down slowly, tapping a finger once against the rim of the wine glass.
She'd gotten close to him without trying. She'd known about Angel, about Locke, about Hollow. Too many details. Too many correct details. And yet…
She wasn't trying to leverage it.
No threats. No attempt to trade secrets for power or money.
Just that same quiet expression.
As if she already knew how this ended.
Lucas leaned back in his chair, folding his hands under his chin.
It was possible she was obsessed. That much he didn't rule out. She could be one of those brilliant, tightly-wound recluses who attached themselves to powerful men. He'd seen it before—strategic stalking. Proximity as currency. The smarter ones made it feel like fate.
But Ava didn't feel like fate.
She felt like a trap.
Set slowly.
With intent.
And maybe that was the part that bothered him most.
Because even now; even as he considered cutting off every path she might use to get close again. Part of him was still curious.
Still watching her the way he watched market fluctuations.
Like something beautiful in its danger.
Lucas didn't like that thought. It was too aesthetic, too romantic. But the sensation persisted—quiet, persistent friction behind his ribs. Like watching lightning touch down in the wrong place and knowing it would happen again.
A knock at the door interrupted him.
His secretary stepped in—a tall, sleek woman in black with her tablet in hand and a file tucked beneath it.
"Requested file," she said crisply. "Compiled everything the system could find."
He nodded. She placed it on the desk and left without another word.
Lucas opened the file.
Ava Zhang.
He scanned the cover page. Birthdate. School records. Exam scores. Guardian signature on a few medical forms—an aunt. Dead parents. No siblings. No flagged behavior. Nothing wrong.
Too clean.
He flipped to the second page.
Photo attached.
Lucas stilled.
It wasn't blank. But it wasn't right, either.
It was a school ID photo—high resolution, standard upload. And yet, Ava's face was turned slightly too far. Blurred just around the eyes. A faint line of light bisected her profile like a digital ghost. A second image—taken by a traffic cam near a bookstore—showed a girl matching her description… only the camera had focused on the glass behind her, rendering her face out of range.
Two photos. Neither usable.
Lucas narrowed his eyes.
That never happened twice.
Unless it wasn't an accident.
He leaned back, flipping to the financial section.
The third page stopped him cold.
Line item: Lottery win – minor tier (30,000 yuan) — won 5 weeks ago.Next line: 100% investment into private Series A round — startup: Crython Edge Tech.Company valuation, this morning: $1.2 billion.
Lucas stared at the numbers.
Most lottery winners blew their money within a week. Ava had moved hers into a bleeding-edge tech company just days before it exploded into the spotlight.
The buy-in was quiet. Private round. The founder list was unremarkable. The tech itself still under NDA.
So how the hell did she know?
He tapped a finger on the blurry photo.
No digital trail. No media presence. No errors.
And yet, she'd seen Locke.
Predicted Angel.
Predicted this company.
Predicted him.
Lucas closed the file slowly.
Then he turned back to the orchids on his desk—clean, white, innocent.
He reached for the wine.
Still didn't drink it.
Instead, he murmured under his breath—half to himself, half to the air:
"What are you, Ava Zhang?"
Lucas said the words softly, like he didn't expect an answer — and maybe didn't want one.
The file sat open on his desk, thin and deceptively ordinary. But every line he read only made her stranger. Blurred photos. Lottery winnings reinvested like a hedge fund analyst. An untouched life, and yet everything she touched turned precise.
Too precise.
Not erratic like obsession.
Methodical. Clean. Timed.
She hadn't tried to contact him again. No messages. No sudden appearances. No threats or confessions. No reward-seeking behavior.
She just existed—with perfect, unnerving restraint.
And the more distance she gave him, the more he thought about her.
Lucas flipped the photo page again.
Ava's face, half-captured. A smear of grey where her eyes should have been. He wasn't a man prone to superstition, but the distortion bothered him. Cameras didn't lie. But this one refused to tell the truth.
Was it coincidence? Luck? A system flaw?
No.
He didn't believe in luck.
Lucas stood and paced once across the office, then stopped at the window. The orchids were behind him now. The city stretched out in glass and light.
He wasn't being watched.
He was being played.
But the strangest part—the part that gnawed at him—was how clean it all felt.
Not personal.
Not messy.
Just... inevitable.
Lucas clenched his jaw.
He didn't like variables he couldn't classify. He didn't like being reactive. But every time he ran another scenario, he returned to the same conclusion:
Ava Zhang wasn't a girl with a crush.
She was something else.
Something colder.
And, in some impossible, irritating way—
something beautiful.
He turned back to the desk. Looked again at the smudged photo. Not a threat. Not a stranger.
Just—
Like fire inside glass.