The morning after was painted in soft grey. Rain still lingered, sliding down the wide panes of the villa, dripping from cedar eaves in measured drops. The world outside had resumed its noise, but inside, the air was heavy with the echo of last night.
Mira stirred first. She lay beneath the sheets, hair spilling across the pillow in dark waves, her blouse from the night before crumpled on the chair where Arkellin had left it. She shifted with a small wince, the soreness of her first intimacy etched into her movements.
Arkellin was already awake, half-dressed. He stood by the open wardrobe, sliding the cuff of a white shirt over his forearm, shoulders broad beneath the crisp fabric. The streak of white in his black hair caught the early light as he buttoned the collar, calm, deliberate.
Mira pushed herself up, drawing the sheet around her chest. "You're too steady for a man who didn't sleep."
He glanced at her, expression unreadable, then reached for his tie. "Steady keeps people alive."
Her lips curved faintly, though her eyes held something warmer. "And what about keeping people… satisfied?"
Arkellin paused, turning just enough to catch the flush creeping into her cheeks. "You sounded satisfied enough."
Mira scoffed, grabbing a cushion from the bed and tossing it at him. "You're insufferable." The cushion hit his chest; he caught it one-handed and set it aside with the same precision he gave everything.
She rose carefully, drawing one of his shirts over her frame, the hem brushing her thighs. The fabric smelled faintly of smoke and cedar. She buttoned it halfway, wincing again, though this time her smile betrayed the pain as something she welcomed.
Arkellin approached, his tie still loose around his neck. He adjusted the cufflinks, then reached to straighten the shirt on her shoulders. "You'll bruise," he said flatly.
"I'll remember." Her hand caught his wrist, holding it there. "Don't mistake regret for pain."
For the briefest moment, his eyes softened, but then the phone buzzed on the nightstand, pulling them both back to the world outside. The alert still glowed from the night before—Clock Corp Server Breach: Critical.
Mira's expression shifted. CEO again. "We don't have the luxury to linger." She let go of his wrist, moving to the closet to pull out a slim black dress. The zipper slid up her spine, hugging her figure, the professional mask settling back into place. She pinned her hair into a twist with practiced precision, leaving only a wisp to frame her face.
Arkellin finished his tie, smoothed his jacket, and checked the pistol holstered beneath. He met her eyes in the mirror. "Ready?"
She drew in a slow breath, then nodded. "Ready."
They left the villa together. Outside, the rain had thinned to mist, clinging to the black sedan parked beneath the overhang. The driver wasn't there—it was Arkellin who opened the passenger door for her before sliding behind the wheel.
The car purred to life, wipers sweeping in slow arcs. Mira sat with her tablet already glowing in her lap, scanning messages from panicked directors, her jaw tight. Arkellin's hand rested steady on the wheel, eyes locked on the road ahead.
The city skyline rose again before them, but this time it wasn't a beacon. It was a battlefield.
The war room on the forty-sixth floor was already awake before dawn had burned off the rain.
Slick glass walls reflected a dozen screens filled with red error codes and flashing alerts.
The air buzzed with tension—heated circuits, the sharp hiss of overworked processors, the nervous shuffle of staff darting between terminals. The scent of stale coffee and ozone clung to the space.
Arkellin entered first, Mira a step behind. She looked every inch the CEO again, in her fitted black dress, hair twisted high and severe, tablet tucked tight to her chest. Yet despite her precision, something about her carriage was softer—her steps slower, the faintest wince masked beneath the rhythm of her heels.
It didn't escape Myra.
She was already there, perched carelessly on the edge of the central console, emerald dress traded for a silk blouse the color of midnight, the top button undone. Her long legs were crossed, her heel tapping lazily against the glass panel beneath her. When her eyes caught Mira's, a knowing smirk curved her lips.
"Well, well," Myra purred, rising smoothly to her feet. "Someone's glowing this morning."
Mira's jaw tightened, but she didn't break stride, walking straight to the table where technicians fed her updates. "Focus on the breach."
But Myra wasn't letting go. She circled her sister slowly, like a cat that had found a new toy. Her perfume—spiced vanilla—trailed behind her, mixing with the smell of hot circuitry. She leaned in close to Mira's ear, voice low enough that only Arkellin, standing near, could hear.
"So," Myra whispered, her tone playful, biting, "was he worth the wait? Did it hurt?" Her smile widened, fangs wrapped in silk. "Or did he make you beg?"
Mira froze. For half a heartbeat, the professional mask slipped, color blooming high across her cheeks. She pressed the tablet tighter against her chest, knuckles pale. "This is not the place." Her voice was ice, but thinner than usual, cracks faintly showing.
Arkellin's gaze flicked between them. He didn't move, didn't blink, but the temperature around him seemed to drop.
Myra tilted her head, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Come now, sister. Don't pretend the board can't see. You walk different. You look different. It's practically a press release without words."
"Enough," Mira snapped under her breath, sharper than she intended. The room's hum faltered as nearby staff stole glances before burying themselves in screens again.
Arkellin stepped forward, his voice cutting clean through the tension.
"This isn't about balance," he said, tone flat, absolute.
His eyes, cold steel, swept over them both. "It's survival."
The words hung heavy, silencing even Myra.
For a moment, only the beeping of the breached servers filled the space. Rain streaked down the high windows, the city beyond blurred and hostile.
Mira looked down at her tablet, shoulders squared, mask back in place. Myra, however, only smiled wider, as though she had enjoyed every crack she'd managed to pry open.
And Arkellin, arms folded, turned his gaze back to the wall of errors. He had no interest in balance, in jealousy, in games. Only the storm bearing down on all of them.
The air in the war room thickened as the arguments tapered into silence. Red alerts still rolled across the screens, lines of code flickering, demanding attention. The hum of servers pressed against the walls like an engine running too hot.
Arkellin stepped past the sisters without a word. His suit caught the glow of the monitors as he slid into the vacant chair at the console, movements deliberate, unhurried. The staff, startled, shuffled back. Nobody dared interrupt.
He set his hands on the keyboard—broad, scarred fingers suddenly moving with impossible speed. Keystrokes clacked sharp against the tension, his eyes fixed on the streaming data. On one screen, the system logs spilled nonsense: failed authentications, corrupted packets, false time stamps. On another, graphs of Clock Corp's financial networks jittered and collapsed like breaking glass.
Mira moved closer, her arms folded tight across her chest, eyes scanning the chaos. "Can you stop it?"
Arkellin didn't look up. "Stopping a flood after the dam breaks is pointless. I'm finding who opened the gate."
The words chilled her more than she admitted.
He pulled a small black drive from his jacket pocket—a shard of Kindrake's inheritance—and slotted it into the machine. At once, the system responded differently. Not panicked. Surgical. His custom interface bloomed across the screens, alien in its elegance compared to Clock Corp's archaic architecture.
Staff gasped quietly. Lines of light-blue code danced, overlaying the red chaos, tracing back through firewalls, peeling away obfuscation like skin. Each layer exposed another inconsistency: transaction trails that bent in unnatural loops, log-ins signed by IDs that should have been asleep.
Arkellin muttered low, almost to himself, "Not brute force. Precision. Someone inside opened the door."
Myra leaned against the edge of the console, watching him with the kind of smile that always played between admiration and provocation. "You look alive when you do this. Almost dangerous."
He ignored her, fingers hammering a final sequence. The screen flickered once, then spat a signature: a coded transfer masked as routine maintenance, rerouted to a shell offshore. The initials embedded in the approval: D.R. again, repeated like a watermark.
Arkellin exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing. Confirmation. Not just a guess. A trail left behind by someone arrogant enough to think no one could read this deep.
Mira's eyes darted to the screen, her lips tightening. "Raymond…" she whispered.
Before Arkellin could answer, the lights above flickered. A low hum cut across the war room, the servers' whine dipping like a beast wounded.
Then everything went black.
Screens. Lights. Consoles.
All dead in an instant.
The only illumination came from the rain-smeared windows, where lightning forked silently in the distance. The war room filled with a stunned hush, broken only by the sudden irregular beep of a dying UPS battery somewhere in the corner.
Mira's breath was sharp, ragged. "They've shut us down."
Arkellin leaned back in the chair, eyes adjusting to the dark, calm even now. His voice was low, steady. "No. They've gutted the tower."
The blackout wasn't partial. It was absolute.
And outside, the storm rolled closer.