The office was too quiet.
Ava Monroe sat behind Damian Cross's obsidian desk, staring at the city skyline glittering against the night. From this floor—the top of the Cross Global Tower—the world looked small, manageable. But for the first time since she'd started working for the billionaire recluse, Ava felt like the ground beneath her was shifting.
Damian was gone.
Or so the world believed.
Hours earlier, the news had flashed across every screen in Manhattan: "Tech Billionaire Damian Cross Missing—Private Jet Destroyed in Fiery Explosion." His name trended across social media, his face on every broadcast. The man the world whispered about, envied, hated, admired—suddenly reduced to ashes at thirty-nine.
Ava didn't believe it.
Damian Cross wasn't the kind of man who died in fire and smoke. He was a man of precision, control, secrets. And secrets didn't burn.
Her fingers trembled as she entered the six-digit code he'd once casually recited, unlocking his private vault at the back of the office. She had never been allowed inside before. The steel door hissed open, releasing a cool draft.
Rows of black files, drawers, and gleaming lockboxes lined the walls. But what caught her eye was the leather briefcase resting on the table in the center, its latch already undone—as though Damian had meant for her to find it.
Inside, neatly stacked, were passports. British. Russian. Japanese. Each bore Damian's photo but a different name. Beneath them lay a Glock pistol, polished, loaded. And beneath that, a thick file.
Ava's heart stuttered as she pulled it out.
Her face stared back at her.
A candid shot—her walking out of her Brooklyn apartment, coffee in hand. Another of her laughing in the company cafeteria. Another, zoomed in from far away, her lips pursed as she adjusted Damian's tie at a gala last year. Someone had been watching her. Documenting her.
And at the top, in Damian's sharp handwriting:
"Target or Guardian?"
Her stomach dropped.
Was Damian protecting her? Or had she been his surveillance project all along?
Before she could gather her thoughts, the security monitor on the wall flickered. Two black SUVs pulled up outside the tower's private entrance—no logos, no plates. Men in dark suits emerged, moving with military precision.
Not paparazzi. Not reporters.
Her pulse hammered.
Ava shoved the file back into the briefcase, snapped it shut, and killed the vault's lights. She didn't know who they were, but she knew one thing—if Damian Cross really was gone, then whoever these men worked for had come to erase his last loose ends.
And she was at the top of that list.
She backed out of the office, heels silent on the marble floor, clutching the briefcase to her chest. As the elevator pinged from below, her phone buzzed with a blocked number.
With shaking hands, she answered.
"Ava." The voice was low, controlled. Familiar.
Her knees buckled. "Damian?"
"You need to leave. Now. They're not here for the company. They're here for you."
The line went dead.
And for the first time in her life, Ava Monroe realized she was standing in the center of a game far larger, far deadlier, than she could ever imagine.