Eli buttoned his shirt wrong three times before he noticed.
His fingers kept slipping, missing the holes, and when he finally looked down he saw the fabric bunched unevenly across his chest. He started over. Focused on each button like it mattered, like getting this one thing right would somehow steady the rest of him.
Being close to me makes you a target.
The words had followed him home last night. Sat with him through a dinner he didn't taste. Kept him awake until his alarm went off at six.
Now, standing in his cramped bathroom with steam fogging the mirror, Eli tried to convince himself it was just corporate posturing. A warning meant to keep him cautious, not afraid.
But his hands were still shaking.
The black car was waiting again.
Same driver. Same silence. Same bottled water in the cup holder that Eli didn't touch.
When he stepped into Vale Industries, his ID badge felt heavier against his chest. The security guard who'd waved him through yesterday now held his gaze a beat too long. The elevator doors closed slower, like the building itself was deciding whether to let him in.
Eli pressed forty-two and watched the numbers climb.
So this is how it starts.
Adrian's office was empty when Eli arrived, but there was a note on the desk.
Conference Room B. 9 AM. Bring the Castellano file.
Eli's stomach dropped.
He found the file—thick, marked CONFIDENTIAL in red—and made his way down the hall. Conference Room B had glass walls and a long table where eight people were already seated. All of them older than him. All of them in suits that cost more than his rent.
Adrian sat at the head of the table, perfectly still, perfectly composed.
"Mr. Park," he said without looking up from the document in front of him. "Sit."
Eli sat.
The meeting started immediately. Financial projections. Acquisition strategies. Terms Eli barely understood but tried to follow, his pen moving across his notebook in quick, nervous strokes.
Twenty minutes in, Adrian's voice cut through the room.
"Mr. Park. Your thoughts on the Castellano merger."
Every head turned.
Eli's mouth went dry. He glanced down at his notes—half-formed observations, questions he'd been too afraid to ask out loud.
"I—" He cleared his throat. "I think the timeline's aggressive. If Castellano's board pushes back on the valuation, we'd be locked into negotiations during Q4, which—"
"We've already accounted for that," a woman across the table said. Her tone was polite, but her smile wasn't. "Perhaps Mr. Park isn't familiar with how these processes work."
Silence.
Eli felt heat crawl up his neck.
"Ms. Brennan," Adrian said, and the room went still. He didn't raise his voice. Didn't even look at her. But the air shifted. "Mr. Park's concern is valid. Q4 liquidity could become an issue if we're not careful."
He turned the page in front of him, calm, unbothered.
"Continue, Mr. Park."
Eli's heart hammered. He forced himself to keep talking, to finish the thought, even as he felt the weight of eight pairs of eyes on him.
When the meeting finally ended, people filed out in silence. Ms. Brennan didn't look at him.
Adrian stayed seated, reviewing notes, as if nothing had happened.
Eli stood, unsure whether to leave or wait.
"You hesitated," Adrian said without looking up.
"I didn't think—"
"Don't." Adrian's gaze lifted, sharp and direct. "Hesitation makes you prey."
Eli was halfway to the elevator when a voice stopped him.
"Eli Park, right?"
He turned.
Sebastian Cross stood in the hallway, hands in his pockets, expression warm and easy. He looked like he'd just come from a photo shoot—tailored navy suit, no tie, hair perfectly disheveled.
"Sebastian," Eli said, because he didn't know what else to say.
"I heard you held your own in there." Sebastian's smile widened. "Brennan's a shark. Most people don't survive their first meeting with her."
"I'm not sure I did."
"You're still standing. That counts." Sebastian stepped closer, casual, like they were old friends. "Adrian doesn't usually keep people like us close."
Eli frowned. "People like us?"
"You know. Normal." Sebastian's tone was light, but his eyes were calculating. "People who didn't grow up in boardrooms. Who actually had to work for things."
Eli didn't know how to respond to that.
"Just—" Sebastian's hand landed on Eli's elbow, light, almost friendly. But it stayed there half a second too long. "Be careful. People get crushed standing where you're standing."
Then he was gone, disappearing into an office down the hall.
Eli stood there, pulse uneven, trying to figure out why the conversation felt like a threat.
Adrian found him an hour later.
"My office. Now."
Eli followed, heart kicking against his ribs.
The door closed behind them with a soft click. Adrian didn't sit. He stood by the window, hands in his pockets, jaw tight.
"Sebastian talked to you."
It wasn't a question.
"He—yeah. Just for a minute."
"What did he say?"
Eli hesitated. "He said to be careful."
Adrian's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind his eyes. Anger, maybe. Or something colder.
"Listen to me." Adrian's voice dropped, quiet and deliberate. He stepped closer—close enough that Eli had to tilt his head back slightly to meet his gaze. "You don't speak to Sebastian unless I'm present. You don't trust him. You don't take his advice. And if he approaches you again, you tell me immediately."
"Why? What—"
"Because he's dangerous." Adrian's hand moved, just slightly, fingers curling into a fist at his side. "And because you don't understand what you've walked into yet."
Eli's breath caught. "Then tell me."
For a moment, Adrian just looked at him. His jaw worked, like he was weighing something. Then he stepped back, putting distance between them.
"You'll learn," he said quietly. "Faster than I'd like."
The rest of the week passed in a blur.
Adrian kept Eli close—too close. Meetings, calls, strategy sessions that stretched past midnight. Eli learned the names of executives, the hierarchy of power, the way decisions were made in rooms he'd never imagined being inside.
He also learned the weight of Adrian's past.
It came in fragments. Offhand comments. References to deals that had happened when Eli was still in high school. Scars on Adrian's hands—thin, pale lines that looked old and deliberate.
Once, over coffee that cost more than Eli's lunch, Adrian mentioned a corporate war that had nearly destroyed Vale Industries.
"I was twenty-seven," he said, stirring sugar into his cup with mechanical precision. "I didn't sleep for three months."
Eli did the math. He'd been thirteen.
The gap between them wasn't just years. It was everything Adrian had survived to get here.
It happened on a Friday.
Eli was in a meeting—another glass-walled room, another table full of executives. Adrian had asked him to present a preliminary analysis on a potential acquisition. Nothing major. Just five minutes.
He was halfway through when a man at the end of the table interrupted.
"This is speculative at best," the man said, voice dripping with condescension. "We don't make decisions based on gut feelings, Mr. Park."
Eli's hands tightened on his notes. "It's not a gut feeling. The data—"
"The data is incomplete."
"Then maybe someone should have—"
"Enough."
Adrian's voice cut through the room like a blade.
Everyone went still.
Adrian didn't move. Didn't raise his voice. But his gaze locked onto the man at the end of the table, cold and unblinking.
"Mr. Park's analysis is sound," Adrian said quietly. "And if you'd read the full report instead of skimming the summary, you'd know that."
Silence.
The man's face went red.
"We'll proceed with his recommendation," Adrian continued, turning a page in front of him as if the matter was settled. "Meeting adjourned."
People stood. Filed out. No one spoke.
Eli stayed frozen in his seat, heart pounding.
Across the table, Sebastian was smiling.
That night, Eli sat in his apartment with the lights off, staring at the city beyond his window.
Adrian had defended him. Publicly. In front of people who mattered.
And everyone had noticed.
Eli's phone buzzed.
Unknown: You're making waves, Eli. Be careful.
He stared at the message, pulse uneven, and thought about Sebastian's smile. About the way Adrian's jaw had tightened. About the way the room had gone silent.
Whatever this was becoming, it wasn't safe anymore.