Elias Voss did not get ignored, and he certainly did not get walked away from. The moment the door closed behind her, something in him snapped—sharp, controlled anger replacing the calm precision he was known for.
A stranger had entered his office, sat in his space, spoken to him like she belonged there… and then left on her own terms. Unacceptable.
He turned sharply toward his desk, jaw tight, eyes colder than before, and opened his laptop the second the security footage report arrived. If there was a breach, he would find it. He always did. The timeline loaded cleanly, every second accounted for—until it wasn't. He slowed the footage, watching carefully, frame by frame, until the exact moment she should have appeared… and the screen went black. Not distorted. Not glitching. Just—nothing.
Elias frowned, replaying it again. The same result. Normal footage, then a clean blackout, then the feed returning as if nothing had happened—except she was already inside. His expression darkened. That wasn't a mistake.
That was impossible. He grabbed his phone instantly.
"Explain to me why my camera feed went dark,"
he said coldly. Security hesitated, then admitted it—a brief power outage. A fluctuation. A few seconds.
Elias's gaze shifted toward the glass wall, toward the city still running perfectly, untouched—except his floor, at that exact moment. Too convenient.
"And no backup systems?" he asked. They had kicked in, but not fast enough. Elias didn't respond. He moved forward in the footage instead, tracking the moment she left. Again, he slowed it down. Again, he watched. And again—the screen flickered…
then cut to black. His fingers stilled. The same clean darkness. The same missing seconds. When the feed returned, the hallway was empty. No trace. No exit. Nothing. Like she had never walked out.
"It happened again," he said quietly into the phone. The same answer. Same cause. Same timing. Entry and exit—both erased. Elias let out a short, humorless breath, his gaze still locked on the screen. Twice. Too precise to be coincidence.
He ended the call without another word. The silence that followed was heavier now, sharper, unsettling. Slowly, he stood, his eyes fixed on the missing moments, on the space where she existed—and didn't. Then his gaze shifted toward the door she had walked through, the same door that now looked exactly as it always had—closed, normal, controlled.
Except it wasn't. Because something had entered his world without permission, without explanation, without leaving a trace. And Elias Voss—for the first time—had no control over it.
And that left only one possibility.
His eyes darkened slightly, mind already moving, rebuilding logic where there was none.
She had to be something real. Someone skilled. Someone capable of manipulating systems, bypassing security, erasing footage with precision. A hacker. It made sense—more sense than anything else.
This wasn't impossible. It was engineered. Planned. Executed. And if that was true…
then she wasn't just a stranger who walked into his office. She was a problem. And Elias Voss didn't let problems exist for long.