“I’m going to make him see me. Make him face what he did.” “That’s dangerous.”
“I don’t care.” “He’s powerful, Skye. He has money, lawyers, connections.”
“And I have the truth.” She walked to her room. Started packing.
Elias followed. Desperate now. “Where will you go?” “The city.”
“I’ll figure it out.” “You can’t afford—” “I’ll make it work.” She grabbed her laptop.
Her research. Her red cardigan. Everything she needed.
Elias stood in the doorway, looking older than she’d ever seen him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For all of it.”
Skye stopped. Looked at him. “You saved my life.”
“That’s more than he ever did.” Then she left. Walked out into the night.
With nothing but a backpack and a mission. To find Lennox Drayton. And destroy the lie he built on her grave.
The city didn’t welcome her. It swallowed her whole. Skye found a room in a building that should have been condemned.
The size of a closet. Window painted shut. Walls that smelled like cigarettes and mold.
The landlord took cash and didn’t ask questions. First and last month. No refunds.
She paid with money she’d saved from freelancing. Watched her savings drop by half in one transaction. The room had a bed, a chair, a hot plate that barely worked.
She told herself it was temporary. Just until she figured things out. That was four months ago.
She enrolled in online classes. Business. Finance.
Law. Things she’d need to understand Lennox’s world. To fight him on his level.
She worked. Whenever she could find jobs. Data entry.
Research. Anything remote. But city living was expensive.
Rent ate most of her money. Food came second. Everything else didn’t matter.
Her medication still cost 300 a month. No insurance. No help.
She started skipping doses when money got tight. Taking pills every other day instead of daily. Her chest hurt more often now.
Her heart did that wrong rhythm thing. But she pushed through it. Sleep became optional.
Four hours a night if she was lucky. Study. Work.
Research. Lennox. Repeat.
The hospital trips got worse. Twice in three months she woke up on her floor. Couldn’t remember passing out.
Once a neighbor heard her fall. Called an ambulance. She woke up in the ER.
Alone. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. “You’re severely anemic,” the doctor said.
“When’s the last time you ate properly?” She couldn’t remember. “You need to take your medication every day.”
“Not when you feel like it.” “I know.” “Do you have anyone we can call?” She thought about Elias.
Thought about calling him. But she’d left. Made her choice.
Couldn’t go back now. “No,” she said. “There’s no one.”
The bill came to $3,000. She set up a payment plan she knew she’d never finish. She missed Elias more than she wanted to admit.
Not because she forgave him for lying. But because surviving alone was harder than she expected. At least with Elias they’d struggled together.
Shared the weight. Here she carried everything by herself. Some nights she’d pull out her phone.
Scroll to his number. Hover over the call button. But she never pressed it.
What would she even say? The city wasn’t inspiring like people said. It was loud. Expensive.
Lonely. Nobody cared about anyone else. You could die on the street and people would step over you to catch their train.
Skye learned that fast. One morning she saw a man passed out on the sidewalk. People walked past him like he was invisible.
She stopped. Checked if he was breathing. He was.
Just exhausted. Homeless, probably. She left the sandwich she’d bought for lunch next to him.
Kept walking. Went hungry that day. But at least someone ate.
Finding work in Lennox’s world was impossible at first. She applied to every entry-level job at Draytech and its subsidiaries. Every position that might get her inside.
Rejected. Every time. “We’re looking for someone with more experience.”
“Your qualifications don’t match our needs.” “We’ve decided to go with another candidate.” She knew what it really meant.
She had no connections. No fancy degree. No references that mattered.
She was nobody from nowhere trying to break into a world that didn’t want her. But she kept trying. Rewrote her resume 50 times.
Took free online courses to add certifications. Applied to anything that might give her access. Months passed.
Nothing changed. Her savings dwindled. Her health got worse.
Her room got colder as winter came. She started wondering if this was all a mistake.
If she should just give up. Go back to the mountains. Apologize to Elias.
Live a small life and forget about Lennox. Then one email came. “Interview scheduled.”
“Junior risk analyst. Draytech subsidiary.” Her heart jumped.
The job was barely above minimum wage. Temporary contract. No benefits.
But it was inside the walls. She spent the night preparing. Wore her only blazer.
The one she’d bought second-hand three years ago. It didn’t fit perfect, but it was professional enough. Practiced answers in the mirror.
Fought the trembling in her hands. The interview was in a bland office building. Fluorescent lights.
Gray cubicles. A bored manager asked standard questions. “Why do you want this position?” “I’m interested in financial analysis and risk management.”
Not a lie. Just not the whole truth. “What’s your experience with data?” She talked about her freelance work.
Her research skills. Her ability to spot patterns. The manager’s expression changed.
Interested now. “You seem overqualified for this position.” “I’m just looking for an opportunity to prove myself.”
They asked her to explain a financial concept. She did. Word for word from memory.
Like reading from a textbook. The manager blinked. “You’re surprisingly sharp.”
A week later, the email came. “Congratulations. You’ve been selected for the position.”
Skye stared at the screen. She was in. Not close to Lennox yet.
Not even in the same building, but inside the system. Inside the walls. It was a start.
Her first day was overwhelming. Gray cubicles stretching forever. Cold fluorescent lights.
People in business casual. Moving fast.
Talking fast. Living fast. Nobody welcomed her.
Nobody cared. Perfect. Because she wasn’t there to make friends.
She was there to learn. To watch. To dig.
At lunch, she sat alone. Listened to conversations around her. Office gossip.
Company politics. Who was getting promoted. Who was getting fired.
She absorbed everything. At night, she stayed late. Read old reports.
Pieced together how money moved through the company. Slowly, painfully, she built a map. Every department.
Every process. Every weakness. And every time she found something wrong.
Something hidden. Something off. A fire burned behind her ribs.
She wasn’t powerless anymore. She was inside. And she was getting closer.
Her first sight of him hit harder than she expected. Three weeks into the job, Skye was walking down a corridor with files for her supervisor, just another Tuesday morning. Then the atmosphere changed.
People straightened. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Everyone moved to the sides of the hallway.
Lennox Drayton walked past with two executives. His suit probably cost more than she made in six months. His shoes were polished.
His hair perfectly styled with that distinguished gray at the temples. His voice was calm. Controlled.
Discussing quarterly projections like he was talking about the weather. Skye’s lungs stopped working. That voice.
Her vision flickered. The hallway disappeared for a second. Forest.
Cold. Fog. “Just stay here.”
“I’ll be right back.” The files slipped from her hands. Papers scattered across the floor.
Lennox didn’t even glance at her. Not once. His eyes scanned the hallway without seeing anyone, like people were furniture.
He walked past. His executives followed. Gone in seconds.
Skye stood frozen. Heart hammering. That dangerous, irregular rhythm.
A co-worker bent down to help pick up the papers. “You okay? You look pale.” “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine. She grabbed the papers with shaking hands. Hurried to the bathroom.
Locked herself in a stall. Braced against the wall. Her chest hurt.
Not the normal hurt. The kind that meant trouble. “You’re okay,” she whispered to herself.
“You’re not that little girl anymore.” But trauma doesn’t care about time. It doesn’t listen to logic.
It just remembers. She counted her breaths. Forced them to slow.
Waited for her heart to find its rhythm again. Ten minutes passed before she could move. When she came out, her hands were still shaking.
But her resolve was sharper than ever. She wasn’t just inside the building now. She’d seen him.
Breathed the same air. Stood ten feet away. And he had no idea who she was.
To him, she was invisible. Another low-level employee. Nobody worth noticing.
That should have made things easier. It didn’t. It made her angrier.
She started watching him more carefully. Learned his schedule. When he came to this building.
Which meetings he attended. Where he went for lunch. She stayed invisible.
Kept her head down. Did her work. But she listened.
Office gossip revealed things official reports didn’t. “Drayton’s been stressed lately. Board’s pushing back on the new acquisitions.”
“Did you hear he fired three department heads last week? No warning.” “I heard his assistant quit. Fourth one this year.”
Lennox was demanding. Cold. People feared him more than respected him.
Skye absorbed every detail. She also started accessing files she wasn’t supposed to see. Stayed late when the office emptied.
Used credentials she’d memorized from co-workers who left their computers unlocked. She found internal communications. Financial reports not meant for her level…
