Sienna was unravelling.

She didn’t show it. Not outwardly. To the world, she still moved like a woman who had everything under control — who wore heels like armour and delivered cold stares like daggers.

But inside, something had cracked.

And it started with a single photograph.

That night, she sat in her living room with every light turned off, the only glow coming from her laptop screen. The photo from Raven hill Academy stared back at her. The pixelated version of her ten-year-old self beside the boy she now knew as Adrian Wolfe made no sense.

Because if that really was her — and him — why didn’t she remember?

She didn’t even recall attending Raven hill. Her mother always said they moved around too much. There were whole patches of her childhood that felt foggy, like someone had erased parts of her mind with a wet cloth.

But this?

This was too specific to ignore.

Her fingers hovered over the trackpad, and without thinking, she zoomed in again. Adrian’s hand rested on her shoulder. Not possessive. Not even really affectionate. Just there. Like a quiet claim.

Like he knew even back then.

What did he see in me? Why does he act like he’s always known me?

The messages from the unknown number earlier still sat unread. She couldn’t bring herself to reply again. But the words echoed in her head:

“You always come back to where it started.”

She didn’t know where it started. And that terrified her.

The Next Day

Sienna stepped into Wolfe International with her spine straight, chin high — like always. But her eyes moved faster now. Calculating. Watching.

The more she tried to distance herself from Adrian, the more she noticed how closely he seemed to orbit her.

He hadn’t spoken to her directly since their last confrontation in his office. But she caught him watching her from across the hall during a meeting. She noticed how his name always managed to pop up in her email threads. How the driver she requested through her company app "accidentally" brought her to Wolfe’s private underground parking garage instead of her meeting address.

Coincidence?

She didn’t believe in that anymore.

By noon, she’d had enough.

She stormed to his office uninvited.

Adrian was behind his desk, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tie loosened, looking far too unbothered. The man had a talent for appearing powerful even when he was doing absolutely nothing.

He looked up slowly. “Sienna. How bold.”

She didn’t wait for permission to speak.

“You’ve been in my life longer than I realized,” she said evenly. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers.

“I was waiting.”

“For what?” she demanded.

“For you to be ready to remember.”

Her hands clenched into fists. “That’s not your decision to make.”

“No,” he said. “But you made it mine when you forgot.”

That stopped her cold.

She felt something twist in her chest — a breath she couldn’t quite catch.

“What happened to me?” she asked quietly. “What happened back then?”

Adrian didn’t speak. His eyes darkened with something unreadable.

“You’re not ready,” he said, and that was the end of it.

She left his office before she did something reckless — like throw a paperweight at his perfect, infuriating face.

Later That Night

Sleep didn’t come easily.

When it finally did, it brought something else entirely.

A memory.

A flash.

Not a dream.

She was small again. In a room filled with thunder. Not thunder from the sky, but the kind that came from inside the house.

Voices. Yelling. Shattering glass.

She was hiding in a closet.

A boy’s voice whispered through the door.

“It’s okay. I’m going to get you out.”

A hand — warm, careful — reached in.

She took it.

And then—

Smoke. Heat. Screaming.

A woman’s scream.

Her scream.

And then darkness.

Sienna jolted awake, drenched in sweat.

The sheets tangled around her legs like vines. She looked around, heart racing. The memory was gone. Slipping through her fingers.

But she remembered the voice.

The hand.

It was Adrian.

##The Next Morning

Sienna sat at her desk pretending to read a file. Her mind was far, far away.

What had happened that night?

Was it real?

She needed answers — not cryptic messages, not half-truths, not Adrian’s maddening silence.

She stood.

Before she could act, her assistant buzzed her.

“Miss Rowe, there's a visitor asking to see you.”

“Who?” she asked.

A pause.

“He said his name is Noah.”

The name struck her like a match to gasoline.

Noah.

The boy from her childhood. The one friend she remembered clearly — before the fire, before the screams, before everything turned to ash.

“Send him up,” she said, heart pounding.

When he stepped into her office, her breath caught.

It was him. Older, taller, but the same hazel eyes, the same crooked smile.

“Sienna,” he said softly.

“Noah,” she whispered. “How...?”

“I saw your name in the news recently. Something about the Wolfe merger. I knew it had to be you.”

He looked at her like she was a ghost come back to life.

She couldn’t stop staring.

## Across the City

Adrian stared out his penthouse window, watching the city bleed orange and pink into dusk.

He hadn’t planned for Noah to reappear this soon.

Too many pieces were moving too fast.

But Sienna was remembering.

And Noah had always been a wildcard.

Adrian reached into his drawer and pulled out a thin manila file.

Inside it was a photograph of a woman — smiling, holding a toddler on her hip.

Sienna’s mother.

And on the back of the photo, scribbled in rushed handwriting:

“If anything happens, find Adrian. He’ll know what to do.”

He stared at the note until the ink blurred.

Then he made a call.

“Keep an eye on Noah,” he said.

Pause.

“If he tells her everything now… stop him.”