The ride from the gallery to the Moreno building was short, but the night felt longer. Lelia sat still in the backseat, the recorder still warm in the small pouch of her bag. The city passed by like wet plants. Her hands did not shake, but her breath felt tight in that slow familiar way like she was standing on the edge of something and the wind kept asking her to step.

Angela drove. The agent kept the radio off. Her face was a flat calm that Lelia had learned to trust. Still, when Angela handed over the small black square in the parking lot,her fingers brushed Lelia just too long.

“Stick it near the desk,” Angela said, her voice quiet.

“Fifteen minutes is all we need.’

Lelia nodded, she tucked the recorder into the hollow of the little pouch. It felt like a promise.

Angela's eyes flickered to the passenger mirror for a bit- a tiny hitch in the smooth line of her face. She cleared her throat and smiled a little.

“You know where it is, yes?”

“Yes,” Lelia smoothed the front of her dress.

“I'll be quick.”

“Don’t take risks,” Angela said. She said it like she meant it, but her tone had a silver of something else. Not fear. Not quiet. A calculation. Lelia felt like a cold breeze, she couldn't name it. She shoved the thought away, she had a job to do.

They stepped into the marble hall. The building smelled of lemon polish and wood. The light was low. Portraits watched from a wall…faces with no right to small. Lelia’s heels made a soft tick in the floor as she walked away.

She moved through the quiet corridor. Security cameras were high and unblinking she moved with her head down and her face blank. She had practiced this…the slow steps, the even breath, the causal glance. She passed the brass plaque with Xander's name and her fingers slid over the cold metal. For a flicker, she felt the thinness of what she'd become , Elena Santoro, polite and empty of danger.

Xander's office was a dark panel at the end of the hall. The handle was cold under her hand when she opened it. Inside, the room felt smaller than the lobby. A lamp threw a pool of gold on a rug. The desk was a heavy slab of wood. On it lay a net stack of paper, a fountain of pen, a frame photograph in silver.

She stopped, because the photograph caught her eyes. It was Xander in a suit, not posed for a gala, but leaning against a fire escape, cigarettes between his fingers. The photograph looked like it belonged to a different man…softer somehow, more human.

There was a small sketchbook beside the photograph, half-closed. Lelia's finger itched to open it, to see what Xander sketched in the quiet. She moved carefully, letting the scrape of paper sound small instead of loud.

Inside were drawing…city lines, an empty chair, a small child’s silhouette under an umbrella. The strokes were quick and honest. One drawing took Lelia's breath , a small boy holding a dog tag on a chain. The boy’s hair…always wrong, always falling in front of his eyes…just like Ethan's.

She stopped. For a second, the gallery and the glass, and the music fell away. Lelia saw Ethan on their old stoop. She remembered the way he had laughed at bad jokes, the way he’d promised to always watch her back.

“Be careful,” Ethan told her once.

“Don't let them make you something you hate.”

The memory landed like a stone. Her hands went cold. She closed the sketchbook softly and placed it where she found it. Her breath was still loud in the hush.

She told herself she came for fact. For proof. For the ledger entries that could tie Xander’s to the shipment, to the names that kept whispering on the edge of her life. She pushed the flashback down, there wasn't time to be soft.

Under the desk, where the wood was darker with polish, she spotted a stack of folders. The top one had a typed label. She reached out with small, steady fingers and drew it closer.

“Elena Santoro.”

The name was neat on the tab. Her stomach dropped like someone who had opened a trapdoor under her feet. Her face must have gone pale. She thought of the gallery, how Xander watched her, how his eyes lingered. Someone had checked, someone had made a file.

For a breath, Lelia stood very still. The device was heavy in her hand, the small black box cold against her palm. She wanted to know how long the file had been there. She had been suspicious since the night.

She thought of leaving and pretended like nothing happened. Her finger tightened around the device. This way she'd come to find out how the list ran. To listen.

She slid the recorder into the hollow beneath the desk, near the thick pile of papers where it might hide from eyes that looked above. It clicked softly into the wood.

Her breath slowed. She strengthened up and smoothed her dress.

That sound…the click…was small. It was supposed to be nothing. But when she let herself breath again, there was another sound. The building hummed and then a faint footfall in the hall. It had a measured cadence, the kind of slow step that belonged to someone who had practiced walking through silence.

She turned. The door moved a fraction, then opened.

A hand closed over her mouth.

It was not a rough grip. It was firm, like a clasp is certainty. The scent of his cologne…smoke and cedar, was close enough to make her eye sting.

“Don't make a noise,” a voice said, close to her ear. Dangerous and calm.

Lelia's fingers clawed at the palm over her lips for a second before she forced her hands down. She could not scream, she could not move.

When she finally managed to blink, when saw the face above the hand…Victor Diaz. He looked at her like someone who has always expected to find things people hid. No surprise. No anger at first. Only a cold, steady appraisal, like he had been waiting.

“Lost your way, Miss Santoro?” he whispered. He used the name as a test.

Lelia's own voice came out small.

“I…yes. I…”

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

“This is a private office,” he said.

“You can't wander in alone.”

Her mind reached a lie, something clean and quick. The lie that fit the dress and the accent and the story she had practiced.

“I thought I left my clutch here,” she said.

“From the gala.”

His jaw worked once, then he made a small noise that could have been a scoff or a laugh.

“A clutch. At midnight.”

He didn't let go. His hands remained over her mouth. His other arm held her by the elbow, guiding her slightly away from the desk. The motion felt almost gentle, like a shepherd moving a frightened animal.

Lelia's heart hammered. The sketchbook was still under her hand. She knew the recorder was sweating warmth against her palm. She could not let him find it. She could not let him touch where she had touched.

In the hall, there was a soft click of shoes. A figure paused in the doorway. Footsteps stopped as if it was listening. Lelia heard the unexpected sound of someone clearing their throat on the other side of the wood.

Victor's chin lifted by a fraction. The faint muscles at his throat moved. He did not look afraid. He looked amused, almost curious, like a man watching something he had set in motion to see how it turned out.

“Miss Santoro,” he said, his voice flat.

“What exactly are you doing after hours in Mr Moreno's office?”

A name. A question. A rope around her chest. Lelia's throat worked. If she lied badly, it will show. If she tells the truth, it would run everything.

She tried to make her mouth move again. Her lips pressed against the palm over them. She tasted the faint salt of his skin. Her breath came in small, hot bursts.

“Lost my way,” she made it a whisper that could pass for truth.

Victor did not release her. He kept is handshake in control. When he finally took his off, it was slowly and deliberate. He watched her face, as if waiting for her to overplay the lie.

At that moment, Lelia saw movement in the far corner of the room…a dark figure at the doorframe. The silhouette was quick and then gone. Someone was moving away, a whisper in the night.

Her throat closed, she wanted to reach for the recorder, smash it, tear it out. She wanted to run. She wanted Ethan and the old boyhood plan of how they will fix things together.

She pictured Ethan with his easy grin. She heard his voice in memory.

“Don't let them make you anything you hate.”

She made her hands steady. Her face empty like Elena Santoro's dress.

Victor's eyes softened a hair, as if he has seen something in her and decided to keep it. He open his mouth to speak low, to tell her how ridiculous the story was, but he paused.

The pause felt like the whole world inhaling.

From the corner of the desk, under the blotter, a tiny red light blinked once and again. The recorder, small…hidden, signalled like a tiny heartbeat.

Victor's gaze moved to desk, then back to her. For the first time, something like interest crossed his face. Not curiosity. Not kindness. Something else. A suspicion that made the room colder.

He took a step closer, his hands moving in a muscle memory of control. His fingers closed over her mouth again. Harder this time.

“Who sent you?” he asked, but no sound left her mouth.

Lelia's brain pondered for answers. She thought of Angela in the car, the flicker in her eyes. Or the way the agent had said the name Elena like it was a lifeline and noose at once.

Victor's breath watched over her skin. The scrape of leather on wood as he shifted brought the world down on the two of them.

“Don't try anything foolish,” he said quietly, his palm pressing over her lips like a seal.

She could not reply. The desk waited behind them, the photograph , the sketchbook…little pieces of someone’s else life

Someone moved in the corridor and the sound of heavy boots came closer. Metal on marble. Footsteps with the clock of a man who did not hurry.

Victor's hand tightened.

His voice, low and sharp, near her ear.

“Stay quiet, now.”

And his palm covered her mouth again. The world narrowed to the press of the skin and the heat of breath and the small red light blinking like a heart that would not stop.