Morning came heavy and unwelcome, not that Adrian had slept. He hadn't even tried.
Instead, he'd stood by the windows all night, watching the city shift from black velvet to washed-out gray, his mind a war zone of reasons not to do the thing he couldn't stop thinking about.
But when Chloe arrived, punctual as ever, a file tucked neatly under her arm, he already knew.
He wasn't going to fight it.
He sat at the long dining table, a black mug of coffee cooling beside him, ignoring the endless stream of unread messages on his phone.
Deals, meetings, negotiations.
All the things that had once consumed him.
Now, they felt... thin. So unreal.
Chloe stood quietly across from him, waiting. She knew better than to push.
Adrian let the silence stretch until it frayed at the edges, until it buzzed under his skin.
Finally, he spoke.
"I need you to find her."
Chloe didn't blink. She didn't ask who. Of course she knew.
He watched her carefully, reading the subtle shifts in her expression, the slight tension in her mouth, the way her eyes flickered with understanding.
"No name?" she asked, tone purely professional.
Adrian shook his head once.
"Just a face."
The words tasted strange.
Vulnerable and weak.
But necessary.
Chloe set the file she was carrying down with a quiet thud.
She pulled out a tablet, already opening the security footage from the hospital's lobby cameras, Adrian's private access, of course. His empire was built on information, after all. On knowing everything about everyone.
Except her.
He leaned forward as Chloe tapped through the footage, freezing a frame,
There she was.
She was blurred slightly by movement, but even through the grainy image, Adrian felt the familiar jolt deep in his chest.
Her hair clinging wetly to her forehead from the rain.
The wide, startled eyes.
The way she clutched the crumpled food bag like it was armor.
Small, fragile and so breakable.
And yet,
Somehow, impossibly untouchable.
Chloe studied the frame for a moment, then nodded briskly.
"I'll find her."
Adrian exhaled slowly, tension bleeding out of him in careful increments.
Chloe understood.
This wasn't an idle curiosity.
It wasn't a game.
It was... something else.
Something neither of them had words for yet.
Without another word, she slipped out, heels whispering against the marble floors.
Adrian leaned back in his chair, tilting his head up toward the ceiling, feeling the heavy thud of his heart.
Had he just made a mistake?
Maybe.
Probably.
But it didn't matter.
Curiosity had already ignited.
And Adrian Vale was not a man who left fires to smolder unattended.
The day crawled by, a slow drip of meaningless tasks.
Adrian went through the motions, meetings, calls, deals closed with ruthless efficiency but his mind stayed elsewhere.
He kept seeing her face.
Hearing the soft sound of the bag hitting the marble floor.
Feeling the phantom brush of her hand against his.
By early evening, he was pacing the apartment, restless energy crackling through him, when Chloe returned.
She didn't knock this time.
Just stepped inside, her expression unreadable.
In her hands was a thin folder, unmarked, inconspicuous.
Adrian stilled.
Chloe crossed the room, extending the file toward him.
"It wasn't easy," she said quietly. "She's... hard to track."
Adrian's mouth twisted into something like a smile.
Of course she was.
"Tell me," he said.
Chloe folded her hands neatly.
"Her name is Lily Morgan," she began. "Age twenty-two. Parents deceased. No siblings. No close relatives."
Adrian's stomach twisted, though he kept his face impassive.
"Currently employed through a temp agency," Chloe continued. "Odd jobs. Waitressing. Food delivery. Retail. No fixed position. No career path."
No safety net, Adrian thought grimly.
No one to catch her if she fell.
He flipped the folder open with careful fingers.
Inside was a single page:
Her resume was sparse, unadorned and raw.
Just a list of survival jobs and a few half-finished college credits from a community college he'd never heard of.
Adrian traced her name with his thumb, feeling something tighten in his chest.
Lily Morgan.
It suited her.
Simple and unpretentious.
Real.
He realized, abruptly, how rare that was in his world.
Chloe watched him, her gaze sharp.
"There's no criminal record," she said. "No debt. No scandals. No... attachments."
Adrian closed the folder slowly.
"No protection either," he said under his breath.
Chloe hesitated.
"You want me to keep digging?" she asked carefully.
Meaning:
Do you want me to find every weakness?
Every vulnerability?
Do you want me to build a dossier, to know how to control her if necessary?
Adrian looked out the window again, the city burning gold and pink under the setting sun.
"No," he said finally.
Chloe blinked, almost imperceptibly.
"No?" she repeated.
He turned, meeting her eyes with something steely and unyielding.
"I don't want her dragged into this world," he said, voice low.
Not yet and maybe not ever.
Because he knew what would happen if he pulled her closer.
What always happened when something pure touched something broken.
It shattered.
And he was nothing if not broken.
Still, he kept the folder.
Held it in his hands like it was something fragile and Precious.
Something he had no right to touch.
Chloe, reading the finality in his posture, nodded once.
"As you wish."
She turned to leave but paused in the doorway, her silhouette sharp against the dying light.
"Sir?"
Adrian looked up.
She hesitated, then said very quietly:
"Curiosity is a dangerous thing."
Then she disappeared down the hall, leaving him alone with the weight of it.
Hours later, Adrian sat in the darkened apartment, the folder unopened on the coffee table, untouched whiskey beside it.
He told himself he wouldn't look again.
He didn't need to.
But the truth gnawed at him.
He wanted to know more.
He wanted to know everything.
What made her laugh.
What made her cry.
What dreams she still clung to in the dead of night.
It was madness.
It was inevitable.
He was already slipping.
Already falling.
Adrian Vale didn't believe in fate.
He believed in choices.
In consequences.
And he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that chasing Lily Morgan would cost him.
Maybe everything.
Still, as he sat there in the dark, staring at her name glowing softly in the moonlight.
He knew he wasn't going to stop.
Soon after, a slow smile, dark and unreadable tugs at the corner of Adrian's mouth.
The game had already begun.
And she didn't even know she was playing.