The penthouse office was silent except for the hum of the city forty floors below.
Elara sat at her desk, fingers moving across her tablet as she reviewed quarterly projections. At twenty-nine, she was the youngest CEO in the tech industry—NetVault Security had gone from startup to Fortune 500 in six years. The media called her a prodigy. Her board called her unstoppable.
Her therapist called her alexithymic. Unable to identify or describe emotions.
The elevator chimed. Elara didn't look up. Only one person had after-hours access.
"You're late," she said. "The investor meeting is in twelve hours. Did you review the—"
"I'm not here about the meeting."
That made her look up.
Richard stood by the elevator, hands in his coat pockets. Sixty-two, silver-haired, the man who'd found her at seventeen—homeless, brilliant, and utterly alone. He'd given her everything: education, capital, mentorship. When people asked if he was her father, neither of them corrected it.
"Then why are you here?" Elara set down the tablet. Confusion wasn't an emotion she felt often, but she recognized the pattern: unexpected behavior required analysis.
Richard crossed the office slowly, each step deliberate. "I need to tell you something. And I need you to listen—really listen—even though I know that's hard for you."
"I'm listening."
"No. You're processing." He stopped at the edge of her desk. "There's a difference."
Elara tilted her head slightly. "What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing yet." Richard pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. For the first time, she noticed how tired he looked. How old. "Elara, do you know why I chose you? Out of all the kids I could have mentored?"
"My algorithm. The encryption prototype I built at seventeen was—"
"It wasn't the algorithm." His voice was soft. Almost sad. "It was because you didn't care. About anything. Anyone. You had no attachments, no loyalties, no... complications."
Elara frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Those traits would make me unreliable."
"No. They made you perfect." He leaned forward. "For twelve years, I've been building something through you. NetVault isn't just a company, Elara. It's a weapon. Every client, every government contract, every security system we've installed—they all have a backdoor. One I control."
She processed this information like she processed everything: systematically. "That's illegal."
"Yes."
"And you've been using me as cover."
"Yes."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
Richard pulled something from his coat. A syringe. Clear liquid. He set it on the desk between them.
"Because tomorrow, federal agents are going to raid this building. They have evidence linking NetVault to foreign espionage. Evidence with your digital signature all over it."
Elara's eyes moved from the syringe to Richard's face. "You're framing me."
"I'm protecting the operation. You're brilliant, Elara, but you're also the only connection back to me. If you disappear tonight—tragic suicide, CEO overwhelmed by impending scandal—the investigation dies with you."
She should feel something, she thought distantly. Fear? Anger? Betrayal? But there was only the familiar emptiness where emotions should be.
"I trusted you," she said. Not because she felt betrayed, but because she'd observed that this was what people said in these situations.
"I know." Richard stood, picking up the syringe. "And that's why this is going to work. Because even now, you don't really understand what trust means. You don't know how to be hurt by it."
He walked around the desk. Elara didn't move. She was still calculating—escape routes, defensive options, probability of survival. But her body remained still, as if waiting for her mind to tell it what fear should make it do.
"Do you want to know the saddest part?" Richard stood behind her chair now, one hand resting on her shoulder. "I actually care about you. As much as someone like me can care about anyone. You're the closest thing I've ever had to a daughter."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Because you're not real, Elara." His grip tightened. "You're a brilliant, broken thing I built into a weapon. And now that weapon has served its purpose."
The needle slid into her neck before she could process what was happening.
Elara's hand went to her throat, but her fingers were already going numb. The office tilted. Her legs wouldn't hold her weight.
Richard caught her as she collapsed, lowering her gently to the floor. He knelt beside her, brushing hair from her face with something almost like tenderness.
"It won't hurt," he said quietly. "You won't feel anything. You never did."
Elara tried to speak, but her lips wouldn't form words. Her brilliant mind—the mind that had built empires, solved impossible problems, outthought everyone—was shutting down piece by piece.
And in the darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision, something strange happened.
She felt something.
Not fear. Not anger. Not even sadness.
Just... absence. A hollow space where something should have been. Something she'd never learned to name.
Her eyes found Richard's face. He was crying. Actually crying.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry you never got to be a real person."
Elara's hand lifted weakly, reaching for him. Not for help. Not for mercy. Just... reaching. Because some deep, buried instinct told her that's what humans did when they were dying.
Richard caught her hand. Held it.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I wish things could have been different. I wish you could have loved me back."
Her lips moved. A single word, barely audible:
"Ba-bastard."
Richard's face crumpled. He pressed her hand to his cheek, his tears falling on her skin.
But Elara didn't see it. The darkness had already taken her—brilliant, broken, and alone. Still not understanding what she'd lost, even as she lost everything.
The city hummed on below. Indifferent. Efficient.
Just like she'd always been.