The atmosphere in the executive suite was thick enough to be severed with a blade. Within the sprawling confines of the Midtown office, the air suddenly felt too thin to support both of them. Olena watched him with a look of inquisitive detachment, reminiscent of a child asking why they couldn't swing through the skyline like Peter Parker, leaving an adult to fumble through a lecture on Newtonian physics or offer a hollow lie about cinematic illusions.
Kadyn parted his lips to retort, but found his mind a complete void. He was Jacob—a man defined by a cocktail of simmering resentment, perpetual exhaustion, and a temperament that swung like a pendulum between brooding silence and sharp-tongued irony.
"I..."
A soft, rhythmic knock on the mahogany door shattered the tension. Kadyn exhaled, the relief hitting him like a physical wave. In contrast, Olena looked ready to strike down the intruder, even though it was her most trusted aide, Zeph.
"What is it?" she snapped, her voice like cracking ice.
"Mr. Shawn was downstairs a moment ago. But don't worry, I ensured he didn't make it past the lobby," Zeph reported.
Sarina's complexion turned a ghostly shade of white before she very quickly regained her composure. Watching her, Kadyn felt a sudden, inexplicable surge of venom toward this Shawn. He envisioned him as one of her discarded Manhattan "arrangements," the kind of man who couldn't accept that the contract had ended.
"Good," she replied, her voice flattening as she retreated into the leather depths of her chair.
Zeph's gaze flickered between Kadyn and Sarina, sensing a shift in the room's gravity before he quietly retreated.
"You still haven't clarified why I was summoned, ma'am," Kadyn said. His politeness was a thin veneer, the sarcasm underneath as sharp as a tailored lapel.
"Where were you last night?" she countered, her eyes narrowing.
He offered a slow, provocative grin. "A lounge in Brooklyn."
"You called in sick."
"I did, ma'am. It's a common ritual for us 'lower-income' workers when the walls start closing in, and we need a moment to breathe."
"Lower-income? I pay you..."
"Enough to maintain your vintage Porsche, perhaps? I'm grateful, truly. But I asked a question before Zeph interrupted us."
Olena found herself caught between irritation and genuine fascination. This man was an enigma. He transitioned from stifling formality to raw bluntness in a heartbeat, and the unpredictability rattled her. She had employed him longer than Zeph, yet she realized she hadn't truly seen him until now.
"I trust you haven't forgotten who signs your checks," she said, reclaiming her authority.
"Hardly, ma'am. I'm also well aware there's a line of desperate souls winding around Wall Street who would kill for my position."
He was weaponizing her own cynicism against her. It stung. How had he found the audacity to stand in her ivory tower and mock her? The irony wasn't lost on her; she had been the one to pluck him from the security pool and appoint him as her personal detail. She had expected to break him, to watch him cower under her status, but Kadyn seemed devoid of the fear that usually greeted her.
"Your eyes are striking," he remarked suddenly.
Sarina's head snapped up. The conversational shift was so jarring it felt like whiplash. "I beg your pardon?"
She nearly rolled her eyes, a gesture she considered beneath her. He was intentionally trying to unravel her composure, and it was working.
"You're dismissed," she said quietly, shielding herself behind the glow of her MacBook.
Kadyn exited without a word, ignoring Zeph's attempt to flag him down. He moved through the halls with a sense of urgency until he reached the marble-clad restroom. Splashing cold water on his face, he looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the man staring back. He felt like a passenger in his own skin, watching a stranger take the wheel.
The charcoal grey of his irises had shifted, becoming pale, almost translucent. It was a subtle change, but to him, it felt like a total transformation. Panic began to set in. He had just flirted with his employer, the woman who provided his only lifeline. While his salary wouldn't buy the tires for her car, it kept him from the "odd jobs" and the moral compromises of the New York underbelly. It kept a meager meal of supermarket bread and coffee on the scarred table in his minimal kitchen.
Suddenly, a surge of intense sensations washed over him. He heard the muffled conversations of a hundred floors. He heard the frantic click-clack of Louboutins on marble, the distant roar of yellow cabs on the street below, and most terrifyingly, the rhythmic thumping of hearts beating in chests all around the building.
He gripped the sink. In the mirror, his eyes were now burning with a white, ethereal fire. His skull felt like a furnace. I'm going to die in a public bathroom, he thought bitterly. He imagined his funeral: a few distant co-workers checking their watches and neighbors from the tenement who only knew him as the "weird guy in 4B." They'd recite hollow eulogies about his character, if at all, and then head to a dive bar to toast his departure.
Reality blurred, and suddenly, he wasn't in the restroom anymore; he was standing in an ancient, dying grove. Towering, withered trees replaced the skyscrapers of New York. They were groaning, leaning into one another, whispering in a language that bypassed his ears and went straight to his soul. He heard their heartbeats too, fast, frantic, and oddly more comforting than the human ones.
"What do you want?" he screamed at the timber giants.
The tallest tree, a gnarled sentinel that looked as if it had seen the birth of the world, didn't speak in words, but Kadyn understood the vibrations.
"Jacob..."
"How do you know my name?"
"Forgive the intrusion," the collective consciousness of the wood whispered through his mind. "We are fading. If you do not intervene, we will all perish. You need the woman, and she needs you to endure. The threads are weaving together, but time is a luxury we no longer possess."
"I don't understand! What woman are you talking about? Why are you suffering?"
"He is coming," the Great Tree groaned, its branches sagging as a terrifying silence fell over the grove.
"Wait! Who? Who is coming?" Jacob's voice echoed into a void.
***
"He collapsed?" Sarina's voice echoed through her office. She shoved her phone into her leather tote, grabbed her wool coat, and bolted for the door. Zeph was already there, his face a mask of concern.
"Give me the details as we walk," she said as she walked briskly, her stilettos echoing like gunfire against the dark slate floors of the corridor.
"Eddie found him in the third-floor restroom. He's unconscious but burning with a fever so intense no one could touch him without cold compresses. He's effectively a radiator," Zeph explained as they stepped into the elevator.
"Are the medics on-site?"
"Yes, but his vitals are confounding them. They've wrapped him in cooling blankets just to stabilize him for transport."
"How is this possible? He was standing in my office ten minutes ago, looking perfectly healthy," Olena said, her pulse quickening.
"He did call in sick last night, ma'am," Zeph reminded her.
"Most people use that as an excuse for a hangover, Zeph. They don't spontaneously combust the next day."
"We're heading to the hospital," Olena announced as they reached the lobby.
Zeph stopped in his tracks, blinking in surprise. He remembered when Ms. Cecilia, Sarina's former mentor, had been treated for cancer. Olena had spared no expense for the finest oncology team in the city, yet she had never once visited the ward, claiming the scent of antiseptic triggered her migraines.
"Ma'am? You want to go to the hospital?"
"Yes. Get the SUV ready. If my new bodyguard is going to pass out on day one, I need to know if choosing him was a mistake or if I actually have to be bothered about something. So, get it moving!"
Zeph didn't argue further, though he shot her a knowing look as he hurried to the black Escalade idling at the curb.
As they sped through the congested streets toward NYU Langone, Olena stared out at the New York skyline, her mind a mess of contradictions. She loathed hospitals; they were archives of memories she spent millions of dollars trying to bury. Her personal physicians always came to her penthouse for a reason.
Yet, here she was, racing toward the very thing she feared. She told herself it was about ensuring her staff's safety, but deep down, she knew Kadyn had stirred something in her that no board meeting or "casual arrangement" ever could.