For a second, nobody moved.
The darkness swallowed everything.
Then the emergency lights flickered on.
Red.
Unsteady.
Terrifying.
Nora grabbed my arm tightly.
"Lena… what was that?" Victor immediately stood up.
"Stay away from the elevators." His voice was calm, but I saw the tension in his eyes. That alone frightened me.
Because Victor rarely showed fear.
Employees began running into the hallways.
Some were crying. Some were shouting.
Security alarms echoed through the building.
I forced myself to breathe.
"Everyone remain calm!" I shouted.
My voice surprised even me.
The panic around us slowed slightly. Victor pulled out his phone.
"Security just confirmed the explosion happened in the elevator shaft."
Cold spread through my body. If Kael hadn't warned me, no.
I refused to finish that thought. Nora looked pale.
"He saved us."
Victor's expression remained unreadable.
"Or he knew something before it happened."
That sentence changed everything.
Because both possibilities were dangerous.
Minutes later, emergency teams arrived.
Fortunately, the explosion happened after office hours.
No deaths.
Only injuries.
But the message had been delivered. Someone wanted fear. Someone wanted me shaken.
As firefighters moved around the building, my phone vibrated again.
Kael.
Only three words.
Are you safe?
I stared at the message.
Nora looked over my shoulder.
"He cares."
Victor disagreed immediately.
"Or he wants confirmation."
Neither explanation gave me comfort. I typed carefully. We're alive.
His response came almost instantly. Good. Leave the area immediately. Victor saw the message.
"What else did he say?"
"Nothing."
Victor frowned.
"He knows too much."
"And he warned us."
"Exactly," Victor replied.
"That's what worries me."
Before I could answer, another call came.
Elara.
Her voice sounded terrified.
"Lena, listen carefully."
"What happened?"
"Someone broke into my house."
My heart stopped.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"But they searched everything."
"Did they take anything?"
Silence.
Then she whispered:
"The photo."
The blood drained from my face.
The photo.
The one with my father.
The one she said explained everything.
"What else?"
"Nothing."
That made no sense.
Why steal only that?
Victor looked serious.
"They're looking for information."
"Who are they?" Nora asked.
No one answered.
Because nobody knew.
Or perhaps Someone knew and wasn't talking.
An hour later, police confirmed the explosion wasn't accidental. Deliberate sabotage.
Publicly, they called it criminal damage.
Privately, Victor called it something else.
"A declaration."
"From who?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"But someone just escalated the game."
Nora looked close to tears.
"I hate this world."
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
"So do I."
"But we survive it."
She nodded weakly.
Later that night, I returned home.
Exhausted.
But sleep refused to come. Instead, I sat alone with my thoughts. Kael's warning.
The stolen photo. The explosion. Nothing felt random anymore.
Everything connected.
I just couldn't see how.
Then another message appeared.
Unknown number.
No name.
No introduction.
Just one sentence:
This was only a warning.
I immediately showed Victor.
His response came within minutes. Don't answer. Then another message arrived. Your father understood consequences. My hands tightened.
Another message.
Will you?
Fear slowly transformed into anger.
Not blind anger.
Focused anger.
Someone wanted me afraid.
Someone wanted me to be unstable.
Someone wanted me to react emotionally.
They would be disappointed.
Because for the first time since my father died
I wasn't thinking like a victim.
I was thinking like him.
And whoever started this war had just made one mistake.
They assumed I would break.
Instead
They had given me a reason to fight.
As I stood near the window overlooking the city, one final message arrived.
This time from Kael.
And only four words appeared on the screen.
They've chosen their side.
I stared at the message.
Then typed slowly:
Whose side are you on?
For the first time since I met him, Kael didn't reply.
Do you think Kael is truly protecting Lena… or hiding something much bigger?