The office always smelled like lemon and judgment. That same stale citrus in the air, like it was trying to disinfect more than the floors.
I walked in without knocking. She never locked the door. Said it was a test of control—mine, not hers.
“Eric,” she said, not surprised. “I was starting to think I’d been replaced by surveillance logs and whiskey.”
“You’d like that.”
“Not really. Surveillance doesn’t argue back. And whiskey doesn’t look this angry.”
I sat without being asked. Didn’t take off my coat. Didn’t make eye contact. Her pen clicked once and went still.
“Fourteen months since your last session.”
“You keep count.”
“You pay me to.” She leaned back. “So. Why now?”
I said nothing. Let the silence stretch until it got awkward, until it snapped between us like a tension wire. Her gaze didn’t flinch. Just watched. Always watching.
“Is it her?” she asked finally.
My jaw clenched. I didn’t answer.
“Let me rephrase. Is it about the girl you control like a marionette but can’t stop watching even when she’s not in the room?”
Still nothing.
“You’re not afraid of what she saw,” she continued. “You’re afraid of what it made her feel.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“No. You’re afraid of needing her.”
The lights in her office were always too soft. Like a hospital wing dressed up in kindness. I stared at the floor.
“What would you do if she walked away?”
The question hit harder than it should’ve. I didn’t flinch. But my pulse gave me away. She saw it. She always did.
“You built a tower to contain chaos. But she wasn’t chaos, was she? She was clarity. Sharp. Clean. You gave her rules to test her. But now that she’s rewriting them, you’re…”
“Losing.”
She nodded slowly. “Does she remind you of her?”
That word carried too much weight. Her. She didn’t say your mother. She didn’t have to.
“No.” My voice was low, raw. “She’s worse.”
“Because she doesn’t break?”
“Because she makes me want to.”
Her pen didn’t move. Her eyes stayed fixed on me. Unflinching. Not like the others. Not like the women who smiled and said I can handle it, and ran the first time I didn’t flinch when they cried.
“The collar didn’t scare her, did it?”
I almost laughed. “She ran her fingers over the leather like it owed her an answer.”
“Maybe it does.”
“It wasn’t meant for her.”
“Then why did you choose her?”
The question lingered. I didn’t answer it.
“What would happen,” she asked, “if she stopped playing by your rules?”
That one was easier. “I’d ruin her.”
She didn’t look shocked. She looked disappointed. “Because that’s the only way you know how to keep someone?”
My silence was a confession.
She leaned forward then, elbows on her knees. “Eric. She isn’t the problem. She’s the pattern. And if you don’t stop—”
My phone buzzed once. Then again. Then silence.
Her eyes narrowed. “Work?”
“No.” I stood. “Worse.”
She didn’t stop me when I walked out. She never did. She knew better.
***
The Tower greeted me with darkness and code. One alert blinked at the top of my secure terminal—buried beneath false logs.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. Source: E.Middleton.
Of course it was and I didn’t rush. She’d made her move. I watched the feed light up with her movements. Calm. Precise.
Like she’d been rehearsing. She traced the blueprints like they were her birthright. I’d buried Archive 3A so deep even Sia had forgotten it existed.
But she didn’t just find it. She went.
I tracked her steps. The stolen keycard. The smooth lift off the junior aide. The timing. The confidence. She was a fucking masterpiece of controlled rebellion. A mirror I never asked for—held too close.
The vault door was open when I reached it.
She didn’t hear me until it slammed shut behind her.