Chapter 10: The Thirty-Second Floor
1420 Words
Victor's reply came before she finished drying her face.
"Not over text. Too many eyes. Tomorrow. Noon. Same place."
Aria stared at the screen. The Half Moon again. The same crumbling bar where he had played her that recording. She should say no. She should block his number and never look back.
She typed: "Fine."
Then she threw her phone across the couch and walked to her bedroom. Sleep wouldn't come. She knew that before she lay down. But lying down felt better than standing still.
At three in the morning, she gave up.
She dressed in darkness. Jeans. A sweater. Shoes she didn't bother tying. The key card to the east wing sat on her kitchen counter. She picked it up. Put it down. Picked it up again.
She wasn't going back there.
She was going somewhere else.
---
The building was quiet at this hour.
Not the silence of daytime, when voices and footsteps filled every corner. This was deeper. Heavier. The kind of quiet that made her feel like the last person alive.
The elevator took her to the thirty-second floor.
Her floor. The place where she had spent weeks answering phones and color-coding reports and pretending she belonged. The cubicles stood empty now. Computers dark. Chairs pushed in.
She walked past her desk. Past Lydia's desk. Past the break room where she had stopped talking to anyone because Damien's rules made her afraid.
She stopped at the end of the hallway.
The door had no label. No window. Just a keypad lock and a sign that said Authorized Personnel Only.
She hadn't noticed it before. Or maybe she had. Maybe her eyes had skipped over it the way eyes skipped over things that didn't seem important at the time.
She pressed her palm against the cold metal.
"What are you doing here?"
Aria spun around.
Lydia stood ten feet behind her. Blonde hair loose around her shoulders. No makeup. Bare feet. She wore a long coat over what looked like pajamas.
"I couldn't sleep," Aria said.
"Neither could I." Lydia walked closer. Her footsteps made no sound on the carpet. "But that doesn't explain why you're on the thirty-second floor at three in the morning, staring at a door you've never noticed before."
"How do you know I've never noticed it?"
"Because I notice everything." Lydia stopped beside her. Didn't look at the door. I looked at Aria instead. "And I'm going to give you one piece of advice. Free. No strings. Walk away from that door right now and forget you ever saw it."
"Why?"
"Because what's behind it will ruin your life." Lydia's voice was calm. Too calm. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But eventually. And you've already been ruined once. You don't need a second time."
Aria's blood went cold. "You know what happened to me."
"I know everything that happens in this building." Lydia smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "I've known since the day Damien hired you. I knew before you walked through the lobby. I knew when you were still in that hospital bed, fighting for a life you couldn't remember wanting."
"You were there?"
"I was everywhere." Lydia stepped closer. Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I'm the one who found you at the bottom of those stairs. I'm the one who called the ambulance. I'm the one who held Damien back when he tried to follow the stretcher."
Aria's hands started shaking. "You never told me."
"Damien asked me not to." Lydia shrugged. "He asks a lot of things. Most of them, I ignore. But that one felt important. You weren't ready to know. You're still not ready."
"Then why are you telling me now?"
Lydia looked at the door. Her expression shifted. Hardened.
"Because he's gone too far." She turned back to Aria. "The east wing. The key card. Victor's games. Damien thinks he can control everything. He can't. And if someone doesn't tell you the truth soon, you're going to end up at the bottom of another staircase. Next time, no one will be there to catch you."
Aria's stomach dropped. "Who pushed me?"
Lydia didn't answer.
"Lydia. Who pushed me down those stairs?"
The blonde woman stepped back. Her bare feet left no marks on the carpet.
"Someone who still works here," she said quietly. "Someone who walks past you every day. Someone who smiles at you in the break room and holds the elevator door and asks about your weekend."
Aria's throat closed. "Who?"
Lydia reached into her coat pocket. Pulled out a photograph. Handed it over.
A man. Mid-forties. Grey hair. Kind eyes. A security badge clipped to his collar.
"Marcus Webb," Lydia said. "Head of security. Been with Blackwood Enterprises for fifteen years. He was Damien's father's right hand. And he's been waiting for three years to finish what Victor started."
Aria stared at the photograph. The face looked familiar. Too familiar.
"I've seen him."
"Every day." Lydia nodded. "He's the one who nods at you when you walk through the lobby. The one who never checks your badge. The one who smiles like he doesn't remember your blood on his hands."
"Why would he push me?"
"Because Victor asked him to." Lydia tucked her hands back into her coat. "And because Damien's father asked him to do worse. Marcus doesn't ask questions. He follows orders. Always has. Always will."
Aria's legs felt weak. She leaned against the wall. The cold metal pressed through her sweater.
"Does Damien know?"
"He suspects." Lydia tilted her head. "But he can't prove it. And he can't fire Marcus without proof. The board would ask questions. The press would ask questions. Victor would use those questions to burn everything down."
"So Marcus just stays. Every day. Watching me."
"Watching everyone." Lydia walked toward the elevator. Paused with her finger over the call button. "Be careful, Aria. Not everyone who smiles at you wants you safe. Some of them just want to see you fall."
The elevator doors opened.
Lydia stepped inside.
The doors closed.
Aria stood alone in the empty hallway, staring at the photograph in her hand. A man she had seen every day. A man who had held the door for her. A man who had probably watched her walk past his desk a hundred times, wondering if she would ever remember his face.
She slipped the photograph into her pocket beside the one from the beach.
Then she walked back to her desk. Sat down. Turned on her computer.
The screen glowed blue in the darkness.
She typed one name into the search bar.
Marcus Webb.
The results loaded slowly. Employment records. Security clearances. A photograph from fifteen years ago, standing beside a man she recognized.
Elias Blackwood. Damien's father.
Marcus had been there from the beginning.
And if Lydia was right, he had been waiting for her to remember.
---
The sun rose through the windows at six seventeen.
Aria hadn't moved. Her eyes burned. Her back ached. But she had found what she was looking for.
Marcus Webb had access to every floor. Every key card. Every security camera. He could go anywhere in the building without leaving a trace.
He could push someone down a staircase and make it look like an accident.
He could erase the footage and no one would ever know.
She closed the computer. I stood up. I walked to the elevator.
The lobby was empty at this hour. No security guard at the desk. No Marcus nodding as she passed.
She pushed through the glass doors and walked into the cold morning air.
Her phone buzzed.
Damien: "Where are you? Your key card hasn't moved since yesterday."
She didn't answer.
Another buzz.
Damien: "Aria. Talk to me."
She typed back: "Someone in your company pushed me. And you knew."
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Damien: "Where are you?"
Aria: "Going home. Don't follow me."
Damien: "We need to talk."
Aria: "You had three years to talk. I'm done listening."
She turned off her phone and walked toward the train station.
Behind her, on the thirty-second floor, a door with no label opened just wide enough for a man in a security uniform to step through.
Marcus Webb watched her
disappear around the corner.
Then he pulled out his phone and dialed a number he knew by heart.
"She knows," he said. "Not everything. But enough."
Victor's voice came through the speaker. Calm. Amused.
"Then it's time to remind her why forgetting was safer.”
- Writer
