Earned it

Chapter 4: Deliberate

The next day.

7:59 a.m.

The rain hadn’t stopped. It came down heavy, and the wind hugged me like an inescapable embrace of the sheets, the kind that soaked you through without the drama of thunder.

By the time I stepped inside Maddox Hall, my coat clung to me like a second skin just like how I came in yesterday.

My hair stuck to my jaw. The lobby looked exactly the same — sterile, expensive, and utterly devoid of human warmth.

But this time, the elevator didn’t open right away.

I stood there for a moment, feeling watched. The same uneasy prickle as yesterday slid down my spine.

When the doors finally opened, I stepped inside with the envelope in my bag, the photograph tucked under my notebook like a blade I wasn’t ready to draw.

Louis was already at his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. It should’ve made him look casual. It didn’t. It made him look like he’d been up all night dismantling empires with his bare hands.

“On time,” he said without looking up. “A promising start.”

“I thought you’d appreciate the effort,” I replied, hanging back instead of sitting.

He looked up then, eyes dark and sharp, scanning me like a scanner at airport security — finding what I carried without me saying a word.

“You didn’t sleep,” he said. Not a question.

“Maybe I don’t sleep well in general.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Or maybe something kept you up.”

The weight in the room shifted — subtle, but enough to make my fingers tighten around my bag strap.

I considered telling him about the voice. About the envelope. But my gut said that if I did, he’d either lie or tell me something worse.

So instead, I asked, “Who else has access to this building?”

His gaze held mine, unblinking. “Why?”

“Because someone left me a message. Last night. After I left here.”

He leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together, studying me like I’d just volunteered for a test he didn’t expect me to pass.

“What kind of message?” He asked.

I hesitated. The truth felt heavy in my throat. “The kind that makes me wonder if working for you is worth it at all.”

The corner of his mouth twitched — not quite a smile, more like the shadow f one.

“That depends,” he said softly, “on whether you believe the warning.”

I stepped closer, my boots sinking into the plush expensive rug, the city skyline stretching out behind him in grey.

“Should I?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached into his desk drawer and slid something across the table toward me.

A keycard.

For Maddox Hall.

“You’re asking the wrong question, Lily,” he said. “Don’t ask if you should trust me. Ask if you can survive me.” He smirked.

My pulse skyrocketed to in my ears.

And then — almost casually — he added, “Because if someone’s already watching you, it’s too late to leave.”

I stared at the keycard.

It sat between us like a dare.

“You sound very sure of yourself,” I said, trying to keeping my tone even. “That whoever’s watching me… isn’t you.”

His gaze flickered — not enough to confirm, not enough to deny. “If I wanted to watch you, you wouldn’t know.”

My heart sank to my stomach, but I forced a small, crooked smile. “Maybe you already are.”

He didn’t rise to the bait.

He just leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk, and said, “Do you want to test that theory?”

Every nerve in my body screamed no.

But I nodded anyway.

“What are you doing to me? Why can’t I control myself around him?” I grappled within myself.

“Fine,” I said. “Show me what you know.”

For a long moment, he just studied me, the rain tapping a slow rhythm against the glass behind him.

Then he opened his laptop, typed something quick, and turned the screen toward me.

My throat went dry.

It was a live feed — my apartment.

Not the building. Not the street.

My actual living room.

The grainy black-and-white footage showed my half-unpacked boxes, the coffee mug I’d left on the table, and the jacket I’d tossed on the chair.

I stepped back, the room suddenly too small, and the air too sharp. “How—”

“I didn’t put it there,” he interrupted, his voice calm. “But I can access it.”

“Why?”

He closed the laptop. “Because I don’t like playing defense.”

I didn’t know what I hated more — the footage itself, or the way a part of me believed him.

“Who else has access?” I asked.

His answer was slow, deliberate. “Whoever left you that envelope.”

I swallowed hard. “And you’re just… letting them watch me?”

“No,” he said, towering over me as he stood, stepping around the desk until he was close enough that I could smell that faint vanilla, cedar-smoke again. “I’m letting them think I don’t see them.”

My skin prickled, half from the nearness, half from the realization that I’d just stepped into a game without knowing the rules.

And Louis Maddox?

He’d been playing it long before I showed up.

The space between us felt like an electric jolt— not the safe kind.

The kind that made your hair lift before lightning struck.

I should have moved away.

But,I didn’t, I couldn’t. I was like gravity kept me close.

“Tell me something,” I said, keeping my voice low and soft. “If you’re not the one watching me… why do you care?”

His eyes held mine for a beat too long. “Because whoever is… doesn’t want to scare you.”

“That’s not exactly comforting is it?”

“It’s not meant to be.”

Before I could fire back a reply, his desk phone rang.

He didn’t look at it. Didn’t move.

The sound cut off after a single ring, replaced by a faint hum from somewhere — not the phone. The building.

And then a voice, threading through the air vents above us:

“You’re wasting time, Maddox.”

It was the same voice from the elevator. Low. Rough.

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt. The shocked look on my face.

Louis’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t look up, didn’t search for the source.

Instead, he stepped closer until I could feel the warmth of his breath.

“This is why you can’t leave,” he murmured. “They’re already in the walls.”

I should have backed away.

Instead, l stood still and I asked the question that had been burning a hole in my throat since yesterday:

“Who are they?”

He searched my face — and for a fleeting second, something unarmored broke through the cold control. Not fear. Something deeper.

“You think I’m the dangerous one,” he said softly, “but you have no idea what you walked into.”

The voice in the vents laughed — short, sharp, almost mocking — and then vanished, leaving only the rain and my uneven breathing.

Louis reached past me, his hand brushing my sleeve, and slid the keycard into my palm.

“When you leave here,” he said, “don’t go home.”

I stared at him, pulse racing. “Then where—?”

“Somewhere you can’t be found,” he said, and for the first time since I’d met him, his voice cracked — just barely — around the edge of the word found.

That break in him did something to me I didn’t want to name.

Because it wasn’t just a warning.

It was… care.

And care was far more dangerous than power.