CHAPTER 2: The Man in the Shadows
791 Words
I should have walked away.
Instead, I opened the door.
The smell of leather and rain clung to the inside of the car. The city blurred past the tinted windows, a storm of light and motion. Adrian Cross sat across from me, phone face-down beside a crystal tumbler, every movement measured, deliberate. Even silence seemed to obey him.
“You’ve been following the disappearances,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“I’m a journalist,” I replied. “Following is what I do.”
His gaze flicked to me cool, assessing. “You’re looking in places that don’t want to be seen. That makes you a target.”
“I’m already used to that.”
For a moment, something almost like amusement curved his mouth. Then it was gone.
He pressed a button; a black divider slid up, sealing us off from the driver.
“Who’s watching me?” I asked.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “People who think you’re getting too close to the truth. People who don’t mind making you disappear like Leah Moore.”
Her name in his mouth made my stomach tighten. “You know about Leah.”
“I know about all of them.” His tone was clipped, businesslike. “And I know the police can’t touch whoever’s behind it.”
“Then who can?”
His eyes found mine sharp, gray, and full of something unspoken. “Someone who understands how power works in this city.”
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and slid a small card onto the seat between us. A black emblem shimmered faintly in the light: C / E – Cross Enterprises. Beneath it, an address.
“What’s this?”
“Where the trail ends,” he said. “Or begins, depending on how you look at it.”
Before I could answer, the car slowed in front of my apartment building. He didn’t ask for thanks, didn’t even look back when I stepped out into the rain.
But I could feel his gaze following me through the tinted glass as the car disappeared into traffic.
---
That night, I couldn’t sleep. The card sat on my desk like a dare. I pulled up every article I could find about Cross Enterprises security, surveillance, tech innovation. Nothing illegal on the surface, but money always hid its shadows.
At two a.m. I grabbed my coat and the card and headed into the city.
The address led to a skyscraper downtown, glass and steel reflecting the night like a mirror. The lobby was deserted except for a single guard who looked too calm for the hour.
“Press badge,” he said without glancing up.
I flashed it. “Meeting with Mr. Cross.”
He typed something, then nodded toward the elevator. “Top floor.”
My pulse quickened as the numbers climbed. The doors opened to a dimly lit corridor lined with black-and-white photographs of the city its skyline, its ruins, its scars. At the end, a glass wall revealed Adrian standing before the city lights, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, the skyline burning behind him.
He didn’t turn when he spoke. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“You invited me,” I said.
He faced me then, expression unreadable. “Curiosity is a dangerous habit.”
“So is secrecy.”
We stared at each other, the silence thick enough to feel. Then he walked closer, stopping a breath away. “You think I’m the villain in your story,” he said quietly. “But villains don’t warn reporters to stay alive.”
“Then what are you?”
For a heartbeat, his hand lifted as if to touch my face, but he caught himself and stepped back. “Someone who’s trying to keep you from being next.”
He turned away, voice dropping lower. “The people taking those women Leah, the rest they’re connected to something called The Network. I’ve been trying to expose it from the inside. That’s why I need you to stop digging publicly.”
“Why tell me any of this?”
“Because you’re already in their sights.”
Lightning flashed beyond the glass, washing his profile in white. He looked almost human then tired, burdened, haunted.
“Go home, Bella,” he said. “Forget this story.”
But as I left his office, I knew I wouldn’t. Every instinct screamed that Adrian Cross was lying, just not about everything.
---
Back on the street, rain drummed against my umbrella. My phone buzzed again:
> You shouldn’t trust him. He’s one of us.
I glanced up at the tower behind me, its lights flickering like a heartbeat and wondered who us really meant.
- Writer
