BENEATH HIS SHADOW

Episode 3 – The View From the Top

POV: Serena Blake

If you’ve never stood in an office high enough to see the entire city at once, let me tell you — it’s both beautiful and terrifying.

Beautiful, because you feel like you can see everything.

Terrifying, because you realize that from up there… the world looks small. And people who live at the top often start to treat it — and everyone in it — like it’s small too.

That’s what I thought standing in Damien Cross’s office for the first time.

Floor-to-ceiling glass walls wrapped around us, the afternoon sunlight spilling over a skyline of silver and glass. Behind me, the space was vast — sleek black desks, shelves lined with books I suspected he didn’t have time to read, and an abstract painting in shades of gray and crimson that looked like someone had captured a storm on canvas.

Damien stepped past me and moved behind his desk, loosening his tie slightly. “You don’t have to stand there like you’re about to be interviewed,” he said, that faint smile curling his lips.

I turned slowly, trying not to let the view distract me. “So what exactly did you bring me here for?”

“To see where you’ll be working, if you take the contract.”

I blinked. “I thought I’d be doing the sessions at my office.”

“Not with my people,” he said simply. “They won’t open up outside of this space. They’re trained to keep everything in-house. Which means… you’ll be here. On my floor.”

The way he said on my floor — low, certain, without breaking eye contact — it was less an invitation and more a statement of fact. I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or cornered.

He walked toward the glass wall and gestured for me to join him. “Look,” he said. “That’s my city.”

I glanced at him, unsure if he meant it metaphorically or literally. “Your city?”

A faint shrug. “I’ve worked for everything you see out there. People trust me. People fear me. And both are useful.”

There was something in his tone that wasn’t in the Damien I’d met before — a sharper edge, like steel under silk. It was the first hint that maybe the charming CEO wasn’t all he appeared to be.

We spent the next hour walking through the floor. He introduced me to his assistant, Rachel — a sharp-eyed woman with the kind of polite smile that says I know more than I’m allowed to tell you. She handed me a folder of employee profiles, all marked “confidential,” and whispered just loud enough for me to hear:

“Be careful with him.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but Damien was already calling my name.

He led me into a smaller conference room with glass walls. “This,” he said, “is where you’ll run group sessions. There’s soundproofing, one-way glass, the best coffee in the city… and privacy.”

“Privacy?” I asked.

His eyes met mine. “I value privacy, Serena. I expect my people to do the same.”

For a moment, it felt like he wasn’t talking about the employees at all — like the words were for me alone.

By the time we returned to his office, the sky was turning gold with the first hints of sunset. I’d planned to leave then, but Damien poured two glasses of wine from a bottle on the shelf and handed one to me without asking.

“To new partnerships,” he said, raising his glass.

I hesitated, then clinked mine against his. The wine was smooth, expensive, the kind that warms you instantly.

“You don’t strike me as someone who trusts easily,” I said.

“I don’t,” he replied without hesitation. “But sometimes, you meet someone and you know… they’re either going to be the best decision you’ve ever made or the worst mistake of your life.”

“And which am I?”

He smiled — slow, deliberate. “I guess we’ll find out.”

When I finally left his building, the city lights were coming on one by one. My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.

Unknown: Don’t trust everything he tells you.

I froze on the sidewalk, my reflection caught in the glass door of the lobby. The message didn’t say who it was from. It didn’t have to. The tone told me enough — someone in Damien’s world had decided to warn me.

And that was the moment I realized:

This wasn’t just a job offer.

This was the opening move in a game I didn’t know the rules to.