Kneel For Me

After Hours

Everyone left at six.

I watched the floor empty from my desk — analysts, juniors, the receptionist who still didn’t know my name — until only the hum of the ventilation and the light behind Lucian’s frosted glass remained.

By six forty-two I had the first trace on Halcyon Reach Ltd. By seven fifteen the number was clear: twenty-three percent. Not twelve.

The door opened.

Lucian had shed his jacket. Shirtsleeves rolled to the forearms, collar open, he carried two glasses of Hildon water and set one on my desk without a word. Then he pulled a chair right beside mine — close enough that I caught the heat of his body and the dark, expensive scent of his cologne.

“Show me,” he said. Low. Commanding.

I walked him through it. Luxembourg cross-references, Vantage Group, the cascading structure designed to hide the liability. He listened in complete stillness, eyes on the screen, mind clearly racing beneath the surface.

When I finished, he was silent for two heartbeats.

“Twenty-three percent,” he murmured.

“Conservatively.”

A dark, short sound escaped him — not laughter, something sharper. “Three auditors missed it.”

“They weren’t looking in Luxembourg.”

His gaze slid to me. “No. They weren’t.”

The empty floor felt smaller. London glittered far below, indifferent.

“Why did you leave Hartley & Cross?” he asked suddenly, no softening.

I kept my eyes on the screen. “It’s in my file.”

“Irreconcilable differences with a supervisor.” He leaned closer, forearm brushing the edge of my desk near my hand. “I’m asking what that really means.”

My pulse jumped. “He decided my value was… negotiable. Applied pressure. I refused. He made sure I paid for it.”

Lucian didn’t move. Those dark eyes held mine, unblinking. “Did you report him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because becoming ‘the woman who reported it’ would have followed me forever. I chose a clean exit.”

Silence stretched, heavy.

He studied me like a new variable in one of his models. Then, quietly, dangerously calm: “You should have reported it.”

Not sympathy. Not pity. Just fact — delivered like a judgment.

“And now you work for me,” he added, voice lower. “Knowing my turnover rate.”

“Knowing it,” I replied, refusing to look away.

The corner of his mouth twitched — not quite a smile, something far more unsettling.

He stood abruptly. “The Mercer meeting is Thursday at ten. One-page summary of Halcyon on my desk Wednesday night. And Miss Vale — ”

He paused at his office door, turning back with that habitual precision.

“You won’t be leaving at six anymore. Not until this deal is closed. Cancel anything personal. I don’t tolerate divided attention.”

My stomach dropped.

He disappeared behind the frosted glass without waiting for agreement.

I sat there, heart hammering, the twenty-three percent number blurring on my screen.

You should have reported it.

Like it mattered. Like I mattered.

But the real chill came from the new rule he’d just imposed — casually, irrevocably.

The building was silent except for the ventilation.

On my way to the lift at eight forty-seven, his light was still on.

I pressed the button for the ground floor and told myself the tightness in my chest was only exhaustion.

Just exhaustion.

Nothing more.

Yet as the doors closed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Lucian Voss had just drawn the first real line around my life.

And I had stepped inside it willingly.