Glass Cuts Deeper When it Shatters
1028 Words
The alarm didn’t sound.
That was the first thing Lena noticed.
No blaring sirens. No flashing red lights. Just a subtle dimming of the overhead LEDs, as if the building itself were holding its breath.
Dominic was already moving.
“Evelyn,” he said sharply, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it onto the desk, “lock down the east and west elevators. Kill external access. I want an internal trace running in thirty seconds.”
Evelyn’s fingers flew across her tablet. “Already in progress.”
Lena stood frozen for half a heartbeat, watching the machine of Blackwood Industries shift seamlessly into crisis mode. This wasn’t chaos. It was preparation. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t new.
“Do you always react like this?” Lena asked.
Dominic shot her a look. “You always ask questions at the worst possible moment?”
Fair.
She moved closer to the desk, eyes scanning the multiple screens that had come alive streams of code, financial dashboards, security feeds from different floors. Her stomach tightened when she recognized the pattern.
“This isn’t random,” she said. “It’s targeted.”
Dominic’s gaze flicked to her. “Explain.”
She hesitated. This was the first test. She could feel it. Say the wrong thing, prove useless, and she’d become expendable.
“Whoever breached your servers,” Lena said carefully, “they’re not going for money. They’re mapping behavior. Transactions, timing, personnel movement. It’s reconnaissance.”
Evelyn looked up. “That’s… accurate.”
Dominic studied Lena with renewed intensity. “How do you know that?”
“My father taught me,” she replied. “Before everything went wrong.”
A shadow crossed his face at the mention of her father, but he said nothing.
One of the screens flickered, then stabilized. Lines of data scrolled faster.
“I’ve got something,” Evelyn said. “The breach originated internally.”
Lena’s blood ran cold. “An insider.”
Dominic’s expression hardened. “I don’t have insiders.”
“You do now,” Lena said quietly.
The lights dimmed again this time more noticeably. The windows around them reflected the interior like fractured mirrors, their own faces layered over the city beyond.
“Security,” Dominic said into his earpiece. “Status.”
Static crackled before a voice came through. “We’ve lost contact with Floor Thirty-Seven.”
Lena’s breath hitched. Thirty-Seven. She’d passed it on the way up. Marketing and data analytics low suspicion, high access.
Dominic was already moving toward the door. “Stay here,” he told Lena.
“No,” she said immediately.
He turned on her, eyes blazing. “That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“And I’m not your hostage,” she shot back. “If this is an internal breach, they’ll expect you to react like this. Predictable.”
His jaw tightened. “You want to walk into a compromised floor?”
“I want to help you not die,” Lena said. “Which, according to your contract, is now my problem too.”
Evelyn interjected carefully, “She has a point.”
Dominic exhaled sharply, then made a decision. “You don’t leave my sight.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Lena muttered.
They took the stairs.
The descent was tense, boots echoing against steel, the air growing colder with each floor. Armed security met them at Thirty-Five, faces grim.
“Thirty-Seven’s cameras went dark,” one guard said. “We’re sweeping now.”
Dominic nodded. “No shots unless fired upon.”
Lena caught the look one of the guards gave her curious, wary. She ignored it.
They reached Thirty-Seven to find shattered glass scattered across the floor like ice. A window had been blown inward, the city’s wind howling through the gap.
“Explosives?” Lena asked.
“Small charge,” Dominic replied. “Precise.”
Too precise.
Lena stepped carefully, scanning the room. Desks overturned. Monitors smashed. But no bodies.
“They wanted access,” she said. “Not casualties.”
A sudden movement near the far wall made her tense. A figure stumbled into view bloodied, clutching his side.
“Help,” he gasped.
One of the guards moved forward.
“Stop,” Lena said sharply.
Everyone froze.
“What?” the guard snapped.
“That’s too easy,” she said. “If he were the target, he’d be dead. If he were innocent, he’d be hiding.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying he’s bait.”
The man looked up, panic flashing across his face then something else.
Calculation.
He lunged.
The explosion was deafening.
Lena felt herself thrown backward, Dominic’s arm slamming into her chest as he shielded her. The world became noise and heat and shattering glass.
When the ringing in her ears faded, she realized she was on the floor, Dominic over her, his weight solid and warm and terrifyingly close.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
She shook her head, breathless. “You?”
He pulled back just enough for her to see the blood seeping through his shirt at the shoulder.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“I’ve been worse,” he replied, but his voice was tight.
Security swarmed the room. The man the bomber was gone. All that remained was a scorched crater in the floor and the smell of smoke.
Evelyn’s voice crackled through Dominic’s earpiece. “We’ve confirmed it. The access codes used were yours.”
Silence fell.
Lena looked at Dominic slowly. “Someone wanted this to look like you.”
Or worse, she thought but didn’t say someone close enough to use his credentials.
Dominic straightened, blood dripping onto the glass-strewn floor. His face was carved from stone.
“This wasn’t a warning,” he said. “It was a message.”
Lena met his gaze, adrenaline still buzzing through her veins.
“What message?” she asked.
Dominic’s eyes darkened, storm gray and lethal.
“That the war just became personal.”
Outside, the wind howled through the broken window, carrying the city’s distant sirens upward too late, as always.
And somewhere in the shadows of Dominic Blackwood’s empire, someone was watching them bleed.
- Writer
