24 hours
1140 Words
The silence in the 42nd-floor office was worse than shouting.
At 7:03 PM, our entire Meridian Project drive was gone. Three months of work. Gone.
At 7:05 PM, IT told us the backups were corrupted. "Cyberattack," they said. "Someone got in through a phishing link."
At 7:06 PM, I looked at Ethan Park and realized we were both screwed.
"Someone wanted us to fail," Ethan said. His voice was low, controlled, but his hands were clenched into fists on the desk. "This wasn't random."
"No kidding," I replied, already pulling out my laptop. "Check your email. Did you click anything weird today?"
Ethan's jaw tightened. "Don't accuse me."
"I'm not accusing. I'm eliminating variables. Unless you want to explain to the board why we have nothing to present in 24 hours."
He sat down. Hard.
For the first time since we started working together, he didn't have a comeback.
---
24 hours.
48 slides.
One 400-million-dollar project.
The board meeting was set for tomorrow at 6 PM. If we didn't walk in with a full presentation, the Meridian deal went to a competitor, and both of us were out.
"Split the work," Ethan said, standing up and grabbing a marker. He walked to the whiteboard and started writing from memory. "You rebuild the financial model. I'll redo the stakeholder section and the technical specs. We meet back here at midnight to combine."
I stared at him. "You remember all of that?"
"Photographic memory. Helps when your father expects you to know every contract since age twelve."
Lucky him. I'd been memorizing bus routes and shift schedules at twelve.
"Fine," I said. "But if your section is late, I'm not covering for you."
"Wouldn't expect you to."
And just like that, we started working.
---
The office became a war room.
Empty coffee cups piled up. The whiteboard filled with numbers, diagrams, names. I hadn't realized how much of the project I'd actually memorized until I started typing. Muscle memory. Late nights paid off.
Ethan worked differently than I expected. No breaks, no small talk, no checking his phone. He moved fast, decisive, and annoyingly accurate. Every time I thought he'd miss a detail, he corrected me before I could speak.
"Your Q3 projections are off by 1.2%," he said at 9 PM, without looking up from his screen.
"That's within margin of error," I shot back.
"Not when the board's margin of error is zero."
I gritted my teeth and fixed it.
At 11:30 PM, my stomach growled loud enough to echo.
Ethan paused, looked at me, then stood up. "Food."
"What?"
"We can't rebuild a 400-million-dollar project on caffeine and spite. Food. Now."
I wanted to argue. I didn't have the energy.
He ordered from the same place he always ordered from—some high-end place on the 30th floor. When it arrived, he slid a box toward me without a word.
"Chicken teriyaki. You always get it when you work late. I saw it on the shared lunch orders."
I didn't know whether to be creeped out or grateful. So I ate.
Silence settled between us again, but it wasn't hostile anymore. It was focused.
---
Midnight.
We pushed our laptops together and started merging the files.
"Slide 22," I said. "Stakeholder risk analysis."
"Done," Ethan replied, dragging it in. "Check slide 37. Your contingency plan for the zoning delay."
I checked. It was better than my original. Cleaner. Tighter.
"You could've told me you could do financial modeling."
"I could've told you a lot of things," he said. "Didn't seem relevant."
I snorted. "Fair."
We worked like that for another two hours. No snide comments. No digging at each other. Just two people who hated losing more than they hated each other.
At 2:14 AM, we finished.
Slide 48 clicked into place. The presentation was whole again. Better than before, actually. Leaner. Stronger.
Ethan leaned back in his chair and exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for six hours.
"We did it."
"We did," I said.
For a second, I let myself feel it. Relief. Pride. Maybe even respect.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown Number: Good job. You made it harder for me.
Next time, you won't be so lucky.
I showed Ethan the message. His face went cold.
"Someone's watching us," he said.
"No kidding," I replied. "And they know about the board meeting."
Ethan stood up and started pacing. "It could be anyone. The board, the competitor, someone inside IT…"
"Or someone who doesn't want either of us to become Head of Development," I finished.
We stared at each other.
The silence was back. But this time, it wasn't about hate.
It was about trust.
Do I trust him enough to tell him I'm scared?
Does he trust me enough to believe I'm not the one who leaked the files?
Before either of us could answer, the lights flickered.
Then the entire floor went dark.
---
"Ethan?"
"Here," his voice came from across the room. "Don't move. Backup generators should kick in 30 seconds."
They didn't.
30 seconds passed. Then a minute.
The city outside was still lit. It was just us.
"Power's out on 42 only," Ethan said, checking his phone. No signal. "Someone cut it."
My pulse spiked. "The files—"
"Auto-saved to the cloud every 5 minutes," he said. "I set it up at 8 PM."
Smart. Annoyingly smart.
I heard him move. Then his hand found my arm in the dark.
"Stay close. Stairs only. Elevators are dead."
His hand was warm. Steady.
I didn't pull away.
We made it to the stairwell door when a voice stopped us.
"Going somewhere, Mr. Park? Ms. Rivera?"
A figure stepped out of the shadows. Security uniform. But not our security.
Ethan stepped in front of me instinctively.
"Who are you?"
The man smiled. "Just a messenger. The board wants to know… can you really work together? Or will you tear each other apart before 6 PM?"
He tossed something on the floor between us.
A USB drive.
"If you want to know who deleted your files, play the video on this. But be careful what you see."
Then he was gone, footsteps fading down the stairs.
Ethan picked up the USB. His jaw was tight.
"We don't know what's on this."
"If it's proof, we need it," I said. "If it's a trap, we need to know that too."
He looked at me. Really looked at me.
"Whatever's on here… we face it together. No hiding, no blaming. Deal?"
I nodded.
"Deal."
He slid the USB into his laptop.
The screen flickered to life.
And then we saw it.
A video of me, talking to someone in the parking garage last week.
My voice, clear as day:
"I'll make sure Ethan Park doesn't get that presentation."
---
The screen went black.
- Writer
