I became the Mafia Bride

ChapterTwo

I should have stepped back into the elevator.

That would have been the smart thing to do but my feet wouldn’t move. I stood there, one hand braced against the elevator door to keep it from closing, staring into that impossible white void.

It wasn’t just white. It was too white. No shadows. Just endless, sterile brightness that seemed to swallow sound.

“Hello?” My voice came out small, tentative.

Nothing.

I tried again, louder. “Is anyone there?”

The silence pressed back, thick and suffocating. I could hear my own heartbeat, my own breathing, nothing else.

This wasn’t right. I don’t recall this floor ever being mentioned.

I should leave. Go home. Forget this. But something kept me there, curiosity, or maybe fear that if I left now, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering if I’d imagined it.

I took one step forward.

The floor was solid beneath my feet, cold even through my shoes. The elevator dinged softly behind me, a warning.

Then I heard it.

Footsteps.

Not mine. Someone else’s. Uneven, stumbling, coming from somewhere in that white emptiness.

My breath caught. “Hello?”

The footsteps grew louder, more frantic. Then a figure emerged from the whiteness, as if the space itself had decided to release them.

A man. Young. Stumbling forward with one hand pressed against his side, the other reaching out like he was trying to grab onto something solid.

I recognized him immediately.

He was one of the new hires. I’d seen him during the orientation tour. He looked scared, nervous, clutching a folder like it might protect him from something.

His shirt was torn, his face was pale, slick with sweat and his eyes were wide with confusion.

“Oh my God,” I breathed, lurching forward. “What happened? Are you—”

He grabbed my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

“Get out,” he gasped. His voice was rough, desperate. “Leave this place. Forget everything. They’ll—”

His words cut off. His eyes rolled back.

And then he collapsed.

I caught him or tried to. His weight dragged us both down, and I landed hard on my knees, his body slumping against mine.

“No, no, no,” I whispered, fumbling for my phone. My hands were shaking so badly that I nearly dropped it. “Stay with me. I’m calling someone. Just—”

A sound cut through the silence.

A low mechanical hum.

I looked up.

The elevator doors were closing.

“Wait!” I screamed, trying to stand, trying to drag Marcus with me. “Wait, please!”

But the doors didn’t stop.

And then the white space began to change.

The light dimmed. Flickered. The walls seemed to shift, pulling away or closing in and I couldn’t tell which. Marcus’s weight vanished from my arms. I looked down.

He was gone.

“What?!”

The floor beneath me lurched. I fell forward, catching myself in my hands. As quickly as I could, I ran straight to the elevator.

“What the f**k was that?” I blurted out.

The doors closed. The lights were steady. The display on the elevator showed the lobby.

I scrambled to my feet, chest heaving, staring at my empty hands. Panicking.

The elevator dinged.

The doors opened.

Then…

I jerked awake, drenched in sweat. Panicking. I was still at my desk.

“Did I fallasleep?” I gasped, my head hammering.

I vividly remembered taking the elevator, preparing to leave. I was alone on the floor. Quickly I grabbed my bag and rushed to the stairs. I didn’t take the elevator. I didn't care how many stairs I had to descend.

I stumbled out into the lobby, disoriented, my thoughts a tangled mess of panic and confusion. The space was dimmer than I remembered, quieter. The usual buzz of activity was gone.

I checked my watch.

6:47 PM.

That couldn’t be right, refusing to believe I had actually fallen asleep.

But the lobby told a different story.

Most of the lights were off. A man in a security uniform, not the one from this morning, stood near the entrance, scrolling through his phone.

He looked up as I approached, and his expression shifted. Concern. Confusion.

“Miss Sinclair?” He said. Looking at my ID tag.

I stopped. “Yes?”

“You feeling alright?” He took a step closer, studying my face. “You’ve been upstairs for a long time. We were about to send someone to check on you.”

“I—” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat, forced myself to sound steady. “I was just… working late. Lost track of time.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Your badge logged you leaving your floor at 5:34. But you didn’t come down until now. That’s over an hour.”

“So I did the elevator then” I whispered, confused.

I glanced at my watch again. Still 6:47.

“I must have… stopped on another floor,” I said weakly. “Lost track.”

The guard’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in his eyes. Something I couldn’t read.

“Right,” he said slowly. “Well. You should head home. Get some rest.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and walked toward the exit on legs that felt like they might give out.

The cold night air hit me like a slap. I gulped it down, leaning against the building’s glass exterior, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

The white room. The elevator.

None of it made sense.

I pulled out my phone, opened the company directory, and searched for the new hires to see if I could recognize the man I had seen.

Nothing.

I tried again, checking the list of new hires from the document we’d all received last week.

No sign of him.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying everything over and over. The malfunctioning elevator. The white room. How terrified he looked. The way he’d vanished from my arms like smoke.

By the time morning came, I’d almost convinced myself I’d imagined the whole thing.

I had to have. It physically didn’t make any sense to me.

But when I arrived at work early, because I couldn’t stand sitting at home anymore I went straight to the work floor where I’d seen him yesterday.

His desk was gone.

Not empty. Gone. The space where it had been was just… open floor now. Like it had never been there.

“Can I help you?”

I spun around. A woman from HR stood behind me, smiling politely.

“I—” I gestured vaguely. “There was a desk here yesterday. One of the new hires.”

Her smile didn’t falter. “I think you’re mistaken. This area’s been like this for months.”

“No, I—” I stopped myself. Pushed down the panic clawing at my throat. “Sorry. My mistake.”

She nodded, still smiling, and walked away.

I stood there for a long moment, staring at the space, feeling like the ground was shifting beneath me.

This wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be real.

I made my way back to my own desk and sat down heavily.

I frowned, scanning my workspace. Everything looked the same, computer, the notebooks, the half-empty coffee cup I’d left yesterday.

But there was something…

I reached for my keyboard, lifting it slightly.

A small USB drive slid out from underneath.

I stared at it.

It wasn’t mine.

I glanced around. No one was watching. Slowly, carefully, I palmed the drive and slipped it into my pocket.

I didn’t look at it right away.

I couldn’t. Not with people around. Not when I was already on the edge of losing it completely.

So I worked. Answered emails. I sat through a meeting I barely registered. Smiled when people spoke to me.

And the entire time, the USB drive felt like it was burning a hole through my pocket.

Finally, just before lunch, I excused myself to the bathroom. Locked myself in a stall and pulled it out.

It was small, black, and unmarked. Nothing special.

My hands shook as I turned it over.

What was I doing?

I stared at the drive, and suddenly the absurdity of the situation hit me all at once. I was hiding in a bathroom stall, clutching a random USB drive like it held state secrets, convinced I’d witnessed someone disappear into thin air.

I pressed my palms against my eyes.

This was insane.

Maybe the security guard was right. Maybe I had been upstairs longer than I thought, lost in some kind of fugue state. Stress did strange things to people. I hadn’t been sleeping well. Between my mother’s condition and starting this job, I was running on fumes.

Maybe I’d seen him somewhere else. A coffee shop. The hospital. My exhausted brain could have transplanted him into the office, created a false memory.

People didn’t just vanish.

Elevators didn’t open into impossible rooms.

I looked at the USB drive again. It was probably someone’s backup files. A coworker had dropped it, and it rolled under my keyboard. Simple explanation.

I should turn it in.

I shoved it back into my pocket and stood, splashing cold water on my face at the sink. My reflection stared back wide-eyed, barely holding it together.

Get it together, Sienna.

This job mattered. My family needed me to keep it together. I couldn’t afford to spiral over nothing.

I dried my hands, straightened my blouse, and walked out.

Right into my normal afternoon.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of normalcy.

Emails. A training session on the company’s project management software. Lunch at my desk. Small talk with Andrea about weekend plans I didn’t even have.

No one looked at me strangely.

By 4 PM, I’d almost convinced myself that last night had been some kind of stress-induced hallucination.

My computer dinged with a new message.

Team meeting, Conference Room B, 4:15.

I gathered my notebook and pen, grateful for the distraction, and made my way down the hall.

The conference room was already half-full when I arrived. I took a seat near the middle, nodding politely at the people around me.

The meeting started on time. Budget projections. Quarterly goals. The kind of corporate speak that required you to look engaged while your mind wandered.

I took notes dutifully, my pen moving across the page in neat lines.

Across the table, Cassius sat with his chair tilted back slightly, looking relaxed and attentive in that effortless way of his. He asked a question that made everyone laugh.

I wish I could be as expressive as he was. Everything seemed easy for him.

I watched him for a moment, then looked away.

Just a coworker. Nothing more.

The meeting wrapped up twenty minutes later. People filed out, already checking their phones, returning to their desks.

I stood, gathering my things, and felt the weight of the USB drive shift in my pocket.

I’d forgotten about it.

For a whole hour, I’d been completely normal. Productive. Present.

Maybe that was all I needed to do. Keep moving forward. Let yesterday fade into the background like a bad dream.

I could do that.

By the time I left the office that evening, I felt almost stable again.

The lobby was bright and busy, nothing like the eerie emptiness from last night. The security guard from yesterday morning waved as I passed.

“Have a good night, Miss Sinclair.”

“You too,” I said, and meant it.

Outside, the city was alive with rush hour traffic and the hum of people going about their lives. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, breathing it in, letting the noise and movement ground me.

I pocketed my phone, adjusted my bag, and started walking toward the subway.

Tomorrow would be better.

It had to be.

My phone rang before I’d made it half a block.

I glanced at the screen, saw my sister’s name, and smiled as I answered.

“Miss me already?”

Silence.

The kind that made me stop walking.

“Hello? You there?”

A breath. Shaky.

“Sienna.” Her voice broke completely. “Mom’s gone.”

The words didn’t land right.

“What?”

“She’s gone. It happened so fast. They tried, but—” She burst into tears.

The sidewalk felt unsteady beneath my feet. The noise of the city—traffic, voices, footsteps, turned dull.

“I’m coming,” I heard myself say. “I’m coming right now.”

I didn’t remember ending the call.

Didn’t remember starting to run.

None of it felt real.