*Ding*
69th floor.
The door opened. Alex Lenner walked out of the elevator covering a careless yawn with his hand. He took a few steps to arrive at the door to the only apartment on the floor, and unlocked it. The inside was dim, illuminated for the most part by the city lights coming from the shorter buildings around and in the distance. It was decorated to look modern but not opulently luxurious, only understatedly so, and comfortable, exactly like a rich single young man's nest.
Walking in, Alex took off his jacket after taking his phone out of its pocket, and threw it onto the couch. While approaching the door of the master bedroom, he opened a group chat.
"I'm home, everyone. I'm taking a shower and going straight to bed. Keep enjoying yourselves and don't bother me even if any of you get lost on the way back home. See ya."
After sending that voice message into the group with a smile, he threw the phone onto the large, soft bed, and did as he said. He took off his shirt, and stepped into the shower to relax under the sprinkle of warm water, washing away the sweat, and the traces of lipstick. He didn't take too much time, and came out of the shower not long later, a towel around his waist.
His exposed body, though not hard like chiseled marble, was well sculpted, the lines of his muscles visible under his skin with subtle beauty. He was already handsome, but with his healthy body, it was no wonder he came back sandwiched between two living, breathing temptations made flesh trying to eat him up at the back of the car.
It was a pity. If only his skin was not marred by scars from old wounds. One such scar went from the front of his left shoulder, almost from the middle of his chest, to his back, running down his back, passing by the triangular tip of his shoulder blade to reach the side of his spine after tracing a curve over his ribs. Another scar started just below the first one, going from the underside of his diaphragm to carve a path over his abs and make a curve at his right hip to the back of which it ended with a sharp tip.
Fortunately, those scars seemed to have existed for long enough to have faded a great deal and now only add a rugged element to his charm.
Before the mist from the bath could disperse, he donned baggy ash-colored cotton pants. While wiping his dripping wet hair, he came to the large flatscreen hanging high on the wall facing the bed, and patted the long cabinet below it. It let out a subtle click, then broke in two halves which silently slid aside to expose a safe embedded in the wall.
He threw the towel aside, typed a passcode on the digital lock, and pressed his palm on the scanner, before he opened it. There were documents, money, bank cards, and many other things inside, but all on the lower floor. On the top floor, there was only a small wooden box, one square, barely the size of a palm.
It looked like a piece of antique, dull, but artistically carved, as it sat quietly and alone. Even then, despite its underlying simplicity, it seemed to have the power to pull attention toward itself with the shadowy grooves running over its body, and in its own way, clamor that it existed by stoking desire.
Alex's calm deep brown eyes looked at the box as he took it out from under the soft blue light of the interior of the safe, and turned to look outside, through the open door of the french window. He didn't see the full moon, but he did see the glow it was reflecting as it closed in on its peak for the month, before he held the cover of the box and pushed it up. Or at least he tried. And he failed.
He showed no surprise, nor any disappointment. He calmly put the box back down, closed the safe, and patted the cabinet to let it move back to its place. Then, throwing on a casual t-shirt to go with the comfort of the pants, he didn't care to dry his hair, and threw himself onto the bed. He threw the matter of the small box out of his mind, and exhaled all his satisfaction for the good evening he had enjoyed, before he controlled his breathing to become slow and long.
Soon, he completely relaxed, letting go of his hold on his consciousness. In the silence, even the movements from his breathing became barely perceptible. There was only the glow of the city, and the moon to accompany him, as well as the light breeze slipping in through the gap in the sliding door of the balcony to turn the curtains into unwilling participants in a ghost story that brought them to life.
The night seemed poised to pass calmly, as usual, and that might have been the case, if not for what happened on the rooftop above when everything turned quiet.
The woman in black who had stood by the street to observe the apartment building until her chance to get in came to then sneak up the rooftop was checking the buckle of her now less bulky backpack around her diaphragm amidst the soft whisper of the chilly breeze. Without her baseball cap, but with a balaclava of the same dark theme as the rest of her attire hiding her face and leaving only her dark eyes visible, she took a deep breath, then walked to the edge of the rooftop, with her palpitating heart seemingly loud enough to shake the silent night.
Reaching the edge, she looked down, turned to tug the dark rope she was holding to check the only safety measure for her next set of actions, then took another deep breath. But that was not enough. Thinking about the anonymous messages that had brought about everything, the cocktail of bottled-up anger, grievances, and indignation in her heart made her exhale a string of curses so vivid and colorful that it had to be dispersed by the wind to spare the world of bleeding ears.
It took more than a minute, but when she was done, she felt a little lighter in her chest. She took another deep breath, closed her eyes to spare herself the dizziness and the nausea, exhaled, swallowed her saliva more out of apprehension than anger this time, then, after mentally psyching herself one last time, took a step back, into the void behind her.