Noon sunlight spilled through the towering glass walls of Alexander De Luca's penthouse while the city stretched endlessly beneath him like something small enough to own, and despite the luxury surrounding every polished surface and marble corner inside the enormous space, tension lingered heavily through the air like invisible smoke refusing to disappear.
The penthouse looked perfect.
Controlled.
Cold.
Yet Alexander himself no longer felt entirely in control anymore.
That truth irritated him more than he cared admitting aloud.
A massive screen glowed softly across the far wall of the private lounge while security footage played silently again and again beneath dim golden lighting, and every clip showed the same woman walking through different moments of her day completely unaware someone kept replaying her existence like an addiction he could not stop feeding.
Elara stepping from campus beneath rain.
