New York,
Katrine,
United States
6:12 AM
The alarm went off.
I stared at it for several seconds with the vague hostility reserved for objects that are right about you.
Three hours of sleep. Three hours, on a mattress that probably cost more than my old monthly rent. The irony was delicious.
The fever had broken during the night, thanks to medication I'd neglected for three months before abruptly remembering it existed. My body was forgiving me with a generosity I objectively didn't deserve. I made a mental note not to abuse that leniency.
I sat up.
Today was my first day.
Under normal circumstances, that thought alone would have been enough to make me nervous.
Under the current circumstances, it ranked fourth on my list of concerns, right behind a man knows where you live, you have no proof, and your health is an ongoing disaster.
I got ready methodically. Cold shower, a deliberate choice, to look alive rather than just fake it. Light makeup, focused on the dark circles which, according to Arabelle—who'd seen me come downstairs that morning—made it look like I'd been camping in a basement. Cream blouse, black trousers, sensible shoes with a reasonable heel. The goal wasn't to impress.
The goal was to look like a person who slept at night.
Mission partially accomplished, judging by the reflection the hallway mirror gave back.
Arabelle, still in her robe, watched me from the staircase with a cup of tea and the worried expression of a mother sending her child to school for the first time.
— You look like someone competent, she said.
— That's the goal.
— You also look like someone who needs an IV drip of coffee.
— That's also the goal.
She came down two steps.
— Katie.
I looked up.
— Come back in one piece, okay?
I smiled. A real one, this time.
— I'll do my best.
★★★
At exactly eight o'clock, I walked through the doors of More Enterprises.
And immediately noticed a difference.
The day before, I'd gotten the laminated visitor badge white, anonymous, the kind handed to you with the professional smile of someone who'll probably never see you again.
Today, an employee was waiting for me at reception with a permanent badge, my name engraved in black letters on an anthracite background, and a photo that had apparently been taken during my interview without my noticing.
Katrine Arzons. Executive Secretary.
I studied it a second too long.
I'd signed the contract yesterday afternoon. And yet everything was already ready—the badge, the access permissions, my name in the security log. As if someone had treated my hiring as a done deal long before I'd put pen to paper.
Interesting.
Or alarming.
I hadn't decided yet.
The employee, thirtyish, navy suit, a bun so perfect it seemed afraid to exist, walked me to the elevators with the silent precision of someone used to being neither noticed nor ignored. Just present.
The fifteenth floor greeted me with the same hushed silence as the day before. But now that I was here as an employee, I perceived it differently. It wasn't the silence of empty places. It was the silence of places where people made an effort not to make noise, which was, in its own way, far more telling.
The executive offices had that particular atmosphere where you could feel that every decision made here had consequences whose full extent you'd never witness.
The assistant knocked on Ashton Gray's door.
— Come in.
★★★
The room was bathed in morning light pouring through the bay windows in broad golden sheets. Gray stood near the windows, a cup in his right hand, a document in his left. Unlike the day before, his jacket was gone. White shirt, sleeves rolled up to the forearms. A understated watch on his left wrist, the kind that doesn't try to impress and costs an obscene amount precisely for that reason.
That detail of his outfit made him instantly more human. Or simply gave the illusion that he was. I put both options on hold.
— Miss Arzons.
— Mr. Gray.
— Ashton is fine, when it's just us.
I blinked.
— Ashton?
— You're going to be working here for at least a year. If you call me Mr. Gray every ten minutes, we're going to wear each other out fairly quickly.
He took a sip of coffee.
I took a few seconds to absorb this information with the calm of a woman who hadn't slept and was discovering that her direct superior preferred informality at seven in the morning.
— Very well... Ashton.
He looked satisfied. Not ostentatiously—just that slight loosening of the shoulders of someone for whom a thing had gone as planned.
— See? We'll probably survive the day.
I hadn't expected him to have a sense of humor. That was the first disorientation of the morning. There would be others.
★★★
The tour of the offices took two and a half hours.
I quickly learned one fundamental thing: I hadn't signed up to become a secretary. I'd signed up to become infrastructure. The kind of cog without which the entire mechanism jams, but which has to stay invisible so the machine looks like it runs on its own.
Every department communicated with three others. Every meeting generated dozens of documents, half of which were never supposed to leave the building. Every presidential trip involved bookings, security protocols, logistics teams, last-minute changes, and an absurd amount of coffee consumed by people who clearly didn't sleep any more than I did.
— Your main role consists of absorbing chaos before it reaches Mr. More.
Ashton walked ahead down a glass-walled corridor overlooking the open-plan floors below, where dozens of employees moved like molecules under heat. I walked on his left, notebook open, pen in hand.
— Useless appointments?
— Filtered.
— Absurd requests?
— Filtered.
— Internal conflicts?
— Anticipated.
I wrote the word down, underlining it.
— You like that term.
— It's the most important one.
He stopped in front of an elevator. The polished steel doors reflected two slightly distorted images of us—him, straight and crisp. Me, looking like I'd survived something without quite knowing what.
— A good secretary solves a problem. An excellent secretary prevents it from arising.
The doors opened onto a darker corridor, the walls covered in dark wood veined with gray. The decision-making floor, clearly. Even the air felt denser here.
I understood why he ran this company. Every sentence seemed to have already been considered several times before being allowed to exist.
★★★
Around noon, we settled into an unoccupied meeting room—smoked glass table, black leather chairs, an unobstructed view of a gray, overcast sky that made Manhattan look like a city on pause. A lunch tray arrived unordered: composed salad, still water, seasonal fruit. The kind of meal that says we take care of our staff with the conviction of someone who's never been hungry.
I noticed that Ashton's tray was identical to mine.
— Do you eat like this every day?
He looked down at his plate.
— No.
— Good.
He pointed his fork at my salad.
— It looks like punishment.
— Vegetables are good for you.
— That's exactly what vegetables say to survive.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
Then he laughed, a real laugh, not the polite, calibrated one people at his level reserve for their employees' jokes. A short, sincere laugh, slightly surprised at itself.
I stayed silent.
— What? he said.
— Nothing.
— You're judging me.
— A little.
— That's unfair.
— Probably.
He picked his fork back up with the expression of someone accepting the verdict without contesting it. I filed that trait away for later: he didn't need to have the last word. That was rare, among people who could afford to.
The more the morning went on, the more the image I'd built of him crumbled, with an almost irritating regularity. I'd expected a cold, arrogant, unapproachable executive, the kind of profile business magazines loved for their covers. Instead, I was discovering someone patient. A good teacher. Almost pleasant to be around.
Which naturally made me suspicious.
Unpleasant people at least have the merit of being predictable. Pleasant people are harder to map.
★★★
Around three o'clock, we went up to the floor reserved for senior management.
The atmosphere there was different. Even quieter. The walls held large black-and-white photographic prints—not landscapes, not portraits, but textures. Stone, metal, frozen water. The kind of decor chosen by someone who wanted presence without anecdote.
Ashton showed me several offices, several secure access points, several rooms whose exact use varied depending on the day and who was authorized to enter. Then he stopped.
In front of a door.
A plain black door, lacquered, no nameplate. No number. Not the slightest distinguishing feature. If you didn't already know it was there, your eyes naturally slid past it, as though there were a silent agreement between the door and your gaze to ignore each other.
— The president's office.
I looked at the door.
It said nothing. Obviously.
— He's away?
— Yes.
— Business trip?
— Among other things.
He wasn't going to elaborate. I knew it from the way he'd already resumed walking—not abruptly, not awkwardly, but with the fluidity of a man turning pages.
— You'll meet him soon.
— Is he difficult to work with?
Ashton stopped. He actually thought about it—not the half-second of politeness people grant to rhetorical questions, but real consideration, as if the question deserved an honest answer rather than a convenient one.
— No.
Then, after a beat:
— He's just... different.
Which wasn't an answer. And sounded enormously like one.
★★★
The day ended a few minutes past six.
My brain was saturated. Codes. Procedures. Protocols. Contacts. Overlapping calendars. The names of vice presidents I had to memorize along with their respective moods. Topics not to bring up. Topics to bring up only in writing.
I made my way down to the main lobby, my shoulders slightly heavier than when I'd arrived, and looked for the most direct route to fresh air.
— Successful first day.
I turned my head. Ashton had just caught up with me, cup in hand—his third coffee since this morning, I'd been counting.
— I haven't actually done anything yet.
— Exactly.
I looked at him.
— If no one shouted, no fire started, and no vice president threatened to resign before four o'clock...
He raised his cup in a gesture that was somewhere between a toast and a surrender.
— ...that's a good day.
A laugh escaped me. Short, involuntary, the kind of laugh that comes out without permission after several days of accumulated tension. I noticed that he noticed, a slight shift in his gaze, something between attention and curiosity, quickly tucked away.
— You should go home.
— That's the plan.
— Sleep too.
I froze.
— Excuse me?
He gestured discreetly at my face with a tilt of his chin.
— Your dark circles. They have their own zip code.
I looked down for a fraction of a second. Betrayed by my own skin. Humiliating, to a certain degree.
— I'll think about it.
— Do.
He hesitated. A second, no more.
— And take your medication.
My heart skipped a full beat. I looked back up.
— How do you know that-
— I saw you take it this morning, in the break room.
He glanced upward, toward the floor above.
— The windows are transparent from both sides.
Ah.
Logical. Perfectly, irritatingly logical. I hated when rational explanations came along and ruined perfectly good theories.
A brief smile crossed his face, the kind you don't put there on purpose.
— Good evening, Katrine.
— Good evening, Ashton.
I walked home.
The November air bit at my cheeks with a frankness I appreciated. No deceptive softness, no pretense, just cold, clean and honest. Brooklyn's streets were starting their evening shift change: families heading home, bars lighting up, sidewalks changing population.
For the first time in a long while, something that vaguely resembled a routine was trying to take shape around me. A job. A bearable boss. A time to come home.
It was almost reassuring.
Almost.
Because as I turned onto Arabelle's street, hands buried in my coat pockets, I felt the thought come back,silent, persistent, indestructible as a weed growing through a concrete wall.
I still had no idea who the green-eyed man was.
And somewhere in this indifferent city, he probably knew exactly who I was, where I worked, and how much time I had left before he made his next move.
I pushed open the gate.
The street behind me was quiet.
I didn't turn around.