Morning arrived beneath a gray sky and the distant screech of trams.
Sofia woke before her alarm went off. For a few seconds, she had no idea what had awakened her. Then she saw the small red glow of the charging light on the bedside table, and her memory returned in an unpleasant rush.
The camera.
Adrian.
The hand that had closed over hers in the middle of the hall.
She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone lying on the floor. The screen was cracked in the upper-right corner, probably from falling out of her bag the night before. There was one new message.
Unknown number.
Don't come to the office today.
Sofia read the sentence once. Then again.
She didn't reply.
Instead, she opened her contacts and called Lukas.
The phone rang four times before an automated voice answered. The number you have dialed cannot receive calls.
Sofia lowered the phone.
Lukas never turned off his phone. He had even once answered a client's call while getting his teeth examined. It was an irritating habit Sofia had always considered one of his most dependable traits.
She got up, showered, and put on a dark gray suit. In front of the mirror, she fastened the earrings she'd inherited from her mother. The face staring back at her looked calm. Only her eyes betrayed the sleepless night.
The message from the unknown number was still open on the screen.
Sofia deleted it.
Five seconds later, the message reappeared.
This time, it came with an address.
Richter Systems headquarters, thirty-second floor.
Beneath it was another sentence.
If you want to know what happened to Lukas, come alone.
Sofia stared at the screen until the letters seemed to blur into the morning light.
She knew it was a trap. She also knew that someone trying to trap her wouldn't give her a choice that obvious.
So she went.
Richter Systems headquarters stood on the banks of the Donau, its entire surface made of dark glass reflecting the sky. The building looked like a blade driven into the heart of the city. In the lobby, enormous screens showed a video of Adrian speaking about the future of digital privacy.
“Data isn't just numbers,” the recording said. “Data is someone's life. That's why we treat it responsibly.”
Sofia stopped in front of the screen.
Adrian in the video smiled at the interviewers. Adrian had smiled at her the same way the night before.
No. Almost the same way.
In the video, his smile was meant for everyone.
Last night, that smile had felt like it belonged to her.
“Frau Vogel?”
A young woman stood behind her. Her hair was cut short, her suit was navy blue, and the ID badge on her chest read Helena Weiss.
Sofia turned around. “We've already met.”
“I remember.” Helena smiled, but her eyes didn't. “Herr Richter asked me to escort you.”
“I didn't make an appointment with Herr Richter.”
“He knows.”
The answer came too quickly. Sofia looked at Helena's ID badge, then at the small camera in the lobby ceiling.
“Does every unannounced guest get picked up by the head of the foundation?”
“Not every guest arrives with a message from an internal number.”
Sofia felt the air around her change.
“So you know about the message?”
Helena looked away first. “I know you were coming.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“In this building, the safer questions are often not the most important ones.”
The words sounded like advice. Or a request for Sofia to stop asking questions.
They entered a private elevator. There was no button for the thirty-second floor. Helena tapped her card against the panel, and the number lit up.
When the doors closed, Sofia saw their reflections in the metal wall.
“Is Lukas here?”
“No.”
“Does he still work for this company?”
Helena was silent for too long.
The elevator rose without a sound.
“Last night,” Sofia said, “he wanted to tell me something about the system.”
“I heard.”
“How?”
Helena looked at Sofia's reflection. “The cameras in the hall.”
Sofia turned sharply.
Helena finally looked at her directly. Her face remained calm, but something had hardened around her mouth.
“Richter Systems keeps every event secure,” she said. “That's not a secret.”
“No. What's a secret is who's watching.”
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened onto a corridor far quieter than the floors below. The walls were white, the floor black stone, and there was no reception desk. Only one frosted-glass door at the end of the hall.
Adrian stood behind it.
He wasn't wearing a jacket. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing strong forearms and the same silver watch he'd worn the night before. Without a tuxedo, he looked younger. Closer. And precisely because of that, more dangerous.
Helena stopped in front of the door.
“I'll wait outside.”
“No need,” Adrian said from inside the room. “Frau Vogel knows the way out.”
Sofia didn't miss the way he said her name.
Not Sofia.
Frau Vogel.
A deliberately created distance after calling her kleine Füchsin the night before.
Helena left. The glass door closed behind her.
Adrian gestured toward the chair across from him. Two cups of coffee sat on the table. One black, without sugar. The other with milk and a little cinnamon.
Sofia didn't sit down.
“I don't drink coffee with cinnamon.”
“I know.”
“Then who is it for?”
“You.”
Sofia stared at him.
Adrian picked up the cup, took a sip, and set it back down. “Now I know.”
“Did you send the message?”
“Which message?”
“Don't play games.”
“I never play games with you.”
His tone was calm. So calm that Sofia wanted to throw the cup against the wall.
She took out her phone and showed him the message. Adrian read the screen without touching it.
“I didn't send it.”
“The number is an internal company number.”
“A lot of people have access to the internal system.”
“And they all know about Lukas?”
“No.”
“So you do know.”
Adrian raised his eyes. “I know that Lukas Steiner didn't come to work this morning.”
Sofia's heart beat faster. “Where is he?”
“If I knew, would you believe me?”
“No.”
“At least you're honest.”
“I came for answers.”
“No.” Adrian leaned back. “You came because someone mentioned Lukas's name and gave you my address.”
Sofia held her breath.
Adrian continued, “You didn't come looking for answers. You came to see whether I would lie.”
She realized he was right. The realization only made her angrier.
“I don't care what you think of me.”
“That's a shame.”
“Don't call me—”
“Frau Vogel?”
Adrian smiled faintly. “I haven't said anything.”
Sofia hated herself for noticing the small change. The night before, Adrian had called her by a name that tested the boundaries. This morning, he was deliberately keeping his distance. As if he were testing whether Sofia would miss something that had never even belonged to her.
“What do you really want?” Sofia asked.
“From your company? A fair audit.”
“From me?”
Adrian didn't answer right away.
Outside the window, Vienna stretched out below them. Old domes, tram lines, and the gray river looked small from that height. The city that had seemed romantic the night before now looked like a map that could be folded and slipped into a pocket.
“I want you to stop going alone to places that aren't safe.”
“I came to your office.”
“Exactly.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Advice.”
“Advice delivered by sending an anonymous message?”
“I didn't send it.”
“Then why don't you look surprised?”
Adrian watched her for a long moment. “Because someone wants you to believe I'm the person you should be afraid of.”
“Isn't that true?”
His smile vanished.
Not completely. Just enough to make the room feel colder.
“I haven't given you a reason to be afraid of me.”
“Last night, you stopped Lukas before he could finish speaking.”
“I didn't touch him.”
“You didn't have to.”
Adrian fell silent.
Sofia stepped closer to the desk. “What's in that system?”
“A lot of things.”
“Clients' personal data?”
“Protected.”
“Employee surveillance patterns?”
“Monitored by compliance.”
“And if compliance uses the system to monitor people outside the company?”
“If there's evidence, report it.”
“What if the evidence is deleted?”
Adrian looked at her as if she'd just said something interesting.
“If you find evidence that was deleted,” he said, “it means someone wants you to find it.”
“Or that someone wants you to stop looking,” Sofia said.
“That too.”
He came around the desk. Not quickly. He gave her every second she needed to step back, and she noticed that she didn't use a single one.
He stopped close enough that she had to tilt her head to keep his gaze. Behind him, the window held all of Vienna. In front of her, there was only the white shirt, the open collar, the pulse beating at the base of his throat, slower than hers.
“You didn't sleep,” he said.
“How would you know?”
He lifted a hand. Paused, a breath away from her face, waiting.
She didn't tell him no.
His knuckle traced the faint shadow beneath her eye, so lightly it might have been imagined, then slid along her cheekbone and tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear. His fingertips brushed her mother's earring. Sofia felt the touch all the way down her spine.
“Because I didn't either,” he said.
The room was very quiet. She could hear the faint hum of the building, the tick of his silver watch, her own breath catching on nothing.
He bent his head.
She felt the warmth of his mouth before she felt his mouth, a breath across her lips, coffee and cedar, close enough that the smallest movement would have closed the distance. Her fingers had found the edge of the desk behind her. She didn't remember reaching for it.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.
She opened her mouth to say it.
Nothing came out.
Sofia's phone vibrated.
A photo arrived from the same number.
Lukas stood in a dark room. His face was pale. A thin red line marked his temple. Behind him, Sofia recognized a concrete wall and a green emergency light.
There was no text.
Only coordinates.
Sofia held the screen out toward Adrian.
For the first time, the man's composure cracked.
Very slightly. A pause in his breathing. The almost imperceptible movement of his jaw.
But Sofia saw it.
Adrian stood.
“Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“Sofia.”
It was the first time he'd said Sofia's name in a tone that couldn't be disguised as courtesy.
“I'm going to find Lukas.”
“Not alone.”
“If you forbid me—”
“I'm not forbidding you.” He reached for his jacket on the back of the chair. “I'm coming with you.”
“I didn't ask.”
“I know.”
Adrian walked past her, then stopped in the doorway. He turned his head slightly.
“And this time, kleine Füchsin, you'd better not try to run.”
Sofia tightened her grip on her phone.
“I never run.”
Adrian opened the door.
“No,” he said. “You just always choose the path that makes me chase you.”
Outside, Helena stood with a tense expression. Her phone was in her hand, the screen filled with notifications.
Adrian took it without asking permission.
Sofia saw one last message appear on the screen.
CAMERA ON FLOOR 32 ACTIVE.
Then the message vanished.
Adrian looked at Sofia. His face was perfect again.
But this time, Sofia didn't see a man trying to protect her.
She saw someone who had just realized that another person had entered his game.
And for the first time, Sofia wondered whether she was more afraid of Lukas's kidnapper—or of the man standing beside her, looking so calm as he prepared to find him.