Christian

It’s late.

The kind of late where the city outside was just a smear of lights against the dark, and the building had fallen silent, except for the occasional hum of the elevator returning to nowhere.

I entered the call with the international investors—smug Europeans, who thought they could strong-arm me into a 3 a.m meeting and leaned back in my chair, rubbing the tension from my jaw.

And then I saw it.

A silver of light from the outer offices.

Still on.

Still moving. Security, maybe. Or one of the cleaning crew. At least, that’s what I told myself.

But I knew better.

The walls in this building weren’t just glass. They were one-way mirrors.

A little trick of architecture I’d insisted on: see without being seen. Power, after all, was mostly about what she knew before everyone else did. I stood behind the privacy screen of my office, the floor-to-ceiling window dimmed just enough to keep me hidden while I watched her.

Lea.

She sat at her new desk like she owned it already. Her back was straight, her shoulders relaxed, her fingers already moving over the keyboard like she’d worked here for years. Her brows were furrowed in concentration, a little crease forming between them that I wanted, irrationally, to smooth away with my thumb. Her lips slightly parted as she scanned the documents, I’d handed her. She was fast—faster than I expected. Her hair fell in a loose curtain, slipping across her cheek every time she leaned forward. She didn’t bother tucking it back. She was too focused.

She was working on the Zurich account— my latest fire to put out. Not just working, slaying. No hesitation as she opened the company network, located the executive calendar, cross-checked the Zurich meeting, pulling up contacts, drafting emails faster than my last two secretaries could even spell “Zurich” and began typing the cancellation email to my finance team. She moved with that rare kind of purpose you only find in people who have something to prove—and no safety net if they fall.

I caught myself smirking.

Most first-day secretaries cracked before noon. One had cried in the bathroom after five minutes. Another had quit by text so fast I was still reading her resume when it came through before her second hour.

But not Lea.

No flinching. No stuttering. No “I’m sorry” every five seconds. She moved like someone who didn’t know how to give up. Or maybe someone who couldn’t afford to.

Naomi hovered beside her like a hawk, clipboard in hand, waiting for the first mistake. And I knew she would be ruthless if she saw weakness. That’s why I’d sent her. If Lea couldn’t handle Naomi, she couldn’t handle me.

But she didn’t flinch. When Naomi snapped at her for forgetting to use the Zurich time zone in the meeting proposal, she didn’t stammer or apologize. She didn’t crumble. She didn’t even blink. She simply nodded once, corrected it, and kept typing. She just corrected it. Quiet. Precise. Almost…stubborn.

I felt something tighten in my chest. Unfamiliar. I shoved it down and turned back toward my desk, pretending I wasn’t still tinking about the way her mouth pressed together in that serious little line when she was concentrating.

She was proving me right. And that was a rare thing.

I turned back toward my desk just as the intercom buzzed.

“Mr. Grey,” came Naomi’s voice, crisp and clipped. “Your new assistant rescheduled Zurich. William accepted Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. and asked for the updated Summit data before the call. She’s already printed and labeled the files. They’re on your table.”

I glanced at the thick black folder neatly placed on the corner of my desk—Summit Project: Zurich. Tabs. Graphs. Color-coded highlights. Time-stamped and bound within twenty minutes.

Efficient. Dangerous.

My lips curved, but only slightly.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“She also corrected your last name in the outgoing finance memo template. Apparently, it was misspelled by the last assistant.”

I stared at the intercom for a moment. Then, slowly, I pressed the button.

“Thank you, Naomi.”

Silence.

That was a first. No sarcasm. No critique. No passive-aggressive comment.

Naomi had nothing to say. If Naomi was quiet, it meant one thing: she was impressed.

I turned and walked back to the window, watching Lea as she opened another file on her screen—this one marked Private Internal Network: Board Forecasting. Her fingers paused, just for a second, before she clicked it open.

She didn’t know it yet, but I’d set that file as a trap. A harmless one, but a test. It was restricted. Only executives and trusted staff had access. She wasn’t on that list. The file was bait.

The moment she clicked it, a red alert would ping my system. Right on cue.

And it just had.

I opened the alert with a flick of my wrist on my tablet.

Access attempt: User: L.Lira.

Access denied.

Alert issued.

Then—before I could react—another ping came in. A message.

From her.

Apologies for the attempt, Mr. Grey. I didn’t realize the file was restricted until after I clicked. It won’t happen again.

I stared at the words for a long moment, something slow and dangerous unfurling in my chest.

No excuses.

No denial.

No attempt to lie or hide.

Just straightforward honesty.

God, she was different. Elias, your sister is really something and I’m willing to fall in the dangerous trap.

I wasn’t used to that.

Hell, I didn’t even know if I liked it.

But it made her different.

And different… was dangerous and problematic. Because the more I watched her— the cool way she tilted her head, the faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth when she caught herself about to laugh at something on the screen— the more I realize something uncomfortable:

She wasn’t just good.

She was made for this.

She just didn’t know it yet.

And worse— I knew it

Because the more I watched her, the more I realized she wasn’t here by accident. She hadn’t stumbled into my world.

She’d been built for it. And maybe I didn’t just want her to survive it.

I leaned one hand on the window, feeling the cold bite of the class through my sleeve.

It was supposed to be simple.

Test her.

Use her.

Burn through her like every other assistant who thought they could survive in my world.

But with Lea…