Chapter 11: Professor Stone lies. 

The morning came slow and grey, light bleeding weakly through the cloud cover like it, too, had second thoughts about waking up. Elias hadn't slept much, hadn't really expected to, but even half-rested, his mind clicked forward with cold efficiency.

He left his dorm without breakfast, coat flung over his shoulders, documents hastily stuffed into the same worn leather folder he'd used since undergrad. There was a strange comfort in old routines, in the weight of something familiar when everything else felt like it was slowly shifting under his feet.

He hadn't forgotten about the voicemail. About the static-laced whisper of Ruo's voice that still rang like an echo in the back of his skull. But today wasn't about deciphering it. Not yet. Today, he had a job to do.

He took the long route to the apartment. It wasn't necessary, it added almost twenty minutes to the walk, but there was a part of him that wanted the time. To think and breathe. 

By the time he reached the building, the sun had pushed a little higher in the sky, cutting thin lines of gold against the pavement. The apartment felt strange before he even stepped inside. Not empty, but hollow. Like the space had forgotten how to carry sound.

Elias left the door unlocked behind him and went straight for the table. The folder dropped with a soft thud onto the marble surface. The kitchen was still as he'd left it—clean, like a showroom no one lived in. Ruo's phone was still there, silent and dark, its presence pulsing at the edge of his awareness like a pressure drop in the room.

He didn't touch it.

Instead, he sat down and flipped the folder open, scanning the first page of the so-called "research results" Professor Stone had sent.

His brow furrowed.

The second page made it worse.

By the third, Elias leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling like it might explain what the hell he was holding.

It was junk.

Not just outdated charts and lazy graphs, it was stitched-together fluff. Half the slides referenced studies from years ago, theories long disproven or repackaged with flashier names. The data set had nothing to do with their lab's current research focus, and the whole document read like it had been formatted by someone who didn't expect anyone to read it.

Elias rubbed his eyes, heart sinking.

This wasn't about research. This wasn't even about a presentation.

It was a pitch. A veiled sales pitch dressed in academic language, offering just enough scientific veneer to justify the Numen family's continued "support." Probably with a generous funding request tacked on in the final slide.

Stone had sent him into a lion's den with a polished lie and hoped the lions wouldn't bite too hard.

Elias exhaled slowly, fingers pressed to his temples.

So that's what this meeting was. A favor wrapped in debt. A chance to smile, flatter, and pretend not to notice how close he was to the center of something that smelled like danger.

The worst part?

He was still going.

Because if there was even the faintest chance he could see Ruo, or someone who knew what the hell had happened to her, he'd walk into the fire with a matchbox in his pocket.

He reached for his tablet, pulled up a clean document, and began rewriting the entire brief from scratch; it had to look good enough to pass the presentation. 

—

The office building rose like a monument to wealth, made of glass and polished steel, with every angle sharp enough to cut and every detail dripping with silent authority. It was the type of place where light was carefully curated rather than simply shining. 

Elias stepped through the revolving doors just before the clock hit eleven, the receptionist's eyes flicking up only briefly before she returned to her screen.

"Elias Clarke," he said, voice low but steady. "I'm here for the eleven-thirty meeting on behalf of Professor Stone."

She gave a quick nod and typed something with mechanical precision before motioning toward the elevators. "Thirty-second floor. You'll be directed to the waiting lounge."

Elias gave a slight nod of thanks and moved on, the soft weight of his coat brushing the back of his legs as he walked.

He wore the black suit Ruo had bought for him a year ago. It still felt strange on his body, the fabric tailored too well, the jacket hugging his shoulders as if it had something to prove. Ruo insisted on it at the time, claiming that every academic deserved at least one suit that made people stop talking when they entered a room.

He never wore it. Until now.

His bag hung at his side, understated black leather with a gold zipper. Inside, tucked beneath his tablet and research notes, was Ruo's phone.

The elevator ride was long and silent. Thirty-two floors of reflective metal and the faintest hum of corporate machinery, each floor a little more removed from reality.

When the doors opened, a woman in a gray suit, sharp bob, and sharper heels, was already waiting. She didn't greet him, just gestured down a hallway without a word.

Elias followed, each step echoing off the polished marble, his coat brushing softly behind him.

The waiting room was spacious, immaculate, and quiet in that particular way only expensive rooms could be. Light filtered through a pane of tinted glass, casting everything in a sterile blue.

But it wasn't the furniture or the lighting that chilled him.

It was the people.

Three men, older and better dressed than anyone needed to be before noon, sat scattered in the room like they owned it. Their watches gleamed. Their suits looked custom. Their eyes, when they lifted them, assessed him the way people measured a wine label they'd never seen before: curiosity undercut by disdain.

They didn't acknowledge his presence. 

Elias felt it immediately; he didn't belong here.

This was the world of appointments made months in advance, of lineage and leverage, of deals whispered over crystal tumblers.

The kind of world he had spent his entire life avoiding, surviving next to, but never in.

He crossed the room and sat in the corner chair, back straight, face blank, and pulled out his phone.

He checked his notes, letting the glow dull the edge of discomfort crawling up his spine. The room smelled faintly of citrus polish and chilled ambition, everything manicured, everything rehearsed. Even the silence felt curated.

One of the men across from him adjusted his cufflink with a slow, deliberate motion. "Does he know the secretary made a mistake and he'd be delegated to Victor?" one of the men murmured, low enough to pretend it wasn't meant to be heard, but loud enough to carry.

The others chuckled, the kind of laughter that stayed just under the breath, sharp at the edges. Not unfamiliar.

Elias didn't move. Didn't look up. His thumb tapped once against the side of his phone, rhythm steady. In his peripheral vision, he caught the faint glint of a silver watch being adjusted again, like even their amusement had a schedule.

Victor Numen was indeed a man to fear… and most likely planned.

This wasn't some careless oversight. There were no mistakes in buildings like this. No secretaries fumbling schedules. Everything here moved with precision, curated to the second, to the inch, to the intention.

If Elias had been passed to Victor, it was because someone wanted him there.

They knew.

They knew Professor Stone's "research" was a polished lie. They knew the professor had leeched on their money for years and maybe now was the time to cut it. To cut the founding and professor Stone would blame Elias for fucking everything up. 

He could already see the email.

Stone would write it in that dry, detached way of his, like Elias was just another variable in a failed experiment. Unfortunate outcome. Poor judgment. Miscommunication on his part. But the damage would be done. The funding would vanish, the lab's name quietly shuffled off grant rosters, and Elias, who had rewritten the brief at dawn just to make it halfway presentable, would carry the weight of that final nail.

His fingers twitched around the edge of his phone.

Not yet. Don't react yet.

He let his gaze stay locked on the screen, but his mind moved ahead, calculating escape routes and counterarguments, wondering what Victor would want and how he'd test him. Because Victor Numen didn't call meetings. He called warnings. He called debt collectors and final straws. And now he'd been handed a man in a tailored suit, walking in with a lie stitched into his brief.

The door across the room clicked.

A different woman stepped in this time taller, darker blazer, clipboard in hand. Her expression didn't waver.

"Elias Clarke?"

He stood without a word.

His coat stayed draped over his chair. He wouldn't need it where he was going.