Elise Harper sat at her desk in the quiet of Pinnacle Designs, the late afternoon light filtering through the rain-streaked windows and casting long shadows across her workspace. The office had emptied out, her colleagues drifting home to their dinners and evening routines, leaving her alone with the hum of the air conditioning and the steady tap of her stylus against the tablet. The team meeting earlier that day lingered in her mind like a bruise—Julian's calm counterpoints, Claire's insistence on a hybrid design, the grudging compromise that had kept her towers alive but tethered them to his predictable blocks. It wasn't a loss, not exactly, but it wasn't the clean victory she'd craved either. She'd fought for her vision, landed a few blows, and walked away with something to build on. Still, the taste of it was bittersweet, tinged with the unease Mia's discovery had planted the night before.
She opened her tablet, pulling up the hybrid sketch she'd started after the meeting. The towers stood tall, their green terraces a defiant splash against the muted grays of Julian's modular blocks. It was rough, a patchwork of their clashing styles, but it had potential—enough to satisfy Claire's demand for integration, at least for now. She traced a line along one of the walkways, her mind drifting back to Julian's critique. Structural headache, he'd called it. She'd prove him wrong. Tara had promised engineering numbers by Friday, and if they held up, those walkways would be the spine of the project, not just a flourish. She wouldn't let him sand her edges down, not when she'd fought so hard to keep them sharp.
Her phone buzzed on the desk, snapping her out of her focus. She glanced at the screen—an unknown number, no name attached. A text, short and cryptic: The tech deal wasn't what you think. Check the dates. Elise frowned, her thumb hovering over the message. No signature, no context, just those two sentences glowing in the dim light. Her first instinct was to dismiss it as spam, some random glitch in the universe, but something about the wording—tech deal—hooked into the raw nerve Mia's email had exposed. She set the stylus down, her pulse ticking up a notch, and reread it. Check the dates. What dates? The project timeline from three years ago? The email Mia had found?
She opened her laptop, pulling up the timeline she'd started last night—a meticulous reconstruction of that lost tech mogul deal. Meetings, revisions, pitches, all logged from memory and the scraps Mia had unearthed. She scrolled to the email in question, the one from the mogul's assistant to Voss & Associates: Per our discussion, revised proposal incoming. Client's leaning toward a shift. The timestamp glared back at her—March 15th, 10:32 a.m. She'd lost the deal a week later, on March 22nd, when the mogul's team had gone silent, only to resurface with Julian's contract announcement. She'd always assumed he'd swooped in at the last minute, but this email suggested groundwork laid earlier. And now this text, nudging her to dig deeper.
Elise leaned back, her chair creaking under her weight, and stared at the ceiling. Shadows danced across the exposed beams, mirroring the tangle in her mind. Who'd sent it? Someone from the mogul's team, maybe, with a belated pang of conscience? A rival firm stirring the pot? Or—her stomach twisted—someone closer, someone who knew how much that betrayal still stung? She typed a quick reply: Who is this? What dates? But the message bounced back, undeliverable, the number already dead. A burner, then. Anonymous and gone.
She stood, pacing the length of her desk, her bare feet silent against the concrete floor. The text was a spark, igniting questions she'd buried under years of anger. Julian had claimed it wasn't personal, just business, that the client had come to him. But if he'd been in talks before her pitch collapsed—if those dates lined up wrong—it wasn't just opportunism. It was sabotage. And now, with the waterfront project tying them together, the past wasn't just a grudge; it was a weapon she could wield if she could prove it.
Her coffee from the meeting sat cold on the desk, but she grabbed it anyway, needing the jolt. She took a sip, grimacing at the stale bitterness, and sat back down, pulling the client's brief closer. Work was her anchor—she'd focus there, let the text simmer in the background until she had more to go on. She flipped to the site specs, cross-referencing them with her hybrid sketch, but her mind kept drifting, tugged back to that mysterious hint like a tide she couldn't resist.
The door creaked open, and Tara poked her head in, her dark curls damp from the mist outside. "You're still here?" she asked, stepping inside with a stack of folders under her arm. "Thought you'd have bolted after today's circus."
"Couldn't," Elise said, forcing a half-smile. "Too much to do. You?"
"Engineers sent prelims," Tara replied, dropping the folders onto the desk. "Nothing solid yet—just ballpark figures on your walkways—but they're doable. Expensive, but doable. I'll have more by Friday."
Elise nodded, a flicker of relief cutting through her tension. "Good. I need ammo to shove in Julian's face. He's already trying to choke the life out of this thing."
Tara chuckled, settling into the chair across from her. "He's predictable, I'll give him that. But you held your own today. That hybrid idea—Mia's save, your execution—it's a start. Claire bought it."
"Barely," Elise muttered, her fingers tapping the tablet. "It's a lifeline, not a win. Julian's blocks are still in there, dragging it down."
"Dragging it into reality," Tara countered, her tone gentle but firm. "You know I'm on your side, but Claire's right—we need both. Your fire, his footing. It's a balancing act."
Elise sighed, rubbing her temple. "I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"You don't," Tara agreed, then tilted her head, studying her. "Something else bugging you? You've got that look—like you're chewing on more than just Julian's nonsense."
Elise hesitated, her thumb brushing the edge of her phone. Tara was her rock, the one person she trusted without question, but the text felt too raw, too uncertain to share yet. "Just tired," she said finally, deflecting. "Long day."
Tara didn't push, just nodded and stood. "Get some rest, then. We've got a week to make this sing. I'll handle the engineers—you handle the genius part."
"Deal," Elise said, managing a real smile this time. Tara left, the door clicking shut behind her, and the silence settled back in, heavier now with the weight of that unanswered text.
Elise opened her phone again, staring at the message. Check the dates. She flipped back to her timeline, scanning every entry, every fragment she'd pieced together. March 10th: final pitch meeting with the mogul's team, all smiles and promises. March 12th: revisions sent, glowing feedback received. March 15th: that email to Voss & Associates. March 22nd: the deal's death knell. She frowned, her mind racing. If Julian's team had been in talks by the 15th, they'd overlapped her pitch window—days before she'd lost contact. It didn't prove he'd orchestrated it, but it smelled wrong, like a thread she could pull until the whole thing unraveled.
She switched to her email, firing off a quick note to Mia: Dig deeper into the tech deal backups. Anything with dates around March 10-22. Keep it quiet. Mia wouldn't ask questions—not yet—and Elise needed more before she could act. The text was a clue, a breadcrumb, and she'd follow it wherever it led.
Her coffee was gone now, the cup empty, but she didn't care. She turned back to the hybrid sketch, refining the towers' angles, sharpening the walkways' curves. Work was her refuge, her strength, and she'd pour everything into it—every ounce of anger, every spark of doubt. Julian might think he had the upper hand, with his polished pitches and easy charm, but she'd show him. She'd build something undeniable, something he couldn't touch, and if that text meant what she suspected, she'd bury him with it.
The mist thickened outside, blurring the city into a haze of lights and shapes. Elise worked on, the hours slipping away, her tablet glowing in the dark office. Tomorrow, she'd face Julian again—another meeting, another clash—but tonight, she was alone with her plans and her secrets. The text buzzed in her mind like a live wire, a promise of revelation she couldn't ignore. She'd find the truth, she told herself, her jaw tightening. And when she did, she'd make sure Julian Voss regretted ever stepping into her world.