ANYA'S POV
The door closed behind me.
And suddenly—I could feel it. Not hear, not see, but feel.
Eyes. Dozens of them, weighted with a collective, sharp curiosity that made the hair on my arms stand up. I took three steps forward before the reality of the floor hit me like a physical wall.
The entire department had stopped pretending I didn't exist.
Keyboards slowed to a rhythmic crawl. Conversations dipped into hushed, jagged static. Heads tilted just enough to catch my silhouette. I was no longer the girl from the North District; I was a glitch in their perfect, sterile system.
Normal pace. Neutral face. You are calm. You are definitely not wearing the CEO's charcoal coat like you just got claimed in 4K resolution.
Whispers sliced through the air like invisible blades.
"…that's her."
"She came out of his office."
"Is she wearing his coat?"
"I told you she wasn't just an encoder."
I reached my desk and sat down, opening my monitor with the kind of focus usually reserved for bomb disposal. Because obviously—if I stared at the code hard enough—maybe I'd evaporate.
I adjusted the collar of the coat. Mistake. Now I looked like I was hiding something. Which I was. A dark, throbbing brand that felt like it was glowing through the fabric.
I looked like a girl who had just survived a tiger attack and decided to wear the tiger's skin as a souvenir.
A shadow fell over my desk.
I slowly looked up, my heart doing a panicky stutter-step.
It wasn't a guard. It wasn't one of the shark-eyed executives. He looked younger, wearing a suit that was sharp but didn't feel like a weapon. He was smiling—a real, human expression that felt entirely out of place in a building full of robots.
"Hi," he said casually, placing a small, rectangular box on my desk.
I blinked. "A… scarf?"
I lifted the lid. It was silk. Neutral-toned. Expensive enough that I felt like I needed to wash my hands before touching it.
"What's this for?" I asked, my voice a bit too high.
He didn't answer with words. Instead, he lifted his hand and pointed a single finger to the side of his own neck.
My brain caught up in agonizing slow motion. The mark.
Heat rushed to my face so fast I thought I might actually combust on the spot. My hand moved instinctively, shielding the spot where Kenji's teeth had been.
He saw. Of course he saw. Everyone saw.
"Mr. Kenji Tanaka doesn't usually leave evidence," he said lightly, his voice hushed. "You're a first."
"I wasn't—" I started, then stopped. What was I going to say? I wasn't getting aggressively branded by my boss like a territorial animal? "Thanks," I muttered, picking up the silk.
It was soft. Warm. Safe. I wrapped it around my neck, tucking it under the coat's collar. It was a shield, but a very subtle one.
The man watched, then nodded once. "Better. You'll need more than silk to survive the next week, though."
I looked at him, really looked. He didn't look afraid. He didn't look predatory. He looked like someone who had been in the trenches and survived.
"I guess I just got a new friend?" I asked, a small, awkward smile tugging at my lips.
He huffed a quiet, dry laugh. "Don't say that too loudly, Anya. It tends to shorten lifespans around here."
He gave me one last, knowing look—then walked away like he hadn't just stepped into the middle of a war zone.
I sat there, my fingers resting on the keys. The whispers hadn't stopped; they'd just gotten sharper. More focused. I wasn't being ignored anymore. I was being evaluated.
My mind drifted to the gala. The estate. The Chairman.
I had one week to survive before I was thrown to the wolves at the Tanaka ancestral home. One week to figure out if Mr. Tanaka was protecting me or preparing me to be the ultimate distraction.
I adjusted the scarf one last time.
How hard could one week be?
KENJI'S POV
I watched her through the glass.
She was wearing the scarf. She was hiding the mark.
Good. Let the office speculate. Let them build a thousand lies about what happens behind my closed doors. In this building, uncertainty is the only real form of security.
I looked down at the letter from my father. The red wax was a stain on my desk—a reminder that the old man was finally reaching for the one variable I hadn't accounted for.
I reached for my phone, my thumb hovering over a contact I rarely used.
"The girl is visible," I said the moment the line clicked open. No greeting. No pleasantries.
"I heard," the voice on the other end replied. Low. Rough. "The Chairman doesn't make casual invitations, Kenji. He's going to test her."
"He's going to try to break her," I corrected.
"And if she breaks?"
I looked at Anya through the glass. She was typing again, her shoulders set in that stubborn, North District line. She was terrified, but she was still moving.
I felt a pull in my chest—a dark, jagged need that had nothing to do with logic.
"She won't," I said, my voice dropping into a lethal register.
"You sound certain."
"Because this time, I'm the one who decides she lives."
I ended the call and stood up.
The ancestral estate wasn't a place for mistakes. If Anya walked through those gates as she was, she would be walking into a grave.
My father didn't believe in coincidences, and he certainly didn't believe in mercy for the bloodline she carried.
If they found out who she really was—if they discovered whose blood truly ran through her veins—she wouldn't just be humiliated.
She would be executed on the spot.
I have seven days.
Seven days to strip away the girl and replace her with a mask they can't penetrate. Seven days to bury her father's legacy under a mountain of Tanaka lies.
I watched her through the one-way glass—marked, hidden, and entirely unaware that her true identity is a death sentence.
She thinks the office was a war.
She has no idea that I'm not training her to win.
I'm training her to breathe.