The alarm blared through the Cole Industries tower just as the sun began to rise over the city skyline.
Elena jolted awake to the vibration of her phone. A flood of missed calls from Sophie and Ryan filled her screen. She threw on her jacket, heart racing, and rushed out of her apartment.
When she reached the building, smoke was curling from the lower levels l, faint but real. Fire trucks lined the entrance, lights flashing red and white against the glass. Employees were scattered outside, talking anxiously in hushed voices.
Sophie ran to her. "They said it started in the data wing; where Phoenix's backups were stored."
Elena froze. "The Phoenix backups? That's impossible. The servers are in a climate-controlled chamber with triple fail-safes."
Sophie swallowed hard. "Someone bypassed them all."
Inside, the once-sterile lab was chaos. The walls were scorched, the acrid scent of burnt plastic filling the air. Firefighters moved around in reflective gear, spraying the last of the flames.
Elena's throat tightened as she stepped closer to the ruined racks of metal and melted wires.
It wasn't an accident.
She could see the pattern immediately; the precision of the ignition points, the missing surveillance angles. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing.
She turned sharply when she heard footsteps behind her. Adrian was there, sleeves rolled up, soot smudging his white shirt, eyes dark with exhaustion and fury.
"What the hell happened?" he demanded.
Elena held his gaze. "You already know. Someone wanted Phoenix dead."
He ran a hand through his hair. "The system logs are gone, wiped before the fire started. Hale's people are claiming it was a power surge."
She scoffed. "A power surge doesn't start three fires simultaneously in sealed rooms."
He didn't argue , he just stared at the blackened remains, jaw tight.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence between them was heavy, the kind that carries too much history to fill with small talk.
Finally, Adrian turned to her, voice low. "Elena… I'll fix this."
She shook her head. "No, Adrian. We'll fix this. But I need full access to everything. No restrictions."
"That's dangerous," he said immediately.
"So is pretending this isn't sabotage."
Their eyes met; the same battle as before, two strong wills colliding — but there was something different this time. Beneath her defiance, he saw the old fire that had once drawn him to her. Beneath his restraint, she saw the man who had once promised her the world.
After a long pause, he sighed. "Fine. You'll have full clearance by noon."
She nodded. "Good. Because I'm not losing Phoenix again."
Later that afternoon, Elena sat alone in a temporary workspace, examining the fragments of recovered data. Most of it was corrupted, but there were traces, ghost files that hinted at remote access through an unregistered port.
She frowned, tracing the network trail. It bounced across multiple international proxies before looping back… to an internal device.
Her heart skipped.
Someone inside Cole Industries was feeding information out.
Before she could dig deeper, a knock sounded at her door.
Ryan stepped in, his usual easy smile subdued. "Heard about the fire. You okay?"
Elena looked up, managing a faint smile. "I'm fine. Just angry."
"Good. Anger's better than fear." He sat across from her, leaning forward. "I've been looking into Hale, your hunch was right. He's been buying quiet shares in a shell company registered overseas. Guess what it's called?"
"What?"
"Phoenix Global."
Elena's blood ran cold. "He's trying to steal the project and use it outside Cole Industries."
Ryan nodded grimly. "And if he does, Adrian takes the fall."
Elena stood abruptly, her mind spinning. Hale wasn't just sabotaging Phoenix, he was building his own version, using her old data. And if Adrian was being set up…
She turned to Ryan. "I need proof. Enough to expose Hale to the board."
Ryan frowned. "That's risky, Elena. Hale's not someone you corner easily."
"I don't have a choice," she said quietly. "He already burned my work once. I won't let him burn me again."
That night, Adrian reviewed the footage from the fire one more time. Nothing. Every feed from the data wing cut out five minutes before the first alarm.
Then his screen flickered.
A single frame appeared — static-filled, low resolution. But in the corner of the image, near the server racks, stood a silhouette.
Female.
He leaned closer, zooming in.
She was wearing a dark blazer, her hair pulled back.
It couldn't be
"Elena?" he whispered.
He replayed the clip, but it vanished, replaced by the blank timestamp again.
He sat back, rubbing his temples. Someone was trying to make it look like she started the fire.
And whoever they were, they wanted him to believe it.
The next morning, Elena entered the building to find whispers trailing behind her. She could feel it; the stares, the subtle silence when she passed.
Sophie hurried up to her, pale. "There's a rumor… they think you might've"
"I know," Elena interrupted softly.
She kept walking until she reached Adrian's office. She didn't knock.
He was already there, waiting; tired, guarded, conflicted.
"Someone sent me this," he said, sliding a flash drive across the desk. "I think you should see it."
Elena plugged it in. The same grainy image filled the screen, her, or someone who looked like her, standing near the servers before the fire.
Her hands trembled slightly. "That's not me."
"I know," he said.
She looked up, startled.
"I don't believe it's you," he continued, voice steady. "But someone wants me to."
Their eyes locked, something unspoken passing between them — trust, fragile and real.
For the first time since her return, she felt it again, that strange, aching warmth that came from knowing someone still saw her truth when the world didn't.
Outside the office, Hale watched from the security monitors, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips.
"Perfect," he murmured. "Let them stand together. It makes the fall so much sweeter."
He turned off the feed and picked up his phone. "Proceed with Phase Two. Make sure Adrian finds what she's hiding."
That night, Elena stared out of her apartment window, city lights flickering below like dying stars. She was exhausted, her mind spinning with questions, guilt, and anger.
Then her phone buzzed. A message.
Unknown Number:
You can't rebuild from ashes.
Her pulse quickened. She typed back without thinking.
Who are you? What do you want?
A pause. Then the reply came:
To finish what we started.
Elena's blood ran cold.
She dropped her phone and whispered, "Oh God… it's starting again."