The morning light felt heavier than usual — gray, quiet, and full of things unsaid.
Adrian sat on the edge of his glass desk, his shirt sleeves rolled up, the veins in his forearm tense. Lena stood near the window, her arms wrapped around herself, watching the city disappear beneath the fog.
Neither had slept.
After last night, silence was all that was left — a silence filled with ghosts.
Finally, she turned to him. "You said I was there that night. I need you to tell me everything, Adrian. No more pieces."
He looked up at her — the woman whose name had haunted his life long before he ever met her.
"I was twenty-two," he began quietly. "Marcus called me to his office after midnight. Said he needed to show me something about the future of the company. But when I got there… the place was already burning."
Lena's breath caught.
"I heard someone screaming," he continued, voice breaking. "It wasn't my father. It was a man — your father. He was shouting your name."
"My father?"
Adrian nodded. "You ran in after him. I remember seeing you through the smoke — a kid, terrified, trying to pull him out. He pushed you away and locked the door. I went after you, dragged you out before the ceiling collapsed."
She stared at him, trembling. "You're saying I was inside that building?"
"Yes. You saved my life that night. You don't remember, but you did."
She sank into the nearest chair, her hands shaking. "Then how did I forget?"
Adrian hesitated. "That's the part I can't explain. You were unconscious for days. When you woke up, your memory was gone — wiped clean. The doctors said it was trauma. But I've never believed that."
"Why?"
He met her eyes. "Because the fire wasn't an accident. It was meant to erase something — or someone."
---
Lena's gaze drifted toward the city skyline, where smoke from the factory district blurred the horizon. "You said someone screamed my name. What if that wasn't my father?"
Adrian frowned. "What are you saying?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. But I keep seeing flashes — a silver bracelet, a man with a gun, and… a voice telling me to run."
Her voice faltered. "It wasn't my father's."
Adrian leaned forward. "What else do you remember?"
"Fire. And someone pulling me." She looked at him. "You."
He exhaled slowly. "Yes."
---
She stood and walked toward him, her expression full of disbelief and pain. "So all this time, the reason you hired me, the reason you couldn't stay away — it was because I saved you?"
His eyes softened. "No, Lena. That's where it began. But it's not why you matter now."
She let out a weak laugh. "You make it sound so noble."
"It's not," he said simply. "It's selfish. I wanted to protect you because you were the only person who ever did that for me."
---
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Lena said, "There's something you're still not telling me."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "You don't want to know."
"Yes, I do."
He sighed and reached into his drawer, pulling out a worn black folder. "This was hidden in Marcus's private vault. I didn't even know it existed until after his death."
He opened it, revealing charred papers, photographs, and a single label burned into the front: PROJECT PHOENIX.
Lena's blood ran cold. "What is that?"
"I don't know," Adrian said. "But every document inside mentions one name."
He turned the last page toward her.
Her name was typed across the top in bold, unmissable letters.
SUBJECT: LENA HART.
---
She stumbled back, shaking her head. "No. No, that doesn't make sense."
"It does if Marcus was experimenting on people," Adrian said quietly. "And if your father found out."
"Experimenting?" she whispered.
He nodded grimly. "Biometric research — memory suppression, trauma erasure. He wanted to create a way to delete guilt from the human brain."
Lena pressed a hand over her mouth. "You think he used me?"
"I think your father tried to stop him."
Tears welled in her eyes. "My father wouldn't have let that happen."
Adrian's expression softened. "Maybe he didn't know until it was too late."
---
The silence stretched until it felt unbearable.
Finally, Adrian said, "There's something else." He reached under the last paper in the folder and pulled out a photograph — old, faded, slightly burned.
It showed a teenage girl with soot on her face, eyes full of fear — and an arm wrapped protectively around a boy.
The boy was him.
The girl was her.
Lena stared at the image, her throat closing. "I remember that," she whispered. "That's… that's me."
Adrian's voice broke. "You were the woman who saved me, Lena. Long before you knew my name."
---
Outside, thunder rolled again, echoing through the skyline.
Lena took a trembling step backward. "If that's true… then what else am I forgetting?"
Adrian met her eyes, his voice a low whisper. "Everything they erased to keep you quiet."