The penthouse was silent. The air, thick. Eleven o'clock at night. Elara Meng sat on the sofa, flipping through an art book, but the letters danced meaninglessly before her eyes. Her heart hammered against her ribs, each beat a drum in the stillness. The two bodyguards stood in the corner of the room, black, emotionless shadows, their eyes never leaving her. They were the visible links of this gilded cage. Every passing minute felt like a century.
At exactly eleven, a faint vibration emanated from her closet. She felt it through the floorboards. The "clean" phone—an old, non-smart model she'd hidden in a secret compartment. The message had arrived.
Now for the hardest part: retrieving it.
She stood, stretching languidly, feigning a small yawn. "I'm a bit tired. I think I'll turn in early."
One of the guards nodded, his face a mask. "Mr. Huo instructed us to ensure Ms. Meng is well-rested."
Elara walked toward the bedroom. She could feel their eyes fixed on her back, tracking her every step. The bedroom door clicked shut behind her, a dry, final sound. But she knew the door meant nothing. There were cameras everywhere.
She entered the walk-in closet, a vast space lined with luxurious wardrobes. This was the only blind spot she had found after months of observation—a small corner where an open cabinet door would block the camera's view for a few precious seconds.
Her heart pounded harder. She reached out, swung the cabinet door open, obscuring the camera's lens. Quick as a flash, she slipped her hand into the hidden panel and pulled out the old phone. The screen lit up.
A text from an unknown number.
No greeting, just an address and a short line of text:
"Port Sterling Archives, Section B, Shelf 14, year 1998. Find the article on the Vesper Labs fire."
Below it was another line, like a personal note, that made her breath catch in her throat.
"Be careful of the phoenix. Sometimes it doesn't rise from the ashes. It creates them."
The phoenix... always the phoenix. Elara's heart tightened. Vesper Labs? The name was terrifyingly familiar, like a memory clawing its way up from a deep abyss. She quickly deleted the message, powered down the phone, and hid it back in its place, all in the few seconds before she swung the cabinet door shut.
When she stepped out of the walk-in closet, a tall figure was standing at the bedroom door.
Kian Huo. He had been there for who knows how long, silent as a ghost.
"You seem busy," he said, his tone casual, but his eyes were sharp as daggers, scanning every micro-expression on her face, searching as if to read her very thoughts.
"Just picking out a dress for tomorrow," Elara replied, her voice steady, forcing her pulse not to betray her. "Did I disturb your sleep?"
"No," he stepped into the room, moving closer. His signature scent of sandalwood enveloped her, a false comfort and an unspoken threat. "I just wanted to make sure you were sleeping well."
He reached out, his fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek. The gesture was horrifically intimate. "You know, Elara," he whispered, his voice low and suggestive, "the more you try to hide something, the more beautiful you become."
"Then I suppose I have you to thank," she looked up, meeting his gaze directly, a challenging smile playing on her lips. "For giving me so much to hide."
The tension between them was almost palpable, thick in the air. He said nothing more, just turned silently and left, leaving her alone in the suffocating room.
Elara let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. He suspected. She knew he suspected. But he had no proof.
She had to get to those archives. Immediately.
The next day, she used the excuse of needing old reference materials on legendary ballerinas for a new choreography. It was the perfect alibi. Kian agreed with surprising ease, but on the condition that one of his most trusted bodyguards accompany her.
The old newspaper archives. Dusty. Damp. A complete contrast to her lavish world. Thousands of old newspapers were stacked like miniature skyscrapers, carrying the scent of time and forgotten stories. Elara felt the air press in on her, as if all the buried truths were weighing her down.
The bodyguard waited at the entrance, his gaze sharp as a hawk's. Elara walked deep into Section B, following the address from the text. Shelf 14. Her heart hammered against her ribs, the sound echoing in her ears. She found the stack for 1998, flipping through the yellowed pages, brittle beneath her fingertips. The smell of old paper was sharp in her nostrils.
And then she found it.
A small article in a buried corner, almost unnoticeable.
"Unusual fire at Vesper Labs, a biotechnology subsidiary of Huo Enterprises. Cause under investigation. A single fatality reported, a researcher..."
The article didn't name the researcher. But next to it was a small, grainy photograph of the fire's aftermath. Amidst the charred ruins, something had caught the photographer's lens.
It was a piece of metal, twisted by the heat but still recognizable.
A butterfly-shaped hairpin.
Identical to her mother's.