You never really know how far you'll go until someone you love is dying.
The first thing Mei Lin stole was a bottle of her brother's antibiotics.
She was nine. The pharmacist wanted cash. Mei gave him fear.
Her parents had just died in a car accident. Aiden was burning with fever. She still remembered how her hands shook as she slipped the small brown bottle into her pocket, feeling both guilt and relief.
That was the first time.
She thought life would get better after that.
She was wrong.
Now, at twenty-four, Mei was still stealing only this time, it wasn't medicine. It was secrets. Dangerous, billion-dollar secrets.
She didn't even want them. She just wanted her brother alive.
Two weeks ago, the message had appeared like a ghost on her old laptop. No sender. No trace.
BLACK SWAN:
You've been caught. Clever, but not clever enough.
We own the forgery you used to cover your brother's hospital debt.
One job. Infiltrate NEUROX. Steal the root key to their AI defense system: LUCENT.
You have ninety days. Succeed, and we pay your brother's bills. Fail and we switch off his oxygen.
She'd stared at the words, her pulse thundering in her ears.
They knew. Somehow, they had found the one mistake she'd made last year, when she hacked the hospital's billing system to wipe out Aiden's account.
If she refused, she'd lose him. If she agreed, she'd lose herself.
The very next day, she got an email from Neurox's HR department: Congratulations, you've been shortlisted.
Black Swan didn't give you time to think. They just moved you like a chess piece.
Now, Mei stood inside the glass elevator of Neurox Tower, rising into a building that felt like it didn't welcome mistakes.
The walls were steel and glass. Every floor was silent. Employees walked quickly, eyes forward, dressed in black and navy. No chatter. No laughter.
This was a world built for precision.
She glanced at her reflection in the elevator's mirror: smooth bun, white blouse, black pencil skirt, small gold studs in her ears. Her makeup was soft but deliberate warm enough to be approachable, sharp enough to be taken seriously.
She looked like she belonged here. She didn't.
Underneath the neat shell was the same girl who used to take apart firewalls for fun, who once swapped passwords for candy in high school, who could break into a system faster than she could open her front door.
Now she was here to break into something much bigger.
"Third floor," the elevator AI chimed.
Mei stepped out, heels clicking softly on the polished floor, and approached the reception desk. The woman there glanced at her badge, typed something into her console, and said:
"Mr. Wolfe will see you shortly."
Her stomach knotted.
Kieran Wolfe. Billionaire. CEO of Neurox. Cold. Brilliant. Her target.
The man she was supposed to seduce.
The man she was supposed to destroy.
She glanced at her phone. A new message had arrived in the private encrypted app Black Swan had installed.
BLACK SWAN:
Today, you smile. You listen. You get assigned.
Day 3: Get near a Lucent terminal.
Day 10: Get the root key.
Day 12: You're out.
A second message followed:
He likes pretty distractions. Be one.
She locked the screen quickly, aware that cameras were everywhere.
The receptionist's phone buzzed. She lifted it, spoke quietly, then gestured toward a dark wooden door.
"You can go in now."
Mei straightened her blouse, smoothed her skirt, and walked toward the door. Her palms were suddenly damp, which annoyed her. She'd done far scarier things than this.
She had kissed boys to get their USB drives. Lied to police officers in three different countries. Once, she'd sat in a government data center with fake credentials for two hours, copying files.
This was just a man. Just a job. Just another mask.
The office was big enough to swallow her apartment whole. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the city skyline. A long marble desk dominated the room.
And leaning against that desk was Kieran Wolfe.
He was exactly what she expected and not at all what she expected.
Dark suit, perfect fit. Crisp white shirt. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a file. His black hair was neat, his jaw sharp, his posture relaxed but alert.
There was nothing soft about him not in his expression, not in his eyes.
And yet…
There was something that caught her off guard. Not warmth, exactly. But presence.
The kind that made you forget the room you were in.
"Miss Lin," he said without looking up from the file.
His voice was low, clean, and cool. The kind of voice that told you he didn't need to raise it to be obeyed.
"Sir," she replied, matching his blank tone.
He finally looked at her.
Their eyes met for one slow, brutal second.
His stare was unreadable.
Her heart traitor that it was skipped.
Then he closed the file, set it down, and said:
"You'll need more than a smile to survive here."
And just like that, he turned and walked toward a second door.
Mei's throat felt tight.
That one sentence shouldn't have shaken her, but it did. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't even particularly sharp.
It was something else. Something that made her wonder if he'd seen more of her than she wanted.
She followed him, her heels tapping on the polished floor.
The game had begun.