Elena POVElena couldn't breathe without practicing how Sophie Morgan would breathe.
She stood in front of her mirror on Sunday night, four hours before the interview, and watched a stranger look back at her. Short black hair styled differently. Different makeup. Different posture. Sophie Morgan had a straighter spine than Elena Park. Sophie Morgan didn't flinch.
"Hi, I'm Sophie Morgan," Elena said to the mirror. Then again in the accent she'd been practicing. Neutral American with just a hint of Midwest. The kind of voice that didn't stand out. The kind of person people forgot after meeting them.
"I've been looking forward to working with you," Elena continued. She kept her eyes steady. She didn't blink too much. She didn't smile too wide.
Sophie Morgan was calm. Sophie Morgan was professional. Sophie Morgan wasn't terrified.
Elena had spent three days preparing. She'd memorized Sophie's entire fake history. The jobs Sophie had worked. The companies Sophie had worked for. The people who would answer the phone and confirm Sophie existed. She knew Sophie's education. Her hobbies. Her preferences. She could talk about Sophie's life like Sophie's life was real.
Because for the next few months, it had to be.
She'd also spent three days researching Nathan Cross until she could see him when she closed her eyes.
Photos of him at business conferences. Articles about his company. Videos of interviews where he talked about innovation and the future of technology. Nathan was intelligent. The kind of smart that made you understand he was thinking three steps ahead of everyone in the room.
He was also beautiful in a way that made Elena's chest tight.
Dark hair always perfect. Dark eyes that looked cold and calculating. Sharp jawline like someone had carved him out of expensive stone. He wore tailored suits that probably cost more than Elena's monthly rent. He moved like he owned every room he walked into.
The news said he'd transformed Ashcroft Innovations into a tech empire worth ten billion dollars. The news called him a visionary. A genius. The future of technology.
The news didn't mention the money laundering. The bribery. The operations that destroyed lives.
Elena had found one photo from a charity event last year. Nathan standing next to a man with a scarred face. The man had dead eyes. The kind of eyes that had seen terrible things and done worse ones.
Dimitri Volkov.
They were smiling at the camera like brothers. Like friends. Like Dimitri was someone Nathan trusted completely.
Elena's stomach had turned when she saw that photo. She'd stared at it for an hour. At the way Nathan's hand was on Dimitri's shoulder. At the way they looked comfortable together. At the way it proved everything Marcus had said was true.
Nathan wasn't the villain. He was trapped. And the man holding him prisoner looked like something that could eat the world and ask for seconds.
Elena closed the mirror and lay down on her bed. Tomorrow she would walk into Ashcroft Tower. Tomorrow she would sit across from Nathan Cross and pretend to be someone she wasn't. Tomorrow she would take the first step toward destroying everything he'd built.
She should have felt powerful. She should have felt ready.
Instead she felt like she was walking toward something dangerous and she couldn't stop.
Monday arrived too fast.
Elena put on the expensive suit she'd bought. Charcoal gray. Professional. The kind of thing Sophie Morgan would wear. She spent an hour on her makeup. Not too much. Just enough. She practiced her breathing exercises while sitting in her car before driving to Ashcroft Tower.
The building was a glass and steel monster that climbed into the sky. Forty-two floors of money and power and secrets. Elena parked and sat in the car for five minutes, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles went white.
This was it. This was the moment where everything changed.
She grabbed her bag and stepped out.
The lobby of Ashcroft Tower was exactly what Elena expected. All marble and expensive art and people in suits who looked important. The security guard at the front desk checked her in. "Forty-second floor. Interview at three. Mr. Cross's office."
Elena nodded like her heart wasn't trying to escape her chest.
She walked toward the elevators. She was almost there when she saw him.
Nathan Cross was standing in the middle of the lobby talking to someone on his phone. He wore a charcoal suit that probably cost more than Elena's car. His dark hair was perfect. His expression was cold and focused on whatever the person on the phone was saying.
He was taller than his photos showed.
Elena tried to walk past him without looking. She was five feet away from the elevator when she felt it. The weight of his attention. Like something physical had just turned in her direction.
She looked up instinctively and their eyes met.
Nathan's eyes were darker than she expected. Not just dark. Black. The kind of black that could swallow you whole. The kind of eyes that saw everything. The kind of eyes that didn't miss anything.
He was looking at her like he was reading something written on her skin. Like he could see through the Sophie Morgan disguise into the Elena Park underneath. Like he knew exactly who she was and exactly what she was planning.
His expression didn't change. He was still talking to whoever was on the phone. But his eyes were locked on hers and Elena felt all the air leave the room.
He can't possibly know, Elena told herself. It's impossible. He just met you. He has no reason to suspect anything.
But something in the way he was looking at her made her understand that maybe she was wrong. Maybe she'd already made a mistake. Maybe the disguise wasn't good enough.
Nathan held her gaze for another second. Then he looked away, his attention back on his phone call, and Elena felt like she could breathe again.
She stepped into the elevator with shaking hands and pressed the button for the forty-second floor.
As the doors closed, she caught her reflection in the polished metal. Sophie Morgan stared back at her. Professional. Calm. Put together.
But inside, Elena Park was falling apart.
Because in that moment when Nathan had looked at her, something had shifted. Something had changed. And Elena couldn't explain why the way he'd looked at her made her feel less like a hunter stalking prey and more like prey that had just realized the predator was already hunting her.
The elevator climbed toward the forty-second floor and Elena tried to convince herself that she was wrong.
She was wrong about the way he looked at her.
She was wrong about the feeling in her stomach.
She was wrong about the fact that maybe Nathan Cross already knew exactly who she was.
But as the elevator doors opened and she stepped out into the hallway outside his office, Elena knew she was lying to herself.
Something wasn't right. Something had already gone wrong.
And it was too late to stop it now.