Maya stepped through the revolving doors. The lobby was vast. A reception desk the size of a small room. A wall of windows that turned the fading sunlight into gold.
Employees crossing the floor with files and coffee. Visitors waiting on leather sofas. Two security guards near the elevators.
A woman at reception speaking into a headset.
Maya walked in.
A man in a gray suit stopped mid-step near the elevators. A woman carrying a stack of folders paused at the reception desk.
They had all seen Fahad Sunayana walk through these doors a hundred times. But the girl beside him — Small. Gloved. Walking half a step behind him. No one knew who she was.
Fahad walked past reception without stopping. The woman at the desk opened her mouth — "Sir, good evening—"
The security guard stepped forward. "Sir, do you need—"
"No."
The guard stepped back..... Fahad pressed the elevator button. The doors opened immediately.
He stepped inside. Maya stepped in after him.
The doors closed. The lobby exhaled — The woman at reception leaned toward the guard. "Who was that?"
The guard shook his head slowly. "I have no idea."
The elevator rose in silence. Fahad stood with his hands in his pockets, eyes on the floor numbers ticking upward. Maya stood beside him, hands folded, eyes on the doors.
"You didn't ask where we're going."
Maya didn't turn. "You'll tell me when we get there."
Fahad glanced at her. "...You do that a lot."
"Do what?"
"Not ask questions."
Maya was quiet for a second. "Questions make people uncomfortable."
"Not asking them makes people more uncomfortable."
The elevator dinged, the floor was quiet. A single corridor lined with glass-walled offices. Fahad opened it. The office was large.
Maya stepped inside and looked around.
Fahad walked to his desk and sat down. He gestured vaguely toward the sofa. "Sit."
Maya sat.
Fahad opened his laptop. For a moment, he just looked at the screen — emails, reports, numbers.
Then Maya spoke. "Why did you bring me here?"
Fahad looked at her. "Because my father told me to take you out. And I don't know where else to take a fifteen-year-old girl. "
[ 07:15 PM ]
Fahad was reading through a stack of documents Rahat had placed beside him. His pen moved across the margins.
Rahat stood at his right shoulder, tablet in hand.
"Singapore branch needs approval by tomorrow morning. They've sent the revised projections. Sir."
"Mmmm."
"The Dubai acquisition is still pending legal review. Their counsel wants a call on Thursday."
"Schedule it."
Rahat made a mark on his tablet. Then, carefully — very carefully — he glanced across the room.
And immediately looked away.
Because there, on the sofa, sat Maya, she looked deeply, profoundly, unspeakably miserable.
Not in an obvious way. Her face was still calm. Her expression was still unreadable. But if you looked closely —
You would have noticed the small, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of her eye.
The kind of twitch a person develops when they are being treated like a child and have decided, for reasons of survival, not to commit a felony.
On the low table in front of her sat, A phone...
Fahad's spare phone, which he had unlocked, opened to a cartoon game, already loaded.
He had placed it in her hands with the same tone he might use to hand a report to an assistant.
"Here."
Maya had looked at it. "What is this?"
"A phone."
"I know what a phone is, Mr. Fahad."
"Then you know what to do with it."
She had stared at him for a long moment. Then she had taken it. But that was not all — as if this were the most natural thing in the world —
He had reached into a drawer, pulled out a family-sized bag of chips, opened it himself, and placed it in her hands, "Eat."
Maya had stared at the bag. "I'm not hungry."
"You didn't eat lunch."
"I ate breakfast."
"That was eight hours ago."
"I'm fine."
Fahad had already turned away, walking back to his desk. "Eat."
And so Maya sat there now — holding an open bag of chips in one hand, staring at the phone on the table in front of her.
Her eye twitched again. This is ridiculous.
She was staring at the phone with the expression of a person who had once survived a war and was now being asked to watch a cartoon about sharing.
Yama's voice slid through her mind like a slow, delighted cat. Oh, oh. This is beautiful. This is art. Look at you. Look at what he's done to you.
Oh, this is so beautiful.
Maya did not respond.
You are sitting in a corner with a children's game and a safety scissors. In case you get any ideas about paper."
Maya blinked slowly.
You're not even fighting back. You're just sitting there. Eating chips. Staring at a phone. I think this is the most humiliating moment of your entire life.
Say something. Throw the phone at him. I would pay to see that. Do you know how long it's been since I've seen something interesting?
Maya's eye twitched again.
Fine. Be boring but you're thinking about it. I can tell. You're thinking about what his face would look like if you just — stood up and walked out into the city.
Disappeared. And he'd have to explain to his father how he lost his sister in the first day of arrival.
Maya's lips pressed together very slightly. You're considering it. I can see it. You're considering it. Do it. Do it. Do it.
Maya picked up another chip. "...You're impossible."
Rahat had worked for Fahad Sunayana for four years. But he had never — never — seen Fahad open a car door for anyone.
He had never seen Fahad buy chips . Fahad did not, as far as Rahat knew, even know what chips were. But he had sent Rahat out twenty minutes ago with a very specific instruction:
"Go to the convenience store. Buy chips. "
Rahat had stared at him. "Sir?"
"Chips, Rahat. Go."
He had gone. He had bought the chips. He had brought them back and he had watched — as Fahad opened one bag, handed it to Maya.
-----
The building should have been empty by now.
It wasn't. The night shift had grown not shrunk.
Analysts from the overseas desk had come up to finish quarterly reports . A team from finance had claimed the corner conference room, their voices muffled behind glass as they argued over numbers.
The elevator doors opened every few minutes, and someone new stepped out, coffee in hand, jacket slung over a shoulder.
The coffee machine hummed softly in the corner of the break room. A thin curl of steam rose from the carafe. Two women stood beside it, waiting.
Rima — three weeks into her transfer from the Ahaka branch — held her empty cup with both hands, frowning at the machine as though it had personally offended her.
"Ten o'clock," she muttered, checking her watch for the third time in five minutes. "It's almost eight and half the floor is still here. I thought this was supposed to be a normal Friday."
Beside her, Sadia—a compliance officer who had worked at the Sunayana headquarters for six years — reached past her and pressed the button for cappuccino. "It is normal."
"Normal?" Rima gestured vaguely toward the corridor, " Nobody told them to stay. Nobody said 'overtime approved.' They're just here."
"Mm-hmm."
"And nobody's complaining. It's like they want to be here."
Sadia smiled faintly. She picked up her cup and blew lightly across the surface. "That's because they do."
Rima stared at her. "Look," Sadia said, leaning back against the counter.
"You came from Ahaka, so you wouldn't know. This isn't a rule anyone wrote down. It's just… how things work here."
"That's not an explanation."
"It's the only one you're going to get." Sadia took a sip of her cappuccino. "Every Friday, the whole company stays. Every department. Every floor. Nobody leaves before ten. And nobody — not once, in years — has ever been told to stay."
Rima's brow furrowed. "So they just… do it?"
"They just do it."
"Why?"
"Because of Mr. Fahad Sunayana."
"Wait, The CEO? He's here? Tonight?"
Sadia picked up her cup again. "He doesn't leave before ten either. Not on Fridays. Not on any day, honestly. The man sleeps in that office."
Rima frowned. "But I heard Friday is a full holiday for the entire Sunayana family. Nobody works."
Sadia nodded, taking a slow sip of her cappuccino. "That's true. It is."
"Then why is he here?"
"Because he wants to be. He comes anyway."
Rima glanced toward the corridor, "And that's why everyone else stays?"
"Yes. He's the first one in and the last one out. Every single day. And when the people at the top work like that —" She shrugged.
"The ones below them start to feel like they should too... Out of respect. Or maybe out of guilt. I've never figured out which."
"That's…Terrifying."
Sadia laughed softly. "A little. But also — kind of beautiful. In a weird way."
"I don't see it."
"You will." Sadia took another sip of her coffee. "Give it a year."
Rima opened her mouth to ask another question — but before she could, a young woman walked past them. She was talking to a colleague beside her, her voice low but not quite low enough.
"—have you seen her? She's been in his office for over an hour."
"I know. I heard Hana from reception say she came in with him."
"Who is she?"
"Nobody knows. But she's wearing gloves. In this weather."
"Gloves?"
"I'm telling you. Full gloves. Both hands."
The two women disappeared around the corner, their voices fading into the hum of the corridor.
Rima stared after them. Then she turned back to Sadia, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and exhaustion.
"Everyone's been talking about a girl all evening," she said, rubbing her temple with two fingers.
"Ever since I came back from the meeting. The analysts, the finance team — even the woman at the reception desk. It's all anyone's been talking about."
She set her cup down with a soft clink. "I've heard it so many times tonight my head is starting to hurt. So what if a girl came in? People bring guests to the office all the time. It's not—"
A pause.
"I don't understand, Why is everyone talking about a girl?"
"Sir Fahad brought a girl to the office today."
Rima blinked. She stopped mid-sentence. "Sir Fahad? The CEO? Brought a girl? Like — a date? What the — Maybe she's a relative."
"That's what I thought at first. But then I heard about the chips."
"Chips?"
"Rahat — Sir Fahad's assistant — was sent to the convenience store downstairs. He bought bags of chips. And Sir Fahad opened one and handed it to her."
"Maybe she's his niece?"
"He doesn't have a niece. Not the Sunayanas. There are no girls in that family for two hundred years. Every single child born into that bloodline has been a son.
It's practically a legend in this city. And there was the first daughter born into that family in nearly two hundred years later. And she got kidnapped fourteen years ago.
Some say she was disappeared."
"Then who is she?"
Then a voice came from behind them — a man in a gray shirt, holding a stack of files, he worked in risk assessment. He had been listening quietly.
"Okay. I'm going to say it. Someone has to say it."
"Say what?"
"Relationship mess. That's what all of this is. Rich people relationship mess."
Rima's voice dropped to a sharp whisper. "Keep your voice down."
The man in the gray shirt blinked. He looked around — at the corridor, at the scattered employees, " Right...Right.. I am sorry."
Rima frowned. " And that's a bit harsh."
"It's not harsh. It's accurate. He's not wrong about the mess." Sadia folded her arms.
"Something is really going on here . Fifteen and twenty-three?That's a beautiful, expensive, well-dressed mess."
"But we don't know that's what it is."
"This is a situation where a man brings a girl into his office, gives her chips, sits her in a corner and walks behind her like a bodyguard. Maybe she's his girlfriend."
Rima blinked. "His what?"
"His girlfriend. Think about it. He's twenty-three. He's the most eligible bachelor in the country.
Every magazine has been trying to figure out who he's dating for three years. And no one has ever found out. Maybe she's... normal. And he's been hiding her."
"But she's fifteen. Sixteen, maybe."
"Look at the situation. A young girl. A powerful older man. He opens doors for her, takes her to his office. He keeps her close, what would you think?"
Rima made a face. "That's disgusting."
Sadia shrugged. "Unusual is what rich people do. You think rich familys cares about what's usual?"
She set down her cup. "Nowadays, rich people have worse messes than that."
Everyone turned. "Worse messes?"
"Much worse. You think a fifteen-year and a twenty-three-year-old walking together is strange?
I've worked in HR for nine years. I've seen many things."
"Like what?"
"I once worked for a family, I won't say the name — where the father had three children by three different women, and all three children lived in the same house.
And none of them knew they were siblings until they were adults, they thought they were cousins."
"That's not real."
"It's absolutely real. I saw the paperwork."
Silence.
"Then there was another family — a shipping family, where the grandfather had adopted his own illegitimate son so the boy could inherit without anyone knowing the truth.
The boy grew up thinking his father was his brother."
"That's insane."
"That's Tuesday in high society. You have no idea what goes on behind those walls. You think the Sunayana family is complicated? They're not complicated.
They're the least complicated rich family I've ever seen. They have one mother, one father, six sons and one missing daughter. That's it.
That's practically a fairy tale."
Shirin frowned. "But the age gap—"
"The age gap is nothing. The real messes are worse. The real messes are people who marry their cousins and don't know it.
People who adopt children and raise them as servants. People who hide pregnancies, hide children."
Nobody spoke.
Sadia picked up her tea and took a sip. "So yes, The fifteen-year-old and the twenty-three-year-old is strange but it's not strange.
And frankly, I'd rather have their mess than the messes I've seen."
The man in the gray shirt shifted his weight. He glanced down the corridor again, "For what it's worth, I hope I'm wrong."
Rima had been half-listening to the man , half-scrolling through her phone, when a sound reached her — Running. Fast, panicked.
Rima's head lifted. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you hear that?"
Sadia frowned, her cup pausing halfway to her lips. "Hear what?"
"Shh....Shhh." Rima held up a hand. "Listen."
And then the break room door slammed open.
A young man — one of the junior analysts from the overseas desk — stood in the doorway. His tie was crooked. His shirt was untucked on one side.
His chest heaved as though he had sprinted all the way from the Third floor. He bent over, one hand braced against the doorframe, gasping for air.
Rima was already on her feet, her chair scraping back against the floor. "What? What happened? Are you alright?"
The analyst shook his head, "No—not me. Something's wrong with the computers."
Sadia set down her tea with a sharp clink. "What do you mean, something's wrong?"
"I don't — I was at my desk. Working. And then my screen just changed. On its own .... I didn't touch anything. I swear I didn't touch anything."
"Changed how?"
"Words. Words appeared on my screen. I don't know what they said. I didn't — I couldn't even read them because I panicked and—"
He swallowed hard. "It's not just me. Priya's computer too And the whole overseas desk. Something is in our system."
For one heartbeat, no one spoke.
Rima's steps were quick as she pushed past the analyst and into the main floor.The monitors were glowing. But the atmosphere had changed.
People were standing at their desks. Some were staring at their screens with their hands raised, as though afraid to touch anything. Others were whispering to each other in low, urgent voices.
A woman from compliance was on her phone, her voice tight with barely controlled panic.
Rima crossed the floor to her own desk. Her computer was still on. The screen was still lit.
She exhaled — a small, shaky breath of relief — and reached for the keyboard. "Okay. Okay. Let me just—"
And then her screen flickered. Once. Twice. The spreadsheet she had been working on —
The quarterly compliance report she had spent three days compiling — dissolved before her eyes. And in their place, line of text appeared.
HELLO, FAHAD SUNAYANA.
Rima stared at it. Her hand, still resting on the keyboard, went completely still. "What the—"
She turned around, looking for the analyst, for Sadia, for anyone.
"Who did this? Who—" Her voice rose. "What is our security team doing? Where are the hackers? Where is IT?"
The analyst — still catching his breath near the break room, shook his head helplessly. "They're trying. They're all trying. But whatever this is— it's everywhere. Every floor. Every department."
Rima's jaw tightened. "Then someone needs to tell Sir Fahad. Right now."
She turned and ran.
The corridor outside Fahad's office was quiet.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. Silence.
Then the door opened. Rahat stepped out, his expression carefully neutral. He closed the door behind him, leaving only a narrow gap. "Yes?"
Rima straightened. She was still breathing hard, her hair slightly disheveled from the run but she forced her voice into something steady.
"Sir. There's a problem. A serious problem. The computers— all of them —they've been hacked."
Rahat's expression didn't change. "Hacked."
"Yes. Every floor. Every department. There's a message. On all of the screens. It says—" She stopped. Swallowed. "'Hello, Fahad Sunayana.'"
For one moment, Rahat said nothing. Then he nodded, once and stepped back inside the office.
"Sir."
Fahad's pen stopped moving. He lifted his eyes. "What is it?"
"We have a situation, sir. The office network has been compromised. Every computer on every floor. There's a message."
Silence.
Then, slowly, very slowly, Fahad turned toward Rahat fully. "Find out who did this."
"Yes, sir."
"And Rahat—"
"Sir?"
"Nobody leaves this building until I know what happened."
Rahat bowed his head. "Understood, sir." He turned and walked out, closing the door behind him. [CLICK ]