Chapter 2 - Ten Minutes
The elevator display changed.
Sophia stared at the glowing numbers.
“He’s coming.”
Marcus didn't move.
He stood beside his desk with one hand resting against the polished wood, his face unreadable.
“How did he get into the building?”
“I don't know.”
Marcus picked up his phone.
Sophia immediately grabbed his wrist.
“Please.”
He looked at her hand.
She released him.
“Don't call the police.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan wants that.”
Marcus frowned.
“He wants the police called?”
“He wants me to look unstable.”
Sophia spoke faster now.
“He records everything. He provokes me and then records what happens afterward. He sends messages and deletes them. He shows up places and makes it look accidental. If I call the police and they find nothing, he uses the report in family court.”
Marcus studied her.
This wasn't random harassment.
It was strategy.
And strategy was something Marcus understood.
“Has he done this before?”
Sophia nodded.
“At my apartment. Lily's school. Grocery stores. Once at church.”
“Security cameras?”
“He always stays where cameras can't see him clearly.”
Marcus's expression hardened.
That changed things.
Ethan wasn't merely obsessed.
He was careful.
Marcus pressed a button beneath his desk.
Sophia stiffened.
“What did you do?”
“Locked the executive floor.”
Marcus called building security.
“Daniel.”
A voice answered immediately.
“Yes, Mr. Voss?”
“Who entered the executive elevator five minutes ago?”
Silence.
Keyboard sounds followed.
Then Daniel answered.
“Nobody.”
Marcus looked at the display.
“Check again.”
“I am looking at the system right now. No executive elevator is moving.”
Marcus slowly turned toward the doors.
The number changed.
Sophia whispered, “Marcus…”
It was the first time she had used his first name.
He noticed.
But there was no time to react.
“Daniel. Shut down every elevator.”
“I already did.”
Marcus felt something cold settle inside him.
The elevator was still moving.
Someone had overridden the system.
That required more than a stolen badge.
It required administrative access.
“Get your emergency team upstairs. Quietly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcus ended the call.
Sophia's breathing accelerated.
“He's going to hurt you.”
Marcus almost laughed.
Not because it was amusing.
Because Sophia still didn't understand the situation.
“Sophia.”
“He isn't coming here for me.”
“You don't know Ethan.”
“No.”
Marcus stepped between her and the elevator.
“But he doesn't know me either.”
The elevator stopped.
Sophia covered her mouth.
Nothing happened.
No bell.
No opening doors.
Only silence.
Marcus waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Then his office phone rang.
Sophia jumped.
Marcus answered.
“Voss.”
A man's voice spoke.
“You always did like expensive buildings.”
Marcus's expression changed.
The voice wasn't Ethan's.
Sophia knew immediately.
Marcus said nothing.
The caller laughed softly.
“Still quiet when you're angry. Your father was the same way.”
Marcus's eyes moved toward Sophia.
“Who is this?”
“You know who I am.”
“I don't.”
“You will.”
The line went dead.
Marcus looked at the phone.
Sophia whispered, “That wasn't Ethan.”
“No.”
The elevator suddenly opened.
Marcus stepped forward.
Empty.
No Ethan.
No attacker.
Nothing.
Only a black cell phone lying on the elevator floor.
Marcus didn't touch it.
Sophia stared.
The screen illuminated.
A video began playing automatically.
Security footage.
St. Catherine Children's Hospital.
Sophia stopped breathing.
The camera showed the pediatric wing.
Room 614.
Lily's room.
A nurse walked past.
Then someone entered the frame.
Ethan Cross.
Sophia rushed toward the elevator.
Marcus caught her.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“My daughter is there!”
“I know.”
“He's with Lily!”
“And that's exactly why you're not running into whatever he's prepared.”
She fought against him.
Marcus didn't tighten his grip.
He simply held her shoulders.
“Listen to me.”
Tears streamed down her face.
“That's my baby.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't!”
The words hit harder than she intended.
Marcus released her.
Sophia immediately regretted it.
But Marcus didn't look angry.
He looked wounded.
For one second.
Then it disappeared.
“You're right,” he said.
Sophia stared at him.
“I don't know what it feels like to have a child in danger.”
He looked toward the hospital footage.
“But I know what it feels like to lose family because I reacted emotionally instead of thinking.”
He took out his phone.
“Give me sixty seconds.”
He called someone.
“Rafael.”
A sleepy voice answered.
“Marcus?”
“St. Catherine. Pediatric wing. Room 614.”
The voice became instantly alert.
“What happened?”
“Five-year-old girl. Lily Bennett. I need eyes on her without anyone approaching the room.”
“I'm twelve minutes away.”
“Make it eight.”
Marcus ended the call.
Sophia stared at him.
“Who is Rafael?”
“Someone I trust.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Lily will have someone watching her before we get there.”
“We?”
Marcus took his coat.
“You thought I was letting you go alone?”
Sophia looked toward the elevator.
“What about Ethan?”
Marcus's gaze returned to the phone on the floor.
“I don't think Ethan came here tonight.”
“But the message—”
“Was designed to make you believe he would.”
Marcus crouched without touching the device.
“This phone was placed inside an elevator controlled by a system someone compromised remotely.”
Sophia stared at him.
“You think someone else is involved?”
“I know someone else is involved.”
Marcus called security again.
“Daniel. Seal the building. Nobody leaves.”
Then something occurred to him.
“Where is the file?”
“What file?”
“The reason I came back tonight.”
He walked to the cabinet beside his desk.
Opened it.
Stopped.
The drawer was empty.
Sophia saw his expression.
“What was in it?”
Marcus didn't answer immediately.
“Audit documents.”
“For what?”
“A company we acquired six months ago.”
“Which company?”
Marcus turned toward her.
“Cross Meridian Logistics.”
Sophia's face went white.
“Cross?”
Marcus nodded.
The name suddenly meant something entirely different.
He opened his laptop and typed quickly.
Cross Meridian Logistics had been a regional transportation company absorbed into Voss Global after financial irregularities surfaced.
Marcus opened the former ownership records.
Three names appeared.
Two meant nothing.
The third made Sophia stumble backward.
ETHAN CROSS — FORMER CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER.
Marcus stared at the screen.
“You never told me where Ethan worked.”
“I didn't know.”
“You were with him six years.”
“He told me he was an independent consultant.”
Marcus scrolled.
Cross Meridian had handled freight throughout Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
But that wasn't what bothered him.
One of its former clients was highlighted in the audit.
VOSS SHIPPING & STORAGE.
His father's company.
Twenty years earlier.
Marcus's jaw tightened.
Sophia whispered, “What does that mean?”
“I don't know yet.”
The office lights suddenly went out.
Sophia gasped.
Emergency lights came on.
Red.
Dim.
Then Marcus's computer screen changed.
Someone had remotely taken control.
A single folder opened.
Inside were photographs.
Marcus as a teenager.
Marcus's father.
Sophia entering Voss Tower.
Lily outside kindergarten.
Dozens of images.
Years of surveillance.
Then one final photograph appeared.
A little girl standing beside a lake.
Lily.
Taken three days earlier.
Across the photograph, someone had written five words.
ASK SOPHIA WHO LILY REALLY IS.
Marcus slowly turned.
Sophia stared at the screen.
And the terror on her face told him the message had struck somewhere deeper than fear.
“Sophia.”
She backed away.
“What does that mean?”
Sophia shook her head.
“Sophia.”
Her lips trembled.
“I don't know.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“You're lying.”
She closed her eyes.
May you like
And then she whispered the sentence that changed the entire night.
“Ethan isn't Lily's biological father.”
