The rain painted the skyline in blurred streaks, turning glass towers into melting pillars of light. From the highest floor of the Aetherium Spire, Aldrin sat behind a desk of obsidian and silence. The city pulsed beneath him, a living creature bound to his breath, but his gaze remained unmoved. Aldrin rarely concerned himself with the surface. But the moment a pattern broke, the storm that built the system turned to examine its crack.
He wore a charcoal three-piece suit, sleeves rolled to reveal constellations etched into his forearm. His crown was not gold, but the weight of responsibility carved into bone—unseen, but undeniable.
The room was vast. Designed to intimidate. No art on the walls. No pictures on the desk. Just a single sword hung behind him—curved, ancient, and etched with the words To rise from the ashes, first you must burn. It had not been drawn in years.
A soft knock broke the silence.
"Enter," Aldrin said, his voice low and deliberate—more decree than invitation.
Marek stepped in, dressed in black-on-black tactical formalwear, rain still dripping from his shoulders. The scar beneath his left eye curved upward like a mocking smile. Sworn brother. Right hand. The type of man who could kill with a pen or a whisper. The only one Aldrin trusted to speak without permission.
"The syndicate tried to move on our South Port holdings," Marek said. "Two dead. One of them ours."
Aldrin nodded slowly, folding his hands.
"Did they bleed?" he asked.
"They did."
"Then send the cleaners."
"And the message?"
Aldrin stood, walking toward the glass wall. Lightning cracked across the sky. Below, traffic continued. Life continued. Even while blood dried on marble floors.
"No message," he replied. "Let them wonder what we'll do. The unknown is heavier than any bullet."
Marek smirked faintly. "The council's meeting in thirty. They're expecting diplomacy."
"They'll get discipline."
A pause.
"Aldrin… you've been still for too long."
Aldrin turned to him. "Stillness isn't weakness, brother. It's the inhale before fire."
The two men stood in the silence that followed—not as chairman and subordinate, but as warriors of an empire cloaked in tailored suits and economic dominance.
A soft chime lit up the corner of the room—his assistant had queued the agenda. Contracts. Acquisitions. A merger veiled in legality that would expand Orion Medical's grip.
Routine. Controlled. Expected.
Until a second notification blinked beneath it—new applicant profile: Iris Cael.
Aldrin's eyes lingered on the name. He didn't know why.
Yet.
The name blinked on the interface like an ember refusing to go out.
Iris Cael.
Unassuming. No titles. No accolades. Just clean lines and a photograph barely large enough to make out the sharpness in her eyes.
She was scheduled for an interview under Aurora Media's creative division—a subsidiary that rarely crossed Aldrin's desk unless something was wrong.
"Unusual for you to pause on personnel files," Marek noted, eyes narrowing with that silent intuition only brothers carried.
Aldrin closed the notification without a word, though the name lingered in his mind like a refrain.
Something in her gaze—sharp, but not defiant—pulled at a place he thought long buried. It wasn't the name. It was the look. As if she'd seen the fire too.
"She's not ours yet," Aldrin replied, turning from the view. "And people are only interesting once they try to lie."
Marek grinned. "That's the Aldrin I know."
The two made their way to the private elevator. No buttons. It read his presence, and descended in silence.
"You feel it, don't you?" Marek said, breaking the quiet. "Something's shifting. The kind of quiet before the world forgets how to breathe."
Aldrin didn't answer. Not yet. The pressure in the air had changed lately—subtle power plays between rival empires, old debts being called in, and whispers that Mara, the ghost of his darker days, had resurfaced somewhere in the cracks.
But that wasn't what unsettled him.
It was something deeper. As if the very foundation of what he'd built—this empire of suits, silence, and shadow—was beginning to hum with friction. As if fate was winding itself tighter.
The elevator opened to a polished corridor where three board members waited, half smiles painted over political tension. Aldrin's stride made them straighten. The chairman was not just respected—he was myth.
The meeting room beyond was minimalist and cold. Contracts were waiting. Legal advisors. Tactical consultants. One discussion over an Eastern tech merger. Another about celestial branding campaigns.
Aldrin listened, nodded once. Signed twice.
But his mind was somewhere else. Not distracted—no, never that. Just aware. Like a predator whose senses were already fixed on a storm not yet visible to others.
After the meeting, he returned to his office, alone once more. He poured himself a glass of whiskey—neat, aged, barely touched—and sat in the dim, rain-streaked light.
He opened serval personnel files only to come back to Iris Cael's file again.
She had no connections to any of the houses. No markers of lineage, empire, or old money. A self-made storm, if anything. Graphic design, multimedia artistry, and psychological marketing—her style was… disruptive.
He exhaled slowly, rubbing a thumb over the rim of his glass.
Interesting.
Still not his concern.
Yet.