Lying flat on her back, tangled in the soft fabric of her unmade bed, Sheri endured a deeply restless night’s sleep. The early morning light was just beginning to peek through her window blinds, casting long, geometric shadows across her bedroom wall, but she felt entirely exhausted. She was constantly, almost obsessively, checking the glowing screen of her phone in the dim light. She kept staring at the empty notification bar, quietly wondering if she would suddenly get a text message from her boss to explain the sudden change in plans.
She honestly hadn’t realized it until this exact, frustrating moment, but she had actually gotten quite comfortably used to the steady, predictable routine of having to head into the corporate office for work every single day.
Every normal morning, she would walk through those pristine glass doors, grab a warm coffee from the breakroom, and casually talk to Darno and Max. Mostly, these interactions happened in passing whenever she saw them walking around the bustling corporate corridors, but they had become a grounding anchor in her otherwise chaotic life. But then, to suddenly be strictly told over a brief message not to go into the office today? It threw her entire equilibrium off. She just sat there in her pajamas, wondering exactly why. Her innate curiosity was spiking well beyond belief.
’That Max guy sure has been doing some incredibly crazy stuff lately as well,’ Sheri thought, rolling over and staring blankly at the ceiling. ’Like, what exactly was all that brutal underground fighting about? Is he genuinely still just running that old high school gang out on the streets and trying to use them for his own corporate gain? Or did they all legally get hired by the Billion Bloodline group as official private security guards or something?’She let out a long, frustrated sigh, tossing her phone onto the mattress.
’I know for an absolute fact that he’s hiding something major from me. I can see it in his eyes whenever he dodges a question. But I just can’t quite put my finger on what it all truly means.’ Since there was absolutely nothing else she could productively do with her unexpected day off, she picked her phone back up and started aimlessly scrolling through her local news feed. Suddenly, a breaking, bold-red headline caught her eye: there was a major, city-wide gas leak report.
Because of the supposed hazardous toxicity of the fumes, all local residents and civilian cars were currently being aggressively diverted by authorities to a completely different location downtown, causing severe gridlock. And as for the exact epicenter of the severe gas leak? The official report listed the Fortis building—the exact headquarters of the Billion Bloodline group.
’Wait... is that the real reason why they specifically told me not to come into work today?’ Sheri thought, her heart skipping a beat as she read the short article twice. ’Did Max and the executives somehow know about this infrastructure failure beforehand? But if that was the case, then surely they would have just explicitly told me not to come in because of a gas leak, right? Why be so incredibly cryptic and secretive about it?’ What Sheri didn’t know, and couldn’t possibly fathom from the safety of her comfortable bedroom, was the dark truth. The powerful people that were actively manipulating the local media networks so they could execute a full-scale, lethal assault on the Billion Bloodline group without police interference was the Gilt Rats syndicate.
Max didn’t initially know exactly what public excuse the Gilt Rats would utilize to cover up the impending siege. Consequently, he couldn’t exactly tell Sheri one specific lie to keep her safe, only for her to turn on the television and find out that there was a completely different, highly suspicious reason being broadcast to the public. He had chosen silence over a tangled web of lies, prioritizing her safety over her clarity.
While she was tightly holding her phone, her thumb hovering over Max’s contact name, the screen suddenly buzzed. She had gotten a text message from another person entirely—someone she hadn’t spoken to in quite some time.
"Do you want to meet up? It’s been a while." Since she was feeling incredibly anxious and there was absolutely nothing else for her to do in her empty apartment, she decided she might as well get dressed and leave to clear her head.
Heading out into the brisk morning air, they agreed on a quaint, warmly lit coffee and dessert shop situated a few blocks away from her neighborhood. When she pushed open the heavy wooden door, the rich scent of roasted espresso beans and sweet pastries washed over her. Scanning the scattered tables, she could clearly see the person who had contacted her. Cindy was already sitting quietly right by the large, rain-streaked window, nursing a steaming mug.
"It’s been a long while, Cindy. You’re honestly looking a lot better," Sheri said, pulling out a wooden chair and taking a seat across from her old friend.
"Yeah... haha, although it’s really hard to definitively say that," Cindy replied, offering a fragile, bittersweet smile. "To be entirely honest with you, Sheri, the main reason I reached out and contacted you today was because I was deeply missing Abby."
Cindy looked down at her dark coffee, her expression clouding with old grief.
"For the longest time, I foolishly thought I could just try to forget about her. I thought I could bury the pain, box up the memories, and just move on with my life. But it’s really, incredibly hard to do. So, I realized my own personal way of moving forward is to absolutely not forget her, but to actively embrace her memory. Since the three of us went to the exact same school and shared so much history, I thought we could sit down and embrace her spirit together today."
Cindy went on to talk nostalgically about exactly how genuinely nice Abby was, recounting the warm, fleeting moments the two of them had shared together in the past. There were even fond memories all three of them had experienced together right towards the tragic end of their school days.
But then, as the conversation naturally lulled, Cindy looked up. Her eyes turned piercing and serious, and she asked a pointed question that completely caught Sheri off guard.
"Have you... have you spoken to Max at all lately?" Cindy asked, her tone shifting from nostalgic to investigative.
Taken aback, Sheri hesitated before deciding to be honest. She slowly explained exactly what had been happening to her recently. She detailed how she had surprisingly gotten a corporate job at the exact same high-end security firm where Max worked. Once the floodgates opened, she couldn’t stop. She went into deep detail, telling her own terrifying, scary stories about the dangerous underworld incidents that had happened around the office.
"That’s absolutely unbelievable... and you’re somehow still working there?!" Cindy said, her jaw practically hitting the table in shock. "Aren’t you terrified? It seems like incredibly dangerous, life-threatening things keep constantly happening around Max all the time. And the frightening fact that it happened directly to you as well... if I were in your shoes, I would get out of there immediately."
Sheri desperately wanted to deny this harsh assessment. She wanted to defend him, because she intimately knew the actual context behind why some of those specific events had occurred. For instance, the terrifying incident with the thugs was entirely because of her own toxic past relationship, and Max had actually put himself in harm’s way to step in and save her.
But despite knowing that context, she simply couldn’t deny one lingering, cold truth: there was an undeniable aura of danger surrounding Max. He was a magnet for trouble.
"I honestly have this unshakable feeling that Max is seriously hiding something huge," Sheri confessed, tracing the rim of her coffee cup with her finger. "Even my own father has strictly told me to completely stay away and not get involved with him. But the intense secrecy... it honestly just makes me want to know more about who he really is.
"I’m incredibly restless, Cindy. And there’s one heavy thing I really, truly want to find out the truth about. I want to know exactly why Abby died... and I think, deep down, maybe Max might actually know the definitive answer to it."
Looking across the small table, Sheri could clearly see that this unresolved mystery was a heavy burden that had been ruthlessly eating away at Cindy’s soul for quite some time. The shared trauma bonded them in that quiet moment.
"I don’t disagree with you at all," Cindy whispered, her eyes burning with newfound determination. "I think Max is definitely hiding something monumental from all of us."
"They even explicitly told me not to come into work today," Sheri added, the pieces of the puzzle clicking together in her mind. "There’s a fake news report about a gas leak, but it’s all so strange. The timing is just too perfect."
That’s exactly when Cindy abruptly stood up from the table, throwing some cash down next to her mug.
"Well then, what on earth are we sitting around waiting for?" Cindy declared, grabbing her coat. "If we desperately need to find out something about him, we should start investigating from today, right now. Come on, Sheri. Let’s head straight to your workplace."