C13 A game of distance

Antonio

The sound of the door closing behind her lingered longer than it should have.

A soft click, a heartbeat, and then the silence stretched until even the city beyond the glass seemed to hush.

I remained still for a long time, eyes fixed on the door she’d just walked through. Her scent still hung faintly in the air — coffee, paper, and something faintly floral that memory refused to let me forget.

Control.

I’d promised myself I’d keep control.

Instead, the room felt like a cage of my own making.

I exhaled sharply and turned toward the window. From here, the skyline of Velmor city spilled out like a circuit board — glittering veins of power, greed, and noise. I’d built this view. Every light below represented a decision, a deal, a threat neutralized. And now, amid all that precision, one woman had walked back into my life like an error I couldn’t correct.

My phone buzzed once on the desk.

Luca.

> Luca: She’s settled at her desk. The office is talking. Rhea’s already furious.

Me: Good. Let her be.

Luca: You’re stirring too many fires at once. You sure this isn’t personal?

I didn’t reply immediately. I walked to the liquor cabinet, poured another drink I wouldn’t finish. The burn steadied my pulse, but it didn’t silence the voice that whispered, it’s always been personal.

> Me: Keep the fires small. Let them talk. I want her under pressure, not crushed.

The phone vibrated again, but I ignored it this time.

Across the room, the reflection in the glass stared back at me — tailored suit, calm expression, the kind of man whose name made people lower their voices. The boss. The strategist. The lie.

Because beneath that reflection was something I didn’t recognize anymore — something raw, bleeding, human.

---

When Luca arrived fifteen minutes later, he didn’t knock. He never did.

“Rhea’s threatening to go over your head,” he said. “She called her father.”

“Of course she did,” I muttered. “The Barlos never learned patience.”

He dropped into the chair opposite mine. “You knew she’d react like this.”

“I counted on it.” I set the glass down, untasted. “Let her rage. It’ll distract her from asking why Daphne’s here.”

“And if she figures out why Daphne’s really here?”

I looked at him, and for a moment, all the veneer of composure fractured.

“She won’t,” I said quietly. “Because she doesn’t think I’m capable of forgiving betrayal.”

“Are you?”

That earned him a long silence.

Luca leaned back, watching me with that tired, unfiltered honesty only he could get away with. “You say this is about control, about payback—but you don’t bring an old lover into your inner circle unless you want something else.”

“What I want,” I said slowly, “is to know the truth.”

He frowned. “The truth about what? She dumped you in front of your own eyes. You saw it.”

I shook my head. “No. I saw what she wanted me to see.”

That night three years ago — the sound of her voice, the look in her eyes before she kissed him — I had replayed it too many times. And every replay felt wrong. Off-key. Like she was forcing herself to say words that didn’t fit.

“She lied,” I said softly. “But not about loving me.”

Luca sighed. “And you’re going to what? Tear apart her life until she tells you the right version of the lie?”

“If that’s what it takes,” I said. “She owes me the truth, even if it kills her to say it.”

He studied me for a long time before standing. “Just make sure it doesn’t kill you, boss.”

When the door shut behind him, the silence returned — thick, heavy, intimate.

---

Hours passed. Meetings came and went. Reports blurred together. By late evening, the office floor had emptied, leaving only the hum of the air vents and the occasional flicker of a passing elevator light.

Through the glass walls of my office, I saw her — still at her desk long after everyone else had gone. She was bent over a spreadsheet, eyes shadowed, hair falling in loose waves around her face. Her focus was absolute, but every so often, she’d pause and rub the bridge of her nose like the weight of the day was pressing too hard.

She looked smaller than I remembered. More fragile.

And somehow, stronger for it.

I shouldn’t have been watching her. I knew that.

But I couldn’t look away.

I leaned one hand against the glass and spoke softly, to no one.

“You’re still breaking me, Daphne.”

---

A soft chime interrupted my thoughts — the encrypted line on my desk phone.

Business. Reality. The world I actually controlled.

“Speak,” I said.

A low voice answered in Greek-accented English. “The shipment from Volos docks at midnight. We intercepted a call—Barlos’s men are sniffing around.”

“Handle it,” I said. “No noise. No witnesses. I don’t want this connected to Nickolaou Holdings.”

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead.

For a moment, I sat perfectly still, the mask sliding back into place. The tone, the calm, the distance — all of it fit like armor again.

But as I turned off the office lights and walked toward the elevator, I caught one last glimpse through the glass — Daphne standing now, collecting her things, her reflection overlapping mine in the darkened window.

Two ghosts in the same room.

One chasing the other in circles that never seemed to end.

She didn’t see me when I stepped into the elevator. But I saw her look back once, as if sensing she wasn’t alone.

The doors slid shut between us.

---