The city never slept, but some nights, it felt as though it held its breath.
Adrian Voss watched the skyline through his penthouse window, the same skyline that had once been his throne and his cage. Ten years earlier, it all looked brighter, cleaner, full of promise. But he could already see the fractures others missed the deals that would turn to dust, the partnerships built on quiet deceit.
He sipped his whiskey slowly, letting the burn remind him he was alive.
Alive again.
This wasn't the first night he'd spent alone, but it was the first one that mattered. Every sound in the apartment,the faint hum of the refrigerator, the city's pulse outside the glass reminded him he'd cheated something greater than time itself.
He wasn't here to repeat his life.
He was here to rewrite it.
Yet as he turned from the window, a small white envelope caught his eye placed neatly on the edge of his desk. No one should have been able to leave anything in this apartment. He frowned, stepping closer. There was no name, only the faint imprint of his initials on the seal.
He tore it open.
Inside: a single line, typed and cold.
"Even time has debts, Mr. Voss."
His pulse slowed. He'd been careful impossibly careful. But this? This was something else. A warning, or a reminder that fate didn't like being cheated.
He stared at the paper until dawn began to bleed into the horizon.
Then he burned it.
The next morning, the Montrose Group buzzed with new energy. A quiet merger rumour had sent the building spinning with speculation.
Adrian entered the lobby like a ghost among the living, his confidence effortless but detached. He wasn't supposed to be here, not yet, but curiosity was a dangerous indulgence and Elara Quinn had become the sharpest edge of it.
She stood across the atrium, talking to a board member. Her hands moved as she spoke, controlled but expressive. There was intelligence in her every word, a clarity that drew people in.
He remembered this day. He remembered how she would soon be dragged into corporate crossfire that nearly destroyed her career and how, back then, he'd been too consumed by his empire to see it.
Not this time.
When their eyes met across the lobby, she paused mid-sentence. Something passed between them not recognition, but resonance. Like the first crack of lightning before the storm truly begins.
Adrian broke the gaze first, heading toward the elevators. He told himself it was safer that way.
But when the doors slid open, Elara's reflection appeared beside his.
"Mr. Voss," she said, stepping in beside him.
Her tone was polite, yet there was something beneath it curiosity wrapped in restraint. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon."
He glanced sideways. "Neither did I."
"Are you one of those men who appear where opportunity does?" she asked.
He smiled faintly. "Or maybe opportunity follows me."
Her lips curved, half amused, half wary. "Dangerous kind of confidence."
"Only if it's misplaced."
The elevator chimed. She stepped out first, pausing for a brief second, long enough to turn back and say quietly, "Be careful, Mr. Voss. People who move too fast in this building tend to fall."
Then she was gone.
Adrian stood there, her warning echoing in his mind.
He didn't know whether she meant business… or fate.
Even time has debts.
He couldn't shake the feeling that someone or something was watching him, waiting for his next move.
And for the first time since his rebirth, Adrian Voss wondered if he was truly in control… or simply a pawn in time's second game.