Alexander Voss woke before the sun, the way he had every day for the last fourteen years. The penthouse was silent except for the low hum of the city thirty-eight floors below and the soft click of his watch as he fastened it around his wrist. 5:17 a.m. The same time every morning. The same ritual. The same hollow ache behind his ribs that no amount of caffeine or conquest could quite fill.
He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his bedroom, shirtless, the Manhattan skyline a jagged crown of light against the bruised purple sky. VossTech Tower loomed across the river, its mirrored facade catching the first glint of dawn. His tower. His empire. His prison.
Down the hall, Liam's door was cracked open. Alexander paused outside it, listening. The boy slept like a storm—limbs flung wide, one foot dangling off the edge of the bed, a half-finished Lego spaceship clutched to his chest. Eight years old and already building worlds Alexander couldn't touch. He resisted the urge to go in, to smooth the curls from Liam's forehead the way he used to when nightmares woke him at 3 a.m. Instead, he closed the door softly and descended the spiral staircase to the kitchen.
The coffee machine hissed to life. Alexander leaned against the marble counter, scrolling through the overnight reports on his phone. Tokyo had closed the deal. London was hemorrhaging talent. The board wanted a new campaign by Monday. His assistant, Priya, had already flagged seventeen urgent emails. He answered none of them. Not yet.
Instead, he opened the photo app and thumbed to a picture from last week: Liam on the subway, nose pressed to the window, eyes wide as the train roared into the station. "Dad, it's like a dragon breathing fire!" the boy had shouted over the noise. Alexander had laughed—actually laughed—until his chest hurt. He saved the photo as his lock screen, then immediately changed it back to the default black. Sentiment was a luxury he couldn't afford at 5:30 a.m.
By 6:15, he was dressed—charcoal suit, crisp white shirt, cufflinks engraved with the VossTech logo. He left a note on the kitchen island in his precise, slanted handwriting:
Gone to the office. Maria will take you to school. Practice your free kicks. Love, Dad.
He hesitated, then added a tiny soccer ball doodle beside his signature. Liam would roll his eyes, but he'd smile.
The elevator ride down was silent. His driver, Marcus, waited curbside with the Maybach idling.
"Morning, sir."
"Morning." Alexander slid into the back seat, already opening his laptop. "Take the bridge. I want to see the new billboard."
They crossed the East River as the sun finally crested, painting the water gold. The billboard rose like a monolith on the Brooklyn side: VOSS TECH—INNOVATE. DOMINATE. REPEAT. The tagline had tested well with focus groups, but Alexander hated it. Too aggressive. Too cold. He made a mental note to have marketing scrap it.
VossTech Tower swallowed him whole. Security nodded. The private elevator shot him to the 42nd floor. His office was a fortress of glass and steel, minimalist to the point of austerity. No family photos. No plants. Just a single sculpture—a twisted chrome helix that caught the light like a blade. He dropped his briefcase, loosened his tie, and stared out at the city sprawling beneath him.
At 7:00 a.m., Priya knocked once and entered with a tablet and a black coffee.
"Board's at nine. Tokyo wants a follow-up call at ten. The creative director position—HR narrowed it to three candidates. Interviews start at two."
Alexander nodded. "Send me the portfolios."
"Already in your inbox. Also, Liam's school called. He forgot his lunch."
Alexander pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tell Maria to drop it off. And have someone from facilities check the penthouse fridge—stock it with those dinosaur chicken nuggets he likes."
Priya's mouth twitched. "Yes, sir."
The morning bled into a blur of numbers and negotiations. He fired a VP in Singapore via video call for missing quotas. He greenlit a $40 million R&D budget for quantum encryption. He ate a protein bar over a spreadsheet and didn't taste it. By noon, his temples throbbed. He stepped onto the private balcony, the wind whipping his tie like a flag of surrender.
From up here, the people below were ants. Nameless. Replaceable. He wondered, not for the first time, if this was what his ex-wife had meant when she'd said he was married to the view. Claire had left when Liam was two, packing her bags while Alexander was in Seoul closing a deal that made the cover of Forbes. "You don't see us," she'd written in her goodbye letter. "You see assets and liabilities." He'd crumpled the note and thrown it away. Then he'd hired a nanny and tripled his workload.
His phone buzzed. A text from Liam:
Coach says I'm starting Saturday!!! Can you come???
Alexander stared at the screen until it dimmed. Saturday was the annual shareholder meeting. He'd promised the board his full attention. He typed: Wouldn't miss it, champ. Then deleted it. Typed again: I'll try. Sent it before he could overthink.
Back inside, Priya had left the candidate portfolios on his desk. He flipped through the first two—polished, predictable, safe. The third made him pause. The designer's name was Elena Reyes. Her work was chaos and precision in equal measure: a campaign for a sustainable fashion brand that turned recycled plastic into couture; a VR experience for a children's hospital that let kids "visit" the moon. Bold. Fearless. Alive.
He lingered on a single image—a hand-drawn poster for a nonprofit, a child's silhouette reaching for a constellation shaped like a heartbeat. The tagline read: Some things can't be engineered. Only felt.
Alexander's throat tightened. He closed the file.
At 1:55 p.m., he stood in the glass-walled conference room, arms crossed, watching the elevator. The first two candidates had been disasters—slick resumes, rehearsed smiles, eyes that darted to the Rolex on his wrist. He was already drafting rejection emails in his head.
The elevator dinged. The doors slid open.
And everything tilted.
She stepped out like she owned the gravity in the room—dark hair escaping a messy bun, a leather jacket over a silk blouse, boots that clicked against the marble with purpose. Her portfolio case was scuffed at the edges, like it had traveled the world and back. She didn't look nervous. She looked ready.
"Mr. Voss," she said, extending a hand. Her grip was firm, her eyes a startling green that caught the light like sea glass. "Elena Reyes. I'm here to shake up your empire."
Alexander's mouth went dry. For the first time in years, he forgot what he'd been about to say.
To be continued in Chapter 2…