Ivy's POV
The wind always felt different at night—colder, sharper, almost like it carried secrets no one was brave enough to say out loud. I liked that feeling. It made the city feel alive, even if I didn't.
Tonight, I stood on the edge of an abandoned rooftop downtown, my fingers wrapped around my camera, waiting for the perfect moment when the neon lights below would blur into something beautiful. Photography had always been my escape. When the world felt heavy, I looked through a lens. Somehow, the distance made things easier to carry.
I snapped a few shots of the skyline, adjusting the focus as cars streamed along the main road like glowing veins. A siren wailed somewhere far off, but that was normal. Gaborone at night had its own music—shouts, engines, laughter, something breaking, something beginning. I breathed it in slowly.
"Just one more," I whispered to myself.
I took a step toward the corner of the rooftop where the railing had rusted away. The perfect angle always required a bit of danger. I lifted my camera again, trying to capture the red glow of a billboard reflecting against the high-rise windows. But something shifted in the corner of my eye—movement on the rooftop of the next building over.
At first, I thought it was security guards doing a routine patrol. But guards didn't stand that close, or talk in such tense, clipped motions. And they definitely didn't shove each other.
Curiosity tugged me forward. I zoomed in. Three men. One standing slightly apart from the other two, hands clasped behind his back like he owned the ground he was standing on. His posture was calm, almost annoyingly controlled. A businessman? No… the way he carried himself was too sharp, too dangerous.
I adjusted my focus until the man's face sharpened in the viewfinder.
My breath caught.
Damian Cross.
The cold CEO who every news article called "untouchable." The man people whispered about in restaurants. The one rumored to have more power than half the politicians in the country. I'd never seen him in person, but his face was too striking to mistake—dark hair, sharp jaw, eyes like winter steel.
What was he doing on a rooftop at midnight with two angry men?
The man in front of him shouted something I couldn't hear. Damian didn't flinch. He didn't even move. Then the other man—taller, jittery—opened a briefcase. The streetlight hit the inside just right, revealing stacks of money.
My stomach flipped. This couldn't be real. This looked like some kind of deal, the illegal kind.
I lowered the camera instinctively, my heart pounding, but the photographer in me refused to run. I lifted it again. Just one picture. Evidence. Proof I wasn't imagining this.
The shutter clicked.
That tiny sound changed everything.
One of the men jerked his head upward, scanning the surrounding rooftops like an animal catching a scent. His eyes swept dangerously close to mine. I ducked, heart hammering against my ribs. Silence stretched between the buildings, thick and suffocating. After a few seconds, I forced myself to peek again.
Damian had turned slightly.
He wasn't looking in my direction, but something in the way he stood told me he'd sensed it too—that faint click of a camera shutter cutting through the night.
He spoke again, soft but firm, and I could feel the tension from across the gap. The jittery man shook his head repeatedly, and before I could process what was happening, he lunged forward.
A gunshot cracked through the night.
I flinched so hard my camera nearly slipped from my hands. The taller man collapsed, the briefcase falling with a metallic slam. The other man took a step back, panic rippling across his face.
The entire world narrowed to that moment.
I stood frozen, trying to understand what I had just seen. A shooting. A deal gone wrong. Damian barely reacted, only glancing down at the body before speaking again in that cold, measured way—as if this were just another business negotiation.
Another shot echoed.
I didn't stay to find out who fell next.
My instincts finally kicked in. I grabbed my equipment, slung the bag across my shoulder, and sprinted toward the stairs. My feet pounded against the concrete so loudly I was sure the whole city could hear them.
I couldn't breathe. The air felt too thin. My mind raced with a single terrifying thought:
I captured that. And they saw me.
I ran down the stairwell, taking three steps at a time. By the time I burst onto the ground floor, my hands were shaking so badly my keys almost slipped from my fingers. The streets felt darker than usual, the shadows heavier. I forced myself to walk normally even though every instinct screamed at me to run.
My apartment wasn't far—just ten blocks away—but each step felt like a mile. Halfway there, I kept hearing things behind me: footsteps, maybe a car slowing down, maybe just paranoia clawing at my ears.
When I reached my building, I nearly collapsed with relief. I pushed through the rusted gate, climbed the stairs to my apartment, and locked the door behind me with trembling hands.
I pressed my back to the wall and slid down to the floor.
"What did you see, Ivy?" I whispered to myself. "What did you just get yourself into?"
I replayed the shots in my mind, the images frozen like ghosts behind my eyes. Damian Cross. A briefcase. A gun. Blood.
I swallowed hard. The rational part of me should've deleted the pictures, thrown the camera into the river, pretended tonight never happened. But I couldn't. The evidence was on my memory card—solid, undeniable. Something inside me needed to know what was going on, needed to expose it.
I crawled to my desk and pulled out the memory card with shaking fingers. I couldn't bring myself to look at the photos yet. I set the card beside my keyboard and inhaled deeply.
Knock. Knock.
The knocking was soft, almost polite, but it sliced through me like a blade. My breath caught. No one knocked on my door at this hour. No one even visited me.
I stayed still, praying it was the wrong apartment.
Three seconds passed.
Then came the sound I feared most—slow footsteps moving away… but not down the stairs.
They stopped right outside my door again, as if someone were listening.
I reached for my phone, ready to dial the police, when the street noise shifted. A car engine. Not just any engine—a deep, smooth hum that didn't belong in my neighborhood.
I crawled toward the window and peeked through the curtain.
A black car had pulled up in front of the building. Black windows. Black exterior. Expensive. Too expensive for this area.
The back door opened.
A man stepped out.
Even from the second floor, even in the dim streetlight, there was no mistaking the sharp silhouette.
My stomach dropped to my feet.
Damian Cross had found me.
And he was looking directly at my window.