Chapter 2 The Note in the Drawer

Isabella stood outside Jaxon Corp the next morning, clutching a paper bag with her new shoes, plain black flats from a secondhand store. They weren't pretty, but they wouldn't snap beneath her.

She tilted her face up toward the steel tower. It loomed like a kingdom. A place she didn't belong. But today, she would walk through its gates anyway.

Back in Russia, towers like this belonged to men who shattered bones and called it law.

But here, in America, they called them billionaires.

She still remembered the last time she'd stood in front of a tall building not to enter, but to hide from the man whose belt still hung in her bedroom doorway.

This building felt just as dangerous. But for once, danger didn't make her run. It made her rise.

She took a breath, stepped inside, and didn't look back.

By 6:25 a.m., she was in the executive floor's private break room, washing her hands like it might erase the panic from her chest. She'd been early her entire life. It was the one thing she could control.

At 6:29, she stood outside Damian Knight's door.

She didn't knock.

The doors opened at exactly 6:30. Not a second later.

A woman walked past with coffee, glanced at Isabella, then quickly looked away. Another man paused at the hallway printer and muttered, "Guess the boss has a new toy."

She pretended not to hear. She was good at pretending. Pretending not to bleed. Not to hurt. Not to care.

But under the calm surface, her fists clenched.

He was already inside. Already behind his desk. Already working.

Without looking up, he said, "You're on time."

She bowed her head. "Yes, Mr. Knight."

"You'll sit at the desk outside mine. Passwords are in your inbox. Coffee machine is down the hall. Schedule's been emailed. I expect you to memorize it by this afternoon."

She nodded.

Still, he didn't look at her. But when she turned to leave, his voice stopped her.

"And Isabella?"

She faced him again.

His eyes met hers-briefly.

"No perfume."

Her cheeks warmed. "Yes, sir."

Her new desk sat just outside his office-a sleek black table with a touchscreen monitor, an office phone, and exactly one drawer.

She didn't touch anything at first. Just sat, breathing slowly. Trying not to mess up.

Her inbox had 47 unread emails. One had the subject line:

"Daily Command Flow: Mr. Knight"

Another simply read:

"Watch everything. Speak only when spoken to."

She reread that line five times. Not because she didn't understand it but because she did.

That was the same rule they gave her at seventeen, when her stepmother "lent" her to a client for the first time.

Watch. Be quiet. Obey.

Her hands trembled on the mouse. But she didn't stop reading. Not this time.

She clicked. Read. Memorized.

Each second passed like a test. The other employees on the floor barely looked her way. Most of them typed with robotic precision. No gossip. No side conversations.

At 7:15, she delivered her first printout to Damian. Her hand trembled as she pushed open the door.

He didn't look up. He just took the paper from her fingers, eyes still fixed on his screen.

But his fingers brushed hers ,just barely and paused.

Her breath caught.

He looked up.

"Your pulse is too fast."

She tried to steady her breathing, but her chest still trembled with the rhythm of survival.

Back home, a voice inside her whispered, they noticed your breathing too.

"Don't breathe like that," her stepmother used to hiss. "Makes you look weak. Men hate weakness."

She hadn't known what men liked, she only knew what they took.

She swallowed. "Sorry."

He stared a moment longer, then looked back down.

"You'll adjust."

She left in a blur of heat and silence.

By noon, she was lightheaded from focus.

Her phone rang twice. She answered each one in exactly two rings. One caller got snippy. The other demanded a meeting Damian hadn't approved.

She told them, "Mr. Knight doesn't take unexpected meetings."

Her voice didn't shake that time.

She was almost proud.

Until she opened the drawer.

It was empty. She hadn't used it. But now, something sat inside,a small, folded piece of ivory paper.

No name. No address.

Just two words.

LEAVE NOW.

Her vision blurred. For a second, she forgot how to breathe.

She forced herself not to look around, not to bolt.The urge to run slammed into her chest like a train.But this wasn't Russia. This was New York.

She'd seen notes like that before. Back in St. Petersburg, one had been slid beneath her bedroom door the night her father was found dead in the garage.

A warning.

A threat.

Or... worse

A truth.

Isabella stared at it for several seconds, too stunned to breathe.

No one could've placed it there. Not today. Not with her sitting right here.

But the drawer had been closed all morning.

The hallway cameras. The quiet glances. The unreadable smiles.

She looked up.

Across the hall, someone had paused by the elevator.

A man in a charcoal-gray jacket.

He stared at her. No blink. No expression. Just a stillness that didn't belong here.

There was something wrong with his stillness. He didn't belong here at all not just in the building, but in the way a crow doesn't belong inside a church.

Cold. Patient. Watching.

She couldn't explain it, but her gut twisted in the same way it had the day her stepmother sold her father's car and said, "We won't need it anymore."

Then the elevator opened. He disappeared inside.

Inside the office, Damian paused mid-call. He glanced through the tinted glass wall at Isabella's desk.she looked like someone who has seen a ghost.

She looked pale.

Too pale.

His jaw clenched.

"Move the meeting to tomorrow," he told the phone. "I have something more important to."

Damian rose from his chair, eyes locked on the drawer she'd just closed.

No one was supposed to touch her.Not yet

And if someone had?

They'd regret it.