Nora Grayson's heels clicked against the tiled floor of Vortex's sleek corridors, the fluorescent lights above humming as she descended into chaos.
Her heart was pounding, not just from the cryptic message she'd received moments ago from an unknown number, "Check X-17's core. Now."—but from the dreadful possibility that something was terribly wrong.
She barely remembered hitting the button for the elevator, let alone breathing as it descended to floor 42, home of the lab and X-17, Vortex's prized renewable energy prototype, a contract worth fifty million dollars.
When she reached the lab, the room was oddly quiet. Her team was gone. Not a single person in sight. Only the soft mechanical hum of equipment greeted her.
Nora's steps slowed, her gaze sweeping across the blinking monitors until she noticed it, a strange metallic device nestled against the core of X-17. It wasn't supposed to be there.
She froze. Her breath hitched as the red numbers on the device glared up at her, 00:45. 00:44. 00:43. It was a bomb.
"Oh my God," she whispered, the reality sinking in like cold steel in her chest.
Nora forced her feet to move. She ran to the core, kneeling beside the device. Her fingers trembled as she examined it. Two wires, red and blue, were connected to the timer. The countdown was ticking backward. Fast.
She racked her brain. No training for this. She wasn't a bomb tech, she was a mechanical engineer for crying out loud! Her hands hovered between the two wires. She closed her eyes for a second and muttered a desperate prayer. "Red or blue," she whispered. "Come on, think!"
The timer blinked faster. 00:10. 00:09. 00:08.
Instinct took over. She yanked the blue wire.
The timer froze.00:07. Silence.
Nora let out a shaky breath, her body nearly collapsing from the adrenaline crash. She wrapped the bomb in a heat-resistant lab cloth, her hands still trembling, and stormed out of the lab.
She didn't stop until she reached floor 50, the executive floor. The floor where Damien Voss reigned like a ruthless king in a glass castle.
His assistant tried to stop her, but she marched past.
She slammed the bomb on his sleek glass desk. The loud thud echoed in the room like a gunshot.
Damien looked up from his laptop, eyebrows raised in irritation. "What the hell is this?"
"A bomb," Nora snapped. "Someone planted it on the X-17 core."
For a moment, he stared at her, expression unreadable. Then he rose from his leather chair, walked around the desk, and inspected the device.He frowned when he spotted the small engraved letter H on its side.
His eyes darkened. "Helix," he muttered.
Nora tilted her head. "Your rival?"
"More than that," Damien said, his jaw tightening. "They've been trying to sabotage us for years. But this…" He turned sharply to her. "This happened under your watch."
Her jaw dropped. "Excuse me? I just started today. You assigned me to Team 3. I don't even know their full names yet!"
"Exactly. And you let strangers handle a multi-million dollar core without knowing their routines or security habits?" His voice was sharp, cold. "That's what I call incompetence."
Nora's cheeks burned with frustration. "I saved your core!"
"You also let someone slip past undetected and plant this…" he tapped the bomb "…right under your nose. That's not something we applaud, Miss Grayson. That's something we fire people for."Her breath caught.
Damien turned away and hit the intercom. "Get security. I want CCTV footage from floor 42 immediately."
Moments later, the footage was pulled up. Everyone in the room stared at the screen.
The video showed a figure—tall, wearing a lab coat, entering the room alone and crouching by the core. But the face was hidden under a cap and mask. A ghost with no identity.
"Great," Damien muttered. "Whoever did this knew exactly where the blind spots were. There's a rat in your team."
Nora crossed her arms. "And what makes you so sure it wasn't someone outside the team?"
"Because only Team 3 has clearance to that floor. And you were the only one conveniently missing when the bomb was planted." His tone was ice-cold. "So either you're incredibly stupid, or you're part of something bigger."
Nora's eyes widened in disbelief. "Are you seriously accusing me?"
"I'm saying," he said, stepping closer, his gaze burning into hers, "that until I know who the traitor is, everyone's a suspect, including you." She shook her head. "Unbelievable."
Damien didn't flinch. "Call in your team members."
She reached for her phone and tried all their numbers. No response.
She pulled up the employee tracker app. Their locations showed "offline." All of them. Every member of Team 3 had vanished.
Nora stared at the screen in shock. "They're gone…"
Damien narrowed his eyes. "They knew we'd find the bomb."
He took a step closer, towering over her. "Now listen, Grayson. We're not calling the cops. We can't afford bad press. You're going to help me find the rats in your team. Track them down, figure out who they're working for, and clean this up."
She blinked. "You want me to investigate my own team?" "That's right."
"And if I say no?"
Damien gave her the kind of smile that wasn't a smile at all. "You're fired."Nora's mouth went dry.
"I don't care if it's your first day," he continued, voice low and lethal. "I took a risk putting you on X-17. You either fix this—or you walk. And let me be clear: if you walk, you'll never work in this industry again. Vortex has friends in high places."
She looked at the bomb on the desk. Then back at the cold, merciless eyes of the man before her.
Her gut screamed to say no. To leave and never look back. But something in her tightened, anger, pride, something else she couldn't name.
"I'll do it," she said finally.
Damien gave a curt nod. "Good. Welcome to Vortex, Miss Grayson. The real work starts now."
And as she left his office, heart racing, Nora couldn't help but wonder just how deep this sabotage went, and what kind of man she had just agreed to work with.