Velmora was alive—but Elsa felt like she was sleepwalking.
Meetings came and went. Deals closed. Coffee brewed. Applause echoed in the boardroom.
Yet through it all, she moved like a woman underwater—gliding through ripples of an unseen tide. Something had shifted. Not just in the world… but in her.
And it all traced back to him.
🖤 The Weight of Presence
It was the little things.
How Chess no longer argued with the board—he simply spoke, and they obeyed.How men twice his age looked away when he entered a room.How the air itself seemed to listen when he passed by.
"He doesn't even have to raise his voice," Elsa whispered one night to Kip, pacing her office like a storm in heels. "And they flinch. They fall in line."
"Sounds like power," Kip replied.
"No," she said, pausing. "It's authority. The kind that doesn't need to be proven—it's just… there."
Kip studied her for a beat. "Do you feel threatened?"
Elsa didn't answer.
Because the truth?
She wasn't threatened. She was unbalanced.
🔍 A Shifting Dynamic
There was a time when Elsa believed she held the reins. She'd agreed to the marriage. She'd set the boundaries. She thought she could shape him into the perfect placeholder husband.
But now? She wasn't even sure who she had married.
"He used to ask permission to kiss me goodnight," she murmured to herself later, curled on her couch with an untouched glass of wine."Now he looks at me like he sees something inside me I don't even understand."
She thought she was dragging him into her world.Now it felt like she was being pulled into his.
And worst of all?
A part of her didn't mind.
💻 The First Clue
Late that night, she unlocked her private laptop. No corporate firewall. No Jefferson Global surveillance. Just her and a burner server.
She typed in a name she'd never dared Google before:
"Chess Golding – Background, Family, Affiliations."
At first, nothing. Scraps. Half-records. Fabricated university degrees. Ghost trails.
But then—one article, long deleted but cached by a forgotten crawler:
"Velmora Orphan Adopted by Billionaire Monk – Child Possesses Unusual Aura According to Locals."
Her heart skipped.
She clicked the image.
A grainy photo of a young boy—stoic, barefoot, standing beside a smiling older man in monks' robes.
But it wasn't the boy's posture that caught her breath.
It was his eyes.
They were exactly the same.
Still. Sharp. And old.
Too old for a child.
🥀 The Crumbling Edge
Elsa leaned back in her chair, heart thudding louder now. She wasn't scared—no, fear wasn't quite it.
It was awe.
And confusion.
And something deeper, darker… yearning.
"Who are you really, Chess Golding?" she whispered.
And somewhere, across the city, standing on a rooftop beneath the stars…
Chess looked up at the same sky.
And smiled.