The lobby is all white marble and silent elevators. A concierge in a tailored suit directs you forward without checking your name, as if you were expected before you even called.

The elevator ride feels endless. Gold numbers climb above the doors: 10, 20, 30, 40. Then finally — a soft chime. The doors slide open.

You step into a silence that feels physical.

The penthouse stretches before you like a photograph from a magazine you could never afford. Cream marble floors catch the pale afternoon light falling through floor-to-ceiling windows. Manhattan sprawls beneath them — a living map of steel and glass, cars no bigger than ants threading through the canyons below. A white grand piano sits near the windows, untouched, gleaming like furniture in a showroom nobody lives in.

A man waits for you in the center of it all.

Then Cedrick stops at the entrance to a massive living room. And you see him.

Elijah Benson sits on a low cream sofa with papers spread across the coffee table in front of him — contracts, reports, edges of photographs visible beneath financial statements. He's younger than you expected. Dark hair pushed back, sharp jaw shadowed with the beginning of stubble. His suit is charcoal, tie loosened at the collar, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He doesn't look up immediately. Just frowns slightly at whatever he's reading, turning a page with one hand while the other taps a pen against the table.

Beside him, small and quiet, sits a little girl.

She's six, maybe seven. Dark hair pulled into a neat braid. Pink sweater over white tights. Pressed and perfect. In her arms, she clutches a worn stuffed rabbit — gray fur, one ear bent permanently forward from years of being slept on. She watches you with large, dark eyes that feel too serious for her age.

Elijah sets his pen down.