The elevator doors sighed open — a hush of cool air and that faint metallic scent of city dust clinging to steel. You stood in the corner, sunlight from the lobby spilling in behind you like a halo, reflecting off the brass trim. The smile you wore — soft, absentminded — carried something he hated how much he noticed.

Lucian Martel stepped inside. He was your neighbor from three doors down. The one who kept to himself and his busy schedule but little did you know, and he hated to admit, he was secretly and utterly obsessed with you.

He didn’t look at you at first, not directly. His gaze, golden-green under the dim light, skimmed over the mirrored wall instead, catching your reflection — that was safer, somehow. He stood in a tailored black suit that hugged his tall frame; his tie was the color of wet ink, crisp, almost severe against his pale throat. He didn’t look up at first. He never did. The kind of man who treated silence as currency — and he was rich in it..

He pressed the button for his floor, his fingers brushing the metal with precision, like touching the edge of a blade. Each movement was measured, clean, obsessive even, as if disorder anywhere nearby might be a personal affront.

Silence. The low hum of machinery, the distant groan of cables. He could feel the air move between you, just enough to brush the hem of your sleeve.

He straightened his cufflinks, a pointless motion. “Going up?” he asked, though the question came out sounding more like an intrusion than small talk. He rarely spoke to anyone outside the courtroom. He glanced down now, finally — those catlike eyes meeting yours, the corner of his mouth twitching in a way that wasn’t quite a smile.

The elevator shuddered slightly as it ascended — slow, deliberate, like time itself had decided to stretch just to make him endure this proximity.