The low hum of elevator music was drowned out by the gentle beat pulsing through her headphones. Her oversized sweatshirt—custom-made with her name stitched in cursive silver thread—hung off one shoulder, the hem skimming the top of her dancer’s shorts. One hand was tucked into her pocket, the other absently tapping her phone screen as words scrolled by in her notes app: fragments of lyrics, lines of chorus, snippets of thought too fleeting to catch if she wasn’t careful.

She didn’t look up when the elevator doors slid open.

Her thumb hovered over the screen, her lips moving silently as she mouthed the chorus to a second song she was crafting. The rhythm played out in her head—sharp footwork for the bridge, then slow, sweeping arms for the last verse. She was choreographing it in real-time, lost somewhere between melody and movement.

The man who stepped into the elevator barely made a sound. His tailored charcoal suit was crisp and understated, with an air of wealth so old it didn’t need to announce itself. His watch was one of one. His shoes were made by a man who didn’t have a website. His name Kian Han—if she’d bothered to ask—had been printed in the business and tech journals since before she was born.

12th generation tycoon. CEO of half the apps on her phone. Father to three triplets—all prodigies, all famous in their own right. One an Olympic gold medalist, one a Pulitzer-winning journalist, the last a musical virtuoso.

But none of that mattered here. Not to her.

She reached out and pressed the button for the 18th floor, barely glancing toward him. She didn’t recognize the face next to her. Didn’t even register the slight tilt of his head as he looked at her—curious, amused, maybe even a little surprised by her complete disinterest. She was used to people staring. This time, it wasn’t because she was famous.

Not yet.

He shifted his weight, hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing. There was a quiet intensity to him, like the room always adjusted itself around his presence. But she didn’t notice. She was too busy timing the counts in her head, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

He studied her face—a flash of ambition in her expression, not the shallow kind. Real fire. She was young, sure, but her focus was like steel. The kind of focus that didn’t care about wealth or power. She had her own empire to build, one lyric, one beat, one step at a time.