The humid August air clung to my skin the second I pushed through the heavy rooftop access door, carrying the metallic tang of impending rain and the relentless hum of the city below. Just before midnight, the After Dark helipad was a slick expanse of painted concrete, reflecting the rippling neon of the skyline in shallow puddles that had already begun to form. Floodlights buzzed overhead, casting long, harsh shadows across the perimeter. I swallowed hard, forcing my gaze away from the low safety rail and the dizzying, invisible drop beyond it. Three years of rigid adherence to protocol, three years of keeping my feet planted firmly on solid ground, and my chest still tightened every time I had to walk a roof in the rain.
I took a slow breath and slid immediately into inspection mode. Four bolts per rail stanchion. I counted them under my breath as I walked. One, two, three, four. Predictable. Safe.
My eyes scanned the wet concrete, expecting to see the true-crime documentary crew setting up within the designated safe zones I had approved on paper. Instead, the first thing I spotted was a flash of bright yellow resting dead center on the painted white “H” of the helipad. My safety clipboard. I had left it with the production assistant an hour ago with strict instructions not to let it out of her sight. Now it was abandoned on the wet ground, its color-coded tabs curling slightly in the damp air.
Worse, there was a cigarette smoldering less than two feet away from it, the glowing cherry hissing faintly as a drop of drizzle hit it.
“Hey,” I snapped, my voice sharp enough to cut through the ambient roar of traffic thirty stories down. I marched toward the clipboard, snatching it up and wiping a smear of water from its laminated edge. “This is a non-smoking deck. And who left this here?”
I tracked the thin trail of smoke drifting up into the humid air. Leaning against the low perimeter rail—the exact rail I had explicitly marked as a restricted zone—was a man who looked like he had been built specifically to violate my blood pressure.
Dorian Vale.
I recognized him instantly from the network briefs, though the high-definition promotional stills had not quite captured the aggravating, magnetic ease with which he carried himself. He wore a dark leather jacket that was already catching the rain, his dark hair damp and falling over his forehead. Intricate ink snaked up the side of his neck, disappearing beneath his collar. He was holding his phone in one hand, thumbing a voice note, and he did not even flinch when I yelled.
He finished his recording, slipped the phone into his pocket, and finally turned his head to look at me. His eyes were dark, sharp, and entirely too amused.
“Clipboard police,” Dorian said, his voice a low, rough gravel that carried perfectly over the wind. “I was wondering when you’d show up to read me my rights.”
“Step away from the rail, Mr. Vale,” I said, tapping my pen against the hard plastic of my board. “You are standing in a red zone. The wind shear up here can shift without warning, and that rail is not rated to catch a full-grown man leaning his entire body weight against it.”
He didn’t move. Instead, he turned his back to the drop, resting both elbows on the wet metal, and offered me a slow, provoking smile. “It feels pretty sturdy to me, sweetheart. Or is After Dark just cheap on their construction?”
My jaw tightened. “Do not call me sweetheart. My name is Priya Whitaker, and I am the safety officer for this property. If you want to shoot your true-crime special on my roof, you will step away from the edge. Now.”
For a second, the teasing light in his eyes sharpened into something analytical, like he was dissecting the exact frequency of my anxiety. He pushed off the rail with agonizing slowness, closing the distance between us until he was standing just outside my personal space. He smelled of rain, tobacco, and an infuriating kind of confidence.
“Priya Whitaker,” he murmured, testing the syllables. “You’re wound pretty tight for a midnight babysitting gig. Tell me, does corporate pay you extra to guard the perimeter, or are you just naturally this obsessed with the rules?”
“The rules keep people from scraping you off the pavement,” I retorted, my heart hammering a rapid rhythm against my ribs. The sheer proximity of him was overwhelming, a raw, chaotic energy that made my procedural armor feel paper-thin. “And that cigarette is a fire hazard. We have generator lines running across this deck.”
He glanced back at the smoldering butt on the concrete, then looked down at me. “I’ll keep that in mind when the place goes up in flames. But I have a feeling After Dark has much bigger secrets hiding in this fortress than a wet helipad and a rogue cigarette.”
Before I could formulate a suitably biting response, the heavy access door banged open again, and chaos spilled onto the roof.
Harper Lin practically vibrated with stress as she dragged a waterproof equipment case over the threshold, her phone clamped between her ear and her shoulder. The screen was at maximum brightness, casting a ghastly blue glow over her pale face.
“No, tell them they get the B-roll when I say they get it!” Harper barked into the phone, then ended the call and shoved the device into her pocket. She spotted me and immediately started waving her hands. “Priya! Thank god. Please tell me we are cleared to rig the C-stands. The weather window is closing, and network is threatening to pull the plug if we don’t have a cold open shot in the next forty-five minutes.”
I forced myself to tear my gaze away from Dorian’s smirk. I clicked my pen, stepping back into the familiar, comforting rhythm of my job. “You can rig them, Harper, but the perimeter rail is off-limits. All heavy equipment stays inside the yellow tape line, and I need to measure the cable runs to ensure there are no trip hazards near the access door.”
Harper groaned, pulling a small bag of gummy bears from her jacket pocket and aggressively sorting three red ones into her palm. “Priya, come on. If we keep the lights that far back, the shadows will look like a high school play. Just give me another three feet toward the edge. Please. I am begging you on behalf of my rapidly deteriorating career.”
“Three feet puts your crew in the hazard zone,” I said, pulling a tape measure from my belt. I walked over to the nearest lighting rig, pulling the metal tape out with a sharp zip. “Thirty-six inches from the rail. That is the absolute minimum.”
Dorian had followed me, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He watched me crouch down to check the base of the stand, his gaze heavy and unblinking. “God forbid anyone take a risk,” he drawled. “Is this how it works? You wrap the whole world in bubble wrap and pretend bad things don’t happen? Or is this special treatment just for the cameras?”
I stood up, wiping grit from my knees. “It’s protocol.”
“Protocol,” he echoed, stepping closer. “And who decides when protocol bends? Because I’ve heard rumors about this hotel, Priya. I’ve heard that if you have enough money, or if you’re useful enough to the right people, After Dark is perfectly willing to bend the rules. To look the other way.”
My stomach plummeted, a cold spike of memory hitting me so hard I nearly dropped the tape measure. The wind howling. The catering tent ripping free. The sickening sound of tearing canvas and the scream that followed. I had bent the rules once. I had signed off on an override for a VIP, and someone had died.
I gripped the yellow clipboard so tightly my knuckles ached. “Not on my roof. My rules don’t bend.”
“Priya, please,” Harper whined, stepping between us. “If we don’t get this shot, I’m dead. Literally dead in this industry. What if we secure the cables along the inner parapet wall instead of the floor? That clears the trip hazard, right? It saves us the three feet. I’ll personally tape them down.”
I looked at the inner parapet. It wasn’t standard. It meant the cables would be elevated, which carried its own minor risks, but it technically cleared the floor path. I looked at Harper’s desperate, exhausted face, and then at Dorian, who was watching me with an expression of intense, calculating curiosity.
“Fine,” I breathed, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. “Cables along the inner wall. But no one steps on the painted H, and no one goes near the outer rail without a harness. I mean it, Harper. One violation and I pull the plug on the power.”
Harper exhaled a massive breath. “You are a saint. A terrifying, beautiful saint. Guys! Reroute the power lines to the wall!”
She scurried off to direct the crew. I stood there, staring at the painted concrete, my heart beating a frantic tattoo against my ribs. I had compromised. It was a minor adjustment, a technically safe workaround, but it was a deviation from my filed plan.
“Well, well,” Dorian said softly, stopping right beside me. He leaned down slightly, his voice dropping to a register that sent a shiver straight down my spine. “So the ironclad rules do have a little give. I guess it just depends on who’s asking, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t push me, Dorian,” I warned, my voice tight. “That was a safety concession, not a favor.”
“Sure it was,” he whispered. He pulled his phone out, hitting record again, his eyes never leaving mine. “I’m just documenting the process. Figuring out exactly where the lines are drawn at After Dark.”
The drizzle was steadily thickening into a sheet of rain. The city below felt a million miles away, swallowed by the dark clouds and the mist. The crew was moving frantically, dragging heavy black cables across the wet deck, shouting over the rising wind.
I checked my tablet, swiping through the electrical load approvals. I needed to call down to engineering and make sure the secondary breaker was set. I tapped my earpiece.
“Miguel,” I said over the radio, using his name. “You got eyes on the roof feed? They’re running the main lights now. The draw is going to spike.”
“I see it, Pri,” his steady, calm voice crackled back in my ear. Just hearing him grounded me slightly. Miguel had been the chief engineer on duty during the disaster three years ago, too. He knew exactly what this weather was doing to my nerves. “Breakers are holding. Just keep them out of the puddles. You doing okay up there?”
“I’m fine,” I lied, watching Dorian pace the perimeter like a caged panther, his eyes scanning the security cameras mounted on the rooftop bulkheads. “Just want to get this over with.”
“Ten minutes to roll!” Harper shouted, pointing aggressively at the camera operator. “Hit the mains! Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The operator threw the switch on the heavy power pack.
The massive LED lighting rig positioned near the access door surged to life, blindingly white against the gloomy night. For a split second, the rooftop looked like a stadium.
Then came the pop.
It was a sharp, violent crack of displaced electricity, followed instantly by a hiss of sparks showering down from the top of the rig. The blinding white light flickered, turned a sickly yellow, and died.
In the same instant, half the floodlights on the roof went dark.
A collective shout went up from the crew. I dropped my tape measure and lunged toward the power pack. “Cut it! Cut the feed, now!”
The operator slammed the switch down, but the damage was done. The sharp scent of ozone mingled with the rain. Half the rooftop was plunged into deep, disorienting shadow.
I spun around, my training overriding my panic. “Is everyone okay? Nobody move! Do not step in any standing water!”
“We’re fine!” Harper yelled from the darkness, sounding on the verge of a panic attack. “What happened? Did we blow a fuse?”
I looked toward the heavy metal access door. The small electronic panel beside it—the one that controlled the rooftop elevator and the electronic lock—was completely dark. No red light. No green light. Dead.
“Miguel,” I said into my radio, my voice tight. “We had a short on the roof. Half the deck is dark, and the elevator panel just went dead. I need a manual reset on the breaker.”
Static hissed in my ear for a long moment. Then, Miguel’s voice came back, sounding unusually strained. “Pri. It’s not just a tripped breaker. The main relay for the roof access just locked out. The system threw a critical error. I’m trying to bypass it from down here, but it’s not responding.”
“What do you mean it’s not responding?” I demanded, water dripping from my eyelashes. “Just override it manually from the board.”
“I’m telling you, the board is locked,” Miguel said, his voice dropping lower, taking on a warning edge. “Someone above my clearance level just engaged a hard lockdown on the penthouse elevator bank. You’re stranded up there until I can figure out how to physically hotwire the relay box.”
My blood ran cold. A hard lockdown. That wasn’t a weather glitch. That was an intentional system override.
Before I could ask him anything else, my tablet buzzed violently against my hip.
I pulled it out. The screen illuminated my face in the dark. It wasn’t a system alert from engineering. It was a direct, encrypted message from the executive tier.
Sender: Lena Carruth, VP Brand & Risk Management.
I stared at the name, my stomach twisting into a heavy, sickening knot. Lena rarely involved herself in night-to-night operations unless a disaster was actively happening, or unless she was engineering one. I tapped the message open.
Priya. We are experiencing a minor technical delay. Under no circumstances is the journalist, Dorian Vale, to leave that roof. Keep him contained and camera-ready. PR and legal are en route to the property to renegotiate the terms of his broadcast. Do whatever is necessary to keep him up there until we arrive. Acknowledge receipt.
I read the words three times, the rain splattering against the glass screen of the tablet, blurring the text. Keep him contained. They had cut the power intentionally. They had trapped us up here in the storm to force Dorian into a corner, and they were using me to do it.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
I looked up from the glowing screen.
Dorian was standing less than two feet away, cloaked in the shadows of the dead lighting rig. The rain was running down the sharp angles of his face, his leather jacket soaked through. He wasn’t looking at the panicked crew, and he wasn’t looking at the dead elevator doors.
He was staring directly at me, his eyes narrowed into dangerous, razor-sharp slits, watching the horror wash over my face.
“The elevator is dead,” Dorian said, his voice dropping the teasing lilt, replacing it with something hard and uncompromising. He took a slow step toward me, crowding me against the cold metal of the doorframe as the rain beat violently against the glass behind me. “And you look like you just saw a ghost.” He reached out, his fingers hovering inches from the tablet clutched against my chest. “What did After Dark just tell you, Priya?”