Madeleine’s POV

I had never woken up before my alarm.

Never.

But this morning I woke up thirty minutes before my alarm went off, with a heavy feeling that something was wrong.

It wasn’t panic and it wasn’t fear.

It was just a quiet ache sitting heavily in my chest that made it hard to breathe properly.

I laid still under my blankets, staring at the old lamp beside my bed, while sunlight peaked through the curtains. I’d had that lamp since I was ten years old. My father got it for my birthday because I was terribly afraid of the dark.

It hurts to think about it now.

The feeling in my chest didn’t lighten up one bit. The pressure only got worse.

I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to clear my thoughts, before getting out of bed.

By the time I was dressed for work, my nerves had completely gotten out of hand. I nearly missed my bus because of how deep in thought I was. When I finally made it downtown, the buzz of the city was louder than usual. Too bright and too fast.

Everything rubbed me the wrong way.

I walked into the newsroom and headed straight for the kitchen to make my usual coffee before anyone could bother me.

Huge mistake.

The coffee machine spat burning coffee straight onto my face like it was mad at me.

“Ugh, seriously?” I hissed loudly, moving back too late.

Dark coffee dripped down my face, while the coffee machine continued whirring innocently, like nothing had happened.

Perfect.

“This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.” I muttered angrily.

Spoke too soon.

My phone buzzed inside my pocket.

I pulled it out already annoyed.

Daniel: My office. 9am sharp.

Daniel never called people into his office this early, unless someone was getting fired, screamed at, or both.

I checked my watch.

8:53am.

Great.

I didn’t even have enough time to panic.

By the time I stood outside his office, my hands couldn't stop shaking. The kind where you press them hard against your thighs and they shake anyway

I had performed in front of my entire school as a kid and I never felt like this. This was different. I had a nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong.

I stood in Daniel’s office, one step away from the floor.

He didn’t look up. Didn’t even spare me a glance.

He flipped through the pages of my folder, the way people do when they’ve already decided, when the reading was just a performance.

I focused on my breathing, in and out. Like something I had to consciously remember.

He closed the folder and slid it back toward me, not gently. It stopped just short of my hands, which were gripping the edge of the desk, and I hated that he could see how nervous I was.

“This isn’t strong enough,” he said

I stared at him “You didn’t even finish reading it”

“I read enough.”

Six months. Six months of dead end interviews, archived files and bad coffee and nights where I would fall asleep at my desk and wake up with newsprint creases on my cheek. Six months of chasing a story he gave to me

“So that’s it?” My voice came out quieter than I wanted. “You’re killing it.”

“I’m saving us from printing something unimpressive” He muttered, already reaching for something else on his desk.

Ouch. That one stung

The newsroom went on around us like nothing had happened. Like my career had not just been dragged across the floor. Phones rang, Keyboards clicked endlessly, people laughed near the boardroom. No one looked up long enough to care.

I took the folder and walked out of his office before he could say another word.

By the time I reached my cubicle, anger had quickly replaced the nervousness I felt earlier.

Another rejection

Another reminder that I was twenty-four years old and going nowhere fast. I had been doing this for three years and I was still here. Still being told not enough, not yet, not quite.

I sunk to my chair and stared at my desk. Purple sticky notes plastered across my monitor. Papers stacked in sloppy piles, empty coffee cups I keep meaning to throw away. It was a mess

Something inside me snapped.

I swept everything off the desk, in one violent motion.

Papers flew everywhere. A coffee cup rolled under someone’s chair. A few heads turned, startled, but nobody said a word.

They probably thought I had finally lost it. And honestly, that was fair.

I stared at the mess I made on the floor, breathing heavily. My heart pumped fast and my hands still trembled from throwing everything.

I got down on the floor to clean it all up.

That was when I saw it.

A white envelope lying among the scattered papers.

I frowned. That had not been there before. I knew everything that had been on my desk. Every sticky note and every useless printout. That envelope was not there this morning.

I picked it up slowly.

Madeleine Sinclair. Printed across the front in handwriting I don’t recognize. Neat and bold. No stamp, no return address, nothing.

I looked up. The newsroom hummed along. No one was watching me, one was hovering.

I flipped the envelope over and opened it.

A photograph slipped out first.

It was my father.

Younger than I remembered him. Alive.

For a moment, I just held the photo. My throat closed tight and tears blurred my vision as I stared at his face. Twelve years of fading memories and framed photos my mother refused to take down, and here he was, standing in a photograph I had never seen.

But it wasn’t him that made my hands go still.

It was the man beside him.

Fair-skinned with dark hair. Wearing a suit that probably cost more than four months of my rent. His hand rested on my father’s shoulder casually, like they had known each other their whole lives.

He was smiling but not warmly.

Not kindly, but knowingly. The kind of smile that instantly made me uncomfortable.

I had known all my father’s friends. Every colleague, every neighbor, every person who came to the funeral and cried and said he was a good man. I had never seen this man before in my life.

I turned the photo over looking for something. Anything.

One sentence, written in black ink on the back.

‘Your father didn’t die in an accident. The Hawthorne family made sure of it.’

The buzz of the newsroom seemed to disappear.

The Hawthornes.

Even their name carried weight.

Everyone knew who they were. Wealthy, powerful and untouchable. The kind of family newspapers steered clear of unless they wanted lawsuits and ruined careers waiting for them the next morning.

“Madeleine” A voice pulled me back. “Are you okay?”

I looked up. Adeola was watching me, from across the partition, worry written all over her face.

I had known Adeola for three years. We’d been sharing this cubicle since our first week. She gave the best advice, knew when I slept, when I ate and when I was lying. She kept me grounded at work, and always knew the best spots in New York.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I quipped quickly, bending down to gather the papers.

She crouched down to help, looking unconvinced. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?”

Because I have. But I couldn’t say that.

I tucked the photograph under the stack of papers in my hands before she could see it.

Her eyes narrowed immediately “Madeleine.”

“It’s nothing”

“You’re a terrible liar”

I forced a small laugh, but it sounded fake even to me. “Bad day. That’s all.”

She studied me for a moment longer, deciding something.

“Was it your editor again?” she asked finally.

I nodded. “He rejected the story”

“Of course he did,” she murmured quietly. “That man wakes up angry.”

I almost smiled at that

Almost.

She handed me the last papers and stood up. “Come on. Let’s get out of here”

“I still have work to do.”

“You don’t.” She rolled her eyes. “You need to breathe and I know just the place. Besides, it's almost lunchtime.”

“Fine.” I sighed.

We walked down the street side by side, Adeola humming something under her breath. The sun was out. The city was loud and busy.

She took me to a small tea shop I’d never noticed, wedged between two bookstores a few blocks from the office, the kind of place that only appears when you need it.

Inside, it smelled of cinnamon and something warm I couldn’t name wrapped around me, instantly making me feel better. I ordered warm spice tea, while she ordered peppermint tea. We sat by the window and watched the city blur past us.

We didn’t talk about the story right away. Instead, she told me about a new bar she wanted to try. I drank my tea and nodded when it felt right, held the cup with both hands and let the warmth work its way in. My mind kept going back to the envelope, the photograph, and the sentence still burning behind in my head.

My father had been an investigative journalist.

Twelve years ago, his car went off a bridge during a storm, on his way home from work. Slick roads, low visibility. The investigation lasted two weeks. Case closed.

I had never believed that.

I was twelve and I didn’t understand most of it. But I understood that something about the way people talked about it, carefully, briefly, already moving on, didn’t fit.

I had been carrying that feeling for twelve years without a name for it.

Now it had one.

When we left, I had the sense that I was being watched but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from so I brushed it off. The day had been long enough.

My phone buzzed as I was stepping off the curb.

Unknown number.

‘Meet me at Brooklyn Park tomorrow at 4pm if you want to know the truth about your father.’

I read it three times, standing in the middle of the sidewalk while the city moved around me.

Who are you? I thought it, but didn’t type it. Whoever had sent that envelope, whoever had left it on my desk without me seeing, they already knew my name. They knew where I worked. They had a photograph of my father and they had chosen me.

They didn’t need me to ask who they were.

They just needed me to show up.