Before The Dark: Chasing Shadows

Zayne Mavryk doesn't fire people.
He dismantles them.

Youngest CEO of a billion-dollar empire, Zayne is built on sleepless nights, ruthless discipline, and a last name powerful enough to end careers with a whisper. Control is his language. Work is his refuge. Sleep is a weakness he buried years ago.

Until Renley Hart walks into his company.

She's sharp, composed, and carrying a confidence that looks practiced enough to be fake. There's something about her that unsettles him in ways he can't place - a familiarity that doesn't make sense, a tension that doesn't fade. She doesn't push. She doesn't fold. She simply stays. And the longer she does, the more the nights change.

For him, she is disruption.
A flaw in the system.
A silence that doesn't obey.

For her, he is gravity.
Unmovable. Watching.
A presence that presses closer the more she pretends not to feel it.

Days pass. Nights shift. And when the dark loses its edge for the first time in years......the insomniac sleeps.
Not in solitude.
Not in peace.
But in proximity. Hers.

Renley doesn't know why he looks at her like recognition hurts.
Zayne doesn't know why losing her feels like something he's already survived once.

Some people don't enter your life.
They return.

Some connections don't announce themselves.
They resurface.

Because some histories refuse to stay finished.