My Dad is the CEO who wants me Dead

Night shift

The mop squeaked against the floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Same rhythm every night.

Liam liked the rhythm. It kept his mind quiet.

Two in the morning. The 23rd floor of Elysian Tower was empty except for him and the humming servers. Most people thought janitors worked while everyone was asleep, but that wasn't true. The real night shift started at midnight, and by 2 AM, most of the building was already dark.

Just the way Liam wanted it.

He pushed his cart past the glass-walled offices, his reflection bouncing off the dark windows. Same gray uniform. Same tired eyes. Same guy nobody noticed.

That was the point.

Five years ago, Liam had been someone else. Someone important. Someone with a future. But that life ended the night everything went wrong, and now he was just the quiet guy who cleaned up other people's messes.

He preferred it that way.

The only person who ever talked to him was Mike, an older programmer who worked late almost every night. Mike always nodded at Liam in the hallway, sometimes even said "Hey, kid" when nobody else was around.

It was stupid how much that meant.

Tonight, Mike's office light was still on. Liam could see him through the glass, hunched over his computer, typing frantically. His face looked pale, even from a distance.

Liam almost kept walking. Almost.

But something made him stop. Mike's hands were shaking. He kept looking over his shoulder, like he was expecting someone. And then Liam noticed the shattered coffee mug on the floor, the dark stain spreading across the white carpet.

Something was wrong.

Liam was about to knock on the glass when he heard it. Footsteps. Heavy ones. Multiple pairs, coming from the elevator.

He ducked behind a large plant, his heart already pounding.

The footsteps stopped right outside Mike's office. The glass door slid open, and three men walked in. Two of them were big, wearing black suits that didn't fit right. The third man was different. Tall, silver hair, expensive suit. Liam recognized him immediately.

Julian Croft. The new CEO.

Everyone at Elysian had been talking about Julian for weeks. He'd taken over the company in some kind of hostile takeover, fired half the executives, and started demanding access to old projects nobody had touched in years.

Liam hadn't thought much about it. CEOs came and went. None of them ever looked at the janitor.

But Julian was looking at Mike now, and his expression wasn't friendly.

"Where is it?" Julian asked. His voice was calm, almost bored. Like he was asking for the time.

Mike stumbled backward, knocking his chair over. "I — I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Don't lie to me, Mike." Julian walked closer, and the two big men moved to block the door. "You worked on Project Atlas. You helped build it. Tell me where the backup is, and I'll let you walk out of here."

Liam's blood went cold.

Project Atlas.

He hadn't heard that name in five years. He'd buried it so deep, tried so hard to forget. But he'd built that project. Every line of code, every algorithm, every secret that made it work. It was supposed to change the world, but instead it had destroyed his life.

And now Julian Croft was killing people for it.

"I don't have it!" Mike was crying now, tears streaming down his face. "Please, Julian. I'm just an old man. I don't know anything —"

Julian sighed. He turned to the two men and gave a small nod.

One of them grabbed Mike's head.

Liam heard the crack.

It was quick. One second Mike was there, and the next he was just a body on the floor, his eyes still open like he couldn't believe what just happened.

Liam's hands were shaking so hard he almost dropped his mop. He forced himself to breathe. Quiet. Stay quiet. Don't move, don't make a sound.

Julian walked to Mike's computer and tapped the keyboard. The screen flickered. "He wiped everything," Julian said, sounding annoyed. "Check his bag."

One of the goons searched through Mike's things. "Nothing, sir."

"Then he hid it." Julian turned toward the door, and for one terrible second, his eyes scanned right past the plant where Liam was hiding. But he didn't see him. Nobody ever saw Liam.

"Search his apartment," Julian said. "And his wife's place. Find that code."

"Sir?" the goon asked. "What about his wife?"

Julian was already walking out. "Make sure she can't tell anyone what he was working on. You know what to do."

The footsteps faded. The elevator doors closed. And then it was just Liam and Mike's body and the buzzing lights that never seemed to turn off.

Liam stood there for a long time. His legs felt like they weren't connected to his body. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted to go back to his tiny apartment and pretend he hadn't seen any of this.

But then he saw it.

Mike's phone had fallen out of his pocket. The screen was still lit up with a text message.

"They know. Get rid of the backup in the north wall. If anything happens to me, find him. Only he can protect it now. - G."

Find him. Only he can protect it.

Liam knew who that message was for. He knew what was hidden in the north wall. He knew because he'd put it there himself, five years ago, when he'd walked away from everything and sworn he'd never touch Project Atlas again.

He looked at Mike's body. At the face of the only person in this building who'd ever treated him like a human being.

And then Liam made a decision.

He pulled the poster off the wall behind Mike's desk, revealing a small safe. His hands were still shaking as he typed in the code — the date Mike's company went public. The safe clicked open, and inside was a single black USB drive.

Liam took it and shoved it in his pocket.

He could feel the weight of it against his leg. Everything he'd tried to leave behind, right there in his hand.

The elevator dinged. They were coming back.

Liam looked at the door. Then at Mike. Then at the phone with that message still glowing.

"Find him."

He'd have to become someone else now. Someone he'd tried so hard to forget.

He took off running.