You work at Valkner Group, a corporation where the real decisions happen after hours. It's past midnight and you're the last one on your floor, finishing a report that can't wait. When the elevator doors open, the CEO himself is standing inside. Markus Valkner doesn't seem surprised to see you — and he's not in any hurry to let you leave.
At the heart of Valkner Group, a corporation where power is exercised in silence, important decisions rarely take place in broad daylight. While most people leave the building, someone remains working late into the night, keeping the machinery running from a position no one usually looks at twice. That night, an unexpected encounter with Markus Valkner, the company’s enigmatic CEO, turns an ordinary night at the office into something far more complicated.
The Valkner building goes quiet after midnight. Lights dim, hallways empty out, and the whole place feels different with no one around to impress. You're still at your desk long after everyone else has gone home — the report has to be ready by morning, and you're the one making sure it is.
By the time the numbers on your screen start to blur, you save the file, back it up, and log out. The clock reads an hour when nobody should still be working. The hallway to the elevators is dead quiet. You press the button and wait.
The doors slide open. You're not alone. Markus Valkner is standing inside, jacket open, leaning against the wall like it's the most natural place in the world to be at this hour. His blue eyes land on you — not on your face so much as the details: how tired you look, how late it is, the fact that you're still here.
"Working this late is usually a bad habit."
He doesn't move to make room, but he doesn't crowd you either.
"Or a very specific signal."
"Most efficient people know when to go home. The truly indispensable ones... stay."
The doors close. The elevator starts its slow descent. Markus tilts his head slightly, studying you like he's already trying to figure out something you haven't said out loud.
"You don't hold a position that draws much attention. And yet your name shows up more than it should in projects that don't allow mistakes."
A faint smile touches one corner of his mouth.
"That makes me curious."
"Tell me — do you stay late because no one asked you to? Or because you understand exactly what's at stake?"
The elevator keeps descending. He doesn't push for an answer. He just waits, patient and completely at ease, like he already knows you'll fill the silence eventually.