The Lockdown Takeover

Chapter 1

Mariah Benson.

The flashbulbs feel like tiny explosions against my retinas. Each one is a pop, a crackle, another piece of my composure being chipped away for public consumption. The champagne flute in my hand is cold, a stark contrast to the heat rising up my neck. I keep my smile fixed, a mask of cool indifference I perfected years ago. It’s my most valuable asset.

“There she is! The visionary herself!” Marcus Sterling’s voice booms across the ballroom, a weaponized instrument of pure ego. He parts the sea of tuxedos and silk gowns like a barge, a smug grin plastered on his face. He smells of expensive cologne and cheap victory.

“Marcus,” I say, my voice a carefully modulated icicle. “I’m surprised to see you. I didn’t think they allowed dinosaurs in here.”

A few nervous chuckles ripple through the investors lingering nearby. Marcus’s grin widens, unafraid. He lives for this. He feeds on it.

“Always sharp, Mariah. Almost as sharp as that ridiculous fantasy you’re peddling.” He gestures vaguely towards the massive screen behind the stage, where the Benson Innovations logo glows. “What are you calling it now? ‘Project Phoenix’? Sounds a bit dramatic for an algorithm that probably just balances your checkbook.”

My grip tightens on the flute. Just slightly. He wants a reaction. He wants the world to see the formidable Mariah Benson crack under the pressure of a man’s opinion. He will not get it.

“It’s a predictive analytics engine, Marcus. A concept I’m sure your board would have to explain to you with puppets.”

His laugh is too loud, a performance for the audience he’s gathered. “Predictive analytics! You mean a glorified Magic 8-Ball. I heard you sank two hundred million into it already. Two hundred million.” He says the number like an accusation, letting it hang in the air, thick and heavy. “My shareholders would have my head on a platter. But I suppose when you inherit a company, you can treat it like your personal piggy bank.”

The barb lands. It’s designed to. A reminder that I wasn’t the son my father wanted, but the daughter who got the keys to the kingdom anyway. A truth I’ve spent the last decade trying to outrun with sheer, relentless success.

“The difference between my shareholders and yours, Marcus, is that mine believe in the future. Yours are still trying to figure out how email works.”

“The future is profit, darling. Tangible results. Not some… ghost in a machine you’ve been chasing for three years.” He leans in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that is still loud enough for everyone to hear. “I heard your lead engineer quit last month. And the one before that. The phoenix isn’t rising, Mariah. It’s burning. Burning your money, your reputation, everything your father built.”

My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic bird in a cage of bone. He’s not entirely wrong. The setbacks have been brutal. The pressure from my own board is immense. But admitting that would be suicide.

“You should be careful, Marcus. Sometimes, from the ashes, something new is born. Something that changes the game entirely.”

He pats my shoulder, a condescending gesture that makes my skin crawl. “Stick to making smart phones, Ellie. Leave the big ideas to the big boys.”

He turns and saunters away, his sycophants trailing in his wake, leaving me in a bubble of stunned silence. The flashes resume, more insistent now, capturing the moment of my public execution. I take a slow, deliberate sip of champagne, the bubbles fizzing on my tongue. The taste is bitter. I let my mask slip back into place, perfect and impenetrable, and turn away from the gawking crowd. I need to get out of here.

My penthouse office is my sanctuary. A fortress of glass and steel fifty stories above the city that never sleeps. The skyline glitters outside the floor to ceiling windows, a sprawling galaxy of light and ambition. My ambition. I shed my heels by the door and walk across the cool marble floor, the silence a welcome balm after the noise of the gala.

I’m pouring a glass of scotch, the amber liquid catching the light, when my assistant’s voice buzzes through the intercom.

“Ma’am, Mr. Harland is here.”

Right. The final negotiation. From one battlefield to another. “Send him in, Sarah.”

I turn to face the door as it slides open. Blake Harland steps inside, and for a moment, the air electrifies. He’s the only person in this city who can match me, move for move. We’ve been circling each other for years, two predators fighting for the same territory. And damn him, he’s infuriatingly handsome. He wears a tailored charcoal suit like a second skin, and his dark hair is perfectly imperfect. His eyes, the color of a stormy sea, land on me, sharp and analytical.

“Benson,” he says, his voice a low, smooth baritone that has always managed to get under my skin.

“Harland,” I reply, taking a seat behind my massive obsidian desk. My throne. “Punctual as always.”

“Time is the one asset we can’t acquire more of.” He doesn’t take the seat I gesture to. Instead, he walks to the window, his back to me, looking down at the river of headlights below. “Impressive view. You can see almost everything from up here. Makes you feel like you own it all.”

“I’m working on it.” I take a sip of my scotch. The burn is grounding.

He turns, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. It’s a smile that makes me want to check my pockets for my wallet. “Of course you are. Now, about OmniCorp. My final offer is on the table. Twenty percent above market value, all cash. You won’t get a better deal.”

OmniCorp is the key. The small tech firm holds the patent to a processing architecture that would cut Project Phoenix’s run time in half. I need it. He knows I need it. And he wants it just as badly to block me.

“It’s a generous offer, Blake. Almost as generous as the one you used to poach my head of acquisitions last year.”

He finally takes the seat opposite me, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. The picture of relaxed confidence. It’s all an act. I know his tells. The slight twitch in his jaw, the way he subtly taps his index finger against his thumb.

“Business is business, Mariah. You know that. We were interns together, remember? You taught me that lesson yourself when you took the junior analyst position we both wanted.”

Ten years. A decade since a bitter misunderstanding over a promotion turned a spark of friendship, and maybe something more, into a full blown war. I thought I was over it. I’m not.

“I earned that position,” I state flatly. “Just like I’m going to earn OmniCorp.”

“With what? Your offer is paper, a mix of cash and Benson Innovations stock. Stock that took a very interesting nosedive after your little performance at the gala tonight.” He slides his phone across the desk. The screen shows a news alert. ‘Benson CEO Flounders Under Questioning About Flagship ‘Phoenix’ Project.’ The article features a picture of me just after Marcus walked away. I look pale, cornered.

My blood runs cold. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m a pragmatist. Sterling’s public attack just made my all cash offer look a lot more stable than your stock options. The Omni board will see that. They’ll take the sure thing.”

He has me. He’s leveraged Marcus’s disgusting bravado into a tactical advantage. He’s boxed me in. It’s a brilliant move. I hate him for it.

“You’ve always been good at capitalizing on other people’s messes,” I say, the words sharper than I intend.

His smile fades. For a second, I see a flicker of something else in his eyes. Hurt? No, that can’t be right. Blake Harland doesn’t get hurt. He gets even.

“And you’ve always been good at underestimating me,” he replies, his voice dropping an octave. The room feels smaller, the air thicker. We stare at each other across the polished expanse of the desk, the silence crackling with ten years of rivalry, of what ifs and what could have beens.

I open my mouth to deliver a counter, to rip his argument and his smug face to shreds, when a sound from outside cuts through the tension. It’s a low, mournful wail that rises in pitch, echoing off the surrounding skyscrapers. It’s a sound I’ve only ever heard in drills.

An emergency siren.

Then another joins it, then another, until the entire city is screaming. Blake and I both look toward the window. Down below, the ceaseless flow of traffic is beginning to stutter and slow.

My phone buzzes on the desk. So does his. We glance at them simultaneously. The screen is lit up with a red banner. An official emergency alert.

I look up from my phone and meet his gaze. The animosity, the rivalry, the billion dollar deal hanging between us, it all evaporates, replaced by a single, shared emotion.

A cold, creeping dread.

The sirens wail on, a soundtrack for the end of the world as we know it. Or at least, the end of our night.

Chapter 2

Mariah Benson.

The siren’s wail seems to seep through the soundproof glass, a physical thing that vibrates in my teeth. My phone is cold in my hand. Blake’s is the same. We are frozen, two statues on opposite sides of my desk, connected only by the red banner glowing on our screens.

MANDATORY CIVIC SHELTER ORDER. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

“Well,” Blake says, his voice unnaturally calm. He pockets his phone and stands, smoothing the front of his suit jacket. An absurd gesture of normalcy. “This certainly complicates the acquisition.”

“The acquisition?” I look up from the screen, my mind struggling to catch up. “Blake, the entire city is screaming.”

“An overreaction, I’m sure. Some kind of environmental scare. It’ll blow over in an hour.” He walks to the private elevator that opens directly into my office. He presses the call button. Nothing happens. He presses it again, harder this time, the soft chime mocking his effort.

“It’s not working,” I state, the obvious hanging stupidly in the air.

“I can see that, Mariah.” He turns from the elevator, that mask of relaxed confidence finally showing a crack. He runs a hand through his hair, the first time I’ve ever seen him look anything less than perfect. “What’s the protocol here?”

“The protocol?” I let out a short, sharp laugh that sounds more like a bark. “The protocol is for a city wide emergency I’ve never seen before? I don’t know, Harland. I’ll check the Benson Innovations apocalypse handbook.”

I swivel in my chair and tap a few commands into my desktop. The building’s internal security feed pops up. Red lines slash across every exit. ELEVATOR SYSTEMS: OFFLINE. STAIRWELL ACCESS: DENIED. MAGNETIC LOCKS: ENGAGED. AUTHORIZATION: MUNICIPAL EMERGENCY COMMAND.

“We’re locked in,” I say, my own voice sounding distant. “By the city. No one in or out.”

He walks back over, leaning down to see my screen, his proximity an unwelcome heat. The scent of his cologne, something clean and sharp like sandalwood and bergamot, fills the space between us. “Indefinite, it says. What does that mean? An hour? A day?”

“It means they don’t know.” I stand up, needing to move, to do something. I walk to the window and look down. The river of headlights he commented on earlier is gone. Cars are abandoned, pulled over haphazardly on the streets fifty stories below. The city, my city, is silent for the first time in my life. The sirens have stopped, and the quiet they’ve left behind is worse. It’s a heavy, suffocating blanket.

“So we just wait,” he says from behind me.

“It appears so.”

“Fine.” He walks back to his chair, all business again. He picks up his phone. “While we wait, let’s finish this. My offer for OmniCorp still stands. Twenty percent over market. All cash.”

I turn from the window, incredulous. “Are you serious right now? We’re trapped in a municipal lockdown and you want to talk about stock prices?”

“It’s the perfect time to talk about them,” he counters, his voice regaining its familiar, infuriating smoothness. “Your stock is volatile. My cash is not. The situation outside only proves my point. Stability is everything.”

“My company is not volatile, it’s ambitious.”

“It’s a gamble. A house of cards built on one ridiculous, over budget pet project that just got publicly eviscerated.”

“Get out of my office,” I say, the words low and dangerous.

He raises an eyebrow, a slow, deliberate motion. “I’d love to. But according to your state of the art security system, that’s not an option.”

He’s right. The realization hits me with the force of a physical blow. This is not my office anymore. It’s a cage. And he’s in here with me.

I press the intercom on my desk. “Sarah, can you hear me?”

Static answers. The internal lines are dead.

My cell phone. I pull it from my pocket. No service. A single, ominous ‘SOS Only’ message is displayed at the top.

“No service,” Blake says, looking at his own phone. “They must have shut down the civilian networks to preserve bandwidth for emergency services.”

Of course they did. Logical. Efficient. And terrifying. We are completely cut off.

“There’s a landline,” I say, gesturing to the sleek phone on my desk.

He picks up the receiver and listens for a moment before placing it back down. “Nothing. Not even a dial tone.”

The silence in the room stretches, thick with unspoken horror. The professional rivalry, the billion dollar deals, they all feel like a game from another lifetime. The only thing that’s real is the glass, the steel, and the two of us.

“So,” he says, his voice taking on a different tone, one I haven’t heard in ten years. Softer. More uncertain. “This office isn’t your home, is it?”

I shake my head, my throat suddenly tight. “The penthouse is through there.” I nod towards a discreet door in the wall, one that blends in with the dark wood paneling.

He follows me as I push it open. We step out of the cold, corporate atmosphere of my office and into the living space of my home.

If you can call it a home. It’s more like a gallery. Minimalist to the point of being sterile. White walls, a sprawling grey sectional sofa, a single abstract painting that is mostly black. A wall of glass looks out over the northern stretch of the city.

Blake stands in the middle of the room, turning in a slow circle. “I see you’ve decorated in a style I like to call ‘soulless corporate automaton’.”

“It’s efficient,” I retort, my voice tight. “I don’t have time for clutter.”

“Or guests, apparently. Is there another one of these rooms somewhere? A guest wing, perhaps?”

“I don’t have guests, Harland.”

“I’m starting to understand why.”

His words sting more than they should. I ignore them and continue the tour, not for his benefit, but for my own, a desperate inventory of my prison.

“The kitchen is over there.” I gesture to an expanse of stainless steel and white marble. “I assume you know how one of those works.”

“I’m full of surprises.” He opens the refrigerator. It’s mostly empty. A bottle of champagne, a few containers of takeout, a carton of eggs. He closes it without comment. The silence is somehow more damning than any sarcastic remark.

“What about… facilities?” he asks, looking around.

“The bathroom is down the hall,” I say, pointing. “There’s one.”

He looks down the hall, then back at me. “One bathroom?”

“I only need one.” The words sound defensive, even to my own ears.

“With one shower, I presume.” His gaze is steady, analytical. He’s not mocking me now. He’s calculating. Assessing the situation just like he would a hostile takeover.

“Yes, Blake. One shower.” My patience is a fraying thread.

We stand there, in the vast, empty living room. Two apex predators suddenly forced to share a territory that is shrinking by the second. The air is thick with a decade of animosity and the new, terrifying reality of our confinement.

“And the bedroom?” he asks, his voice very quiet.

I don’t answer. I just turn and walk down the short hallway. He follows. I can hear his footsteps on the polished concrete floors behind me, a steady, unavoidable presence.

I push open the last door. The bedroom is as sparse as the rest of the penthouse. The same grey and white color scheme. The same floor to ceiling windows showing a dead city. And in the center of the room, a single, king sized bed.

One bed.

We both stare at it. It’s no longer a piece of furniture. It’s an island. A battlefield. A symbol of just how impossible this situation is.

Blake lets out a long, slow breath. It’s the first genuine sound of surrender I’ve ever heard him make.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he murmurs, not to me, but to the universe.

I turn my back on the room, on the bed, on him, and walk to the massive window in the living area. I press my palm against the cool glass. Fifty stories below, a single police car crawls through the empty streets, its blue and red lights flashing, painting the concrete canyons in silent, strobing colors.

We are alone up here. Together.

The city has never felt so big, and my world has never felt so small.

Chapter 3

Blake Harland.

One bed.

The two words echo in the silent, cavernous space of Mariah Benson’s bedroom. The bed itself is an austere monument of grey and white, big enough for a small army, but the principle of the thing is a tactical nightmare.

I let out a breath I did not realize I was holding. “You have got to be kidding me,” I murmur.

She turns from the doorway, her back rigid, and stalks back into the main living area. I follow, the sound of my dress shoes on her polished concrete floors feeling absurdly loud. She stands at the window, a silhouette against the silent, flashing lights of a city holding its breath.

This is a professional disaster. Being trapped with my chief competitor is bad enough. Being trapped in her ridiculously sterile penthouse is worse. Sharing one shower and one king sized bed is an entirely different level of strategic complication I have no contingency plan for.

“I’ll take the sofa,” I say. It is the only logical move. A clear delineation of territory.

She does not turn around. “Fine.”

Her voice is clipped. Brittle. The CEO mask is back in place, but I saw the crack. For a split second, when we both stared at that bed, she was not Mariah Benson, titan of industry. She was just a woman trapped in an impossible situation.

It is that image that sticks with me. I watch her now, her hand pressed against the cold glass. She is trying to project strength, I know the posture. Shoulders back, chin high. The same way she stood at the gala tonight after Marcus Sterling tried to publicly crucify her.

But I see the slight tremor in her fingers. I see the tension in the line of her neck. This is Mariah without her board of directors, without her assistant, without her armor. And it is captivating.

“This place is… clean,” I say, breaking the silence. A weak attempt at normalcy.

“I don’t like messes,” she replies, her gaze still fixed on the city below.

“Funny. You seem to create them often enough in the marketplace.”

She finally turns, and her eyes flash. There she is. The fighter. “Only for people who get in my way, Harland.”

“I seem to recall a time when we were on the same path.” The words are out before I can stop them. They hang in the air between us, heavy with the weight of a decade.

Her expression hardens, a glacier forming over a stormy sea. “We were interns. We were children playing a game we didn’t understand.”

“I understood it perfectly,” I say quietly. “I also understood that we were friends.”

Her laugh is short and devoid of humor. “Friendship is a luxury people in our position can’t afford.”

She turns back to the window, signaling the end of the conversation. But it is too late. The door to the past is already open, and I find myself walking through it.

Ten years ago. We were not children. We were hungry. Two ambitious kids at the bottom of the ladder, determined to climb to the top, fueled by cheap coffee and a shared, unspoken belief that we were smarter than everyone else in the room. We were a team. We spent late nights poring over market analyses, challenging each other, making each other sharper.

I remember the way she would bite her lip when she was concentrating, the way her eyes would light up when she solved a problem no one else could. I remember the scent of her hair, something like green tea and rain, when she leaned over my shoulder to look at my screen. I remember the spark. An undeniable current that ran between us, a pull that had nothing to do with stock options or five year plans.

I was going to ask her out. The night before the junior analyst promotions were announced. I had it all planned. A small Italian place we both liked, a bottle of wine we definitely could not afford. I was going to tell her that I saw a future that included more than just corporate takeovers.

But I never got the chance.

The next morning, her name was on the promotion list. Mine was not. My project, the one I had poured my soul into for weeks, the one I had talked through with her line by line, was cited as the reason for her adBensonment. My ideas. Her success.

Betrayal is a cold, sharp thing. It settles deep in your bones. I built my entire career on the ice that formed in my veins that day. I told myself she was ruthless, that she would do anything to get ahead, even stab a friend in the back. That narrative has served me well. It has made me a billionaire. It has made me her equal.

But looking at her now, a solitary figure against a captive city, a question surfaces for the first time in ten years.

Did I ever actually hear her side of the story?

No. I was too proud. Too hurt. I just accepted my version of the truth and let the anger build a wall between us. A wall that now feels as solid and imprisoning as the ones surrounding us.

“We should do an inventory,” I say, forcing my mind back to the present. To the problem at hand.

She turns, her expression wary. “An inventory of what?”

“Food. Water. Supplies. We have no idea how long this will last.” My voice is all business. It is safer territory.

She nods, a flicker of relief in her eyes. This, she understands. A problem to be managed. A crisis to be controlled.

We move to the kitchen. It is as sterile as the rest of the penthouse. I open the refrigerator again. It holds a bottle of champagne, three identical containers of what looks like a sad salad, a carton of eggs, and a bottle of ridiculously expensive water.

“You live on this?” I ask, holding up one of the salads.

“I eat at the office. Or at restaurants. I don’t have time to cook.”

I check the pantry. It is an equally barren landscape. A bag of quinoa. Some protein bars. A box of herbal tea. And tucked away in the back, a single, solitary bag of coffee beans. Not my brand.

“The good news is we won’t starve for a day or two,” I say. “The bad news is, it’s going to be a very sad day or two.”

For the first time, a genuine emotion crosses her face. The corner of her mouth twitches, a ghost of a smile. “I’ll try to contain my excitement.”

It is a small thing, but it feels like a tectonic shift. We are not rivals in this moment. We are just two people looking into a nearly empty refrigerator.

We move through the rest of the penthouse, a silent, awkward pair cataloging our gilded cage. One bathroom. Plenty of towels. A medicine cabinet stocked with designer skincare products and a bottle of aspirin. We establish a schedule for the shower with the detached efficiency of two lawyers negotiating a treaty.

She agrees to take the bedroom. I drag a duvet and a pillow from it and set up a makeshift camp on the sprawling grey sofa. It is as uncomfortable as it looks.

Finally, with the logistics settled, an uneasy quiet descends again. She retreats to her office. I hear the soft clicks of her keyboard through the open door. Even in a lockdown, Mariah Benson works.

I should be doing the same. I should be on my laptop, trying to find a workaround, a way to contact my team, a way to ensure the OmniCorp deal does not fall apart because I am trapped incommunicado with the one person who wants it as much as I do.

But I cannot focus.

I find myself at the living room window, looking down at the same view she was. The city is beautiful in its paralysis. A concrete and glass sculpture garden, silent and still. For the first time, I understand why she has these windows. From up here, you can see everything. Every moving piece, every connection, every vulnerability.

It is how she sees the world. It is how I see it.

I hear a sound from her office. A sharp, frustrated sigh. I glance over. She is rubbing her temples, her head bowed over a stack of papers. The weight of her company, of that disastrous gala, of Project Phoenix, is written in the slump of her shoulders.

And I feel something I have not felt in a very long time. Something that has no place in our rivalry.

A surprising, unwelcome, and deeply protective instinct.

I have spent a decade wanting to see her fail. I have dedicated my career to anticipating her every move and preparing a counter. I have celebrated her setbacks and cursed her victories.

But watching her now, exhausted and alone, the thought of Marcus Sterling and his smug, condescending face makes my fists clench.

This is dangerous.

This lockdown is not just a professional nightmare. It is a personal one. It is stripping away the walls I so carefully constructed. It is forcing me to see the woman I have spent ten years trying to hate.

The woman who, I am beginning to realize, I might not hate at all.

That old, familiar pull, the one from our intern days, is back. It is a low hum beneath the surface of my skin, a dangerous current in the still air of this penthouse. And I have a terrible feeling that this time, there is nowhere to run from it.