In hindsight, "everything" was a bold thing to say to a man standing on a floor that didn't exist.
In my defense, I'd just survived a patient assessment exam on three hours of sleep, my shoulder was bleeding from a grocery bag strap, and my brain-to-mouth filter had clearly clocked out for the evening.
Luca looked at me for a long moment.
Then he stepped back from the elevator doors and said, "Put the bags down first."
"Sorry?"
"You're going to drop them."
I looked at my hands. He was right — my grip had gone white-knuckled somewhere between the fourth floor appearing and him saying how much do you actually want to know in that low, careful voice that did absolutely nothing to my nervous system. Nothing. Completely unaffected.
I set the bags down inside the elevator.
"Okay," I said. "Now talk."
"Come out of the elevator."
"I'm good here, actually."
"Aria."
"I don't know you. This floor doesn't exist. I'm keeping one foot in the elevator as a reasonable safety measure."
Something shifted in his expression — not quite exasperation, not quite amusement. The particular face of a man being forced to find someone endearing against his will.
"The elevator will time out," he said. "If you stay in it, it'll take you back to the lobby and the doors will lock from the panel downstairs."
I stared at him. "The panel downstairs? There's a panel?"
"There's always been a panel."
"Who controls the panel?"
A pause. "I do."
I let that sit in the air for a second. The flickering lights hummed. The draft moved across my arms. Somewhere down the hallway, something creaked — the building settling, probably, or possibly the universe reminding me that I made life choices that led to this exact moment.
"So," I said slowly, "you can control when the elevator stops up here."
"Yes."
"Which means last night wasn't a malfunction."
"No."
"So you — the elevator stopped because — " I pressed my fingers to my temple. "You brought me up here?"
"Not intentionally." He said it quickly. Almost too quickly. "The system is motion-sensitive. It's supposed to read key fob signals. You must have been standing close enough to the panel when—" He stopped. "It's complicated."
"Luca." I looked at him very directly. "Did your haunted floor elevator accidentally kidnap me?"
The almost-smile showed up. Uninvited and devastating.
"Step out of the elevator," he said, "and I'll explain."
✦
The fourth floor was not what I expected.
I don't know what I expected exactly — something dramatic, probably. Hidden lab. Evidence wall covered in red string. At minimum, a vibe.
What I got was a hallway that looked almost identical to the seventh floor, except quieter. The same navy carpet, slightly more worn. The same numbered doors, except these ones had keypads instead of standard locks. The lights flickered in a pattern that I was starting to think was less electrical fault and more deliberate — like the wiring had been modified to discourage anyone who made it this far from wanting to stay.
Smart, honestly.
"How many units are up here?" I asked.
"Three operational." He walked slightly ahead, hands in his hoodie pocket, which I was learning was his default state of existing. "The rest are storage."
"Operational meaning — people live here?"
"Meaning they're in use."
"That's not the same answer."
"I know."
I stopped walking. "Okay, you said you'd explain. That was the deal. You said 'step out of the elevator and I'll explain' and I stepped out of the elevator and so far you've told me approximately nothing new, so."
He stopped too. Turned to face me. In the flickering light, the scar above his brow was more visible — a thin, clean line, old enough to be fully healed but precise enough to make me wonder, professionally, what had caused it.
"The fourth floor was closed to general tenants eight years ago," he said. "Building management sealed it off after a—" He paused, choosing the word carefully. "Dispute."
"What kind of dispute?"
"The kind that required the floor to be taken off the public registry."
"Luca. That could mean anything from a noise complaint to an actual crime."
"It wasn't a noise complaint."
I waited.
He looked at me, steady and unhurried, like he had all night and wasn't going to be rushed out of a single second of it. It was maddening. It was also, deeply against my will, kind of compelling.
"The people who use this floor," he said finally, "need privacy. Discretion. They can't be on a registry. They can't have a paper trail connecting them to a residential address. The fourth floor exists so that they have somewhere that, officially, they don't."
I processed that. "Like a safe house."
Something moved across his face — surprise, maybe. Like he hadn't expected me to get there that fast. "Something like that."
"And you run it."
"I manage it."
"Same thing."
"Not exactly."
"But close."
He didn't answer. Which was, I was learning, his version of yes.
I looked down the hallway. Three operational units. Keypads instead of locks. A floor that didn't exist on any record. A motion-sensitive elevator controlled from a private panel.
"Who are the people?" I asked. "The ones staying here?"
"That's not something I can tell you."
"Are they in danger?"
He looked at me. "Why do you ask it like that?"
"Because safe houses exist for a reason, and the reason is usually that someone needs to be kept safe from something." I crossed my arms. "I'm a nursing student, Luca. I spend a lot of time around people who are scared and trying not to show it. I know what it looks like."
The hallway was quiet. The lights hummed.
"They're not in danger," he said. "Not anymore."
Not anymore. Two words doing a lot of heavy lifting.
"And you?" I asked.
"What about me?"
"Are you in danger?"
He blinked — a rare crack in the composure, just for a second. Like the question had genuinely caught him off guard. Like no one had thought to ask him that in a while.
"No," he said. But it came out slower than his other answers.
I decided to file that away and not push it. Tonight, anyway.
"Okay." I exhaled. "Okay, so. You run a secret floor in our building that functions as an off-the-record safe house for people who need to disappear from their paper trail." I held up a hand before he could speak. "And the elevator has a security feature that's supposed to prevent anyone without a key fob from accessing this floor, but apparently I was standing at the wrong angle on my first night and accidentally got flagged by the sensor."
He nodded once.
"And when you got in the elevator with me, you were doing damage control."
Another nod.
"And you told me I didn't see anything because you needed me to not become a — what, a liability?"
A pause. Longer than the others. "Yes."
"Right." I looked at him. "And how's that working out for you?"
The almost-smile came back. This time it made it a little further — not quite a full smile, but enough that I could see it was real. Enough that it did something warm and inconvenient to the space behind my ribs.
"Not great," he admitted.
"No," I agreed. "Not great."
✦
We ended up in the hallway for another forty minutes.
I don't entirely know how. One question led to another and he kept actually answering them — slowly, carefully, like he was measuring each word before he let it go, but answering. He told me the floor had been managed privately for six years. That he'd taken it over from someone else. That the arrangement with building ownership was complicated and mutually beneficial and that was all he was willing to say about that.
He didn't tell me who the people were. He didn't tell me what they were hiding from. He didn't tell me much about himself at all, really — but he asked me questions too, quietly, between his own answers. How long had I wanted to be a nurse. Where I was from. Whether I'd chosen this building specifically or just taken the first available unit.
"First available," I said. "I was desperate. My last place had a mold situation."
"What kind of mold?"
"The kind that makes you feel like the apartment is trying to absorb you." I paused. "Actually, in retrospect, moving into a building with a secret illegal floor might be a lateral move."
"It's not illegal."
"Unregistered. Undisclosed to tenants. Off the public record." I tilted my head. "Luca."
"Legally ambiguous," he said, and the straightness of his face while saying it was so absolute that I laughed — a real one, surprised out of me.
He watched me laugh like it was something he wanted to study.
It made me self-conscious in a way I hadn't expected.
"I should get my groceries," I said, straightening up. "They've been sitting in the elevator this whole time and I have eggs in there."
"The elevator locked down. Your groceries are on this floor."
I turned. Sure enough, at the end of the hallway, the elevator doors were open and my bags were sitting just outside them on the carpet, slightly forlorn.
"Your haunted elevator kidnapped my eggs," I said.
"I'll override the panel. You can take it back up."
"Great." I started toward the elevator, then stopped. Looked back at him. "This doesn't leave the floor, right? Whatever you've told me."
He studied me. "Does it?"
"No," I said. "I'm good at keeping things that matter to me quiet."
Something in his expression shifted. Not the almost-smile this time. Something slower. More deliberate.
"The sensor will be recalibrated by tomorrow," he said. "The elevator won't stop here again unless you have a fob."
"Okay."
"So you won't have to worry about accidentally ending up here."
"Okay," I said again.
We looked at each other.
"Unless," he said, very carefully, "you wanted a fob."
The hallway was quiet. The lights flickered. My eggs were probably fine.
"Is that something you're offering?" I asked.
"I'm considering it."
"Why?"
He looked at me for a long moment. "Because you asked the right questions," he said. "And you're going to keep asking them whether I give you access or not. At least this way I know where you are."
"That's either very pragmatic or very ominous."
"Both," he said. "Probably."
I picked up my groceries. Hit the elevator button. The doors opened immediately, like they'd been waiting.
"I'll think about it," I told him.
He nodded. Like he'd expected nothing less.
The doors closed between us.
I stood in the elevator, grocery bags in hand, heart doing something complicated and uninvited, and thought: I should absolutely not accept that fob.
I thought about the way he'd watched me laugh.
I thought about not anymore and the half-second pause before no.
The elevator stopped at 7. Doors opened. Normal hallway. Normal carpet. Normal life waiting for me with its exams and rotations and bills and absolutely zero secret floors.
I walked to my apartment.
Put the groceries away.
Fed myself like a functional human being.
And then I lay on my couch and stared at the ceiling and thought about a fob sitting in the palm of my hand and a man three doors down who managed a floor that didn't exist and asked me where I was from like he actually wanted to know.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
Think fast. Offer expires in 24 hours.
I sat up.
Stared at it.
Typed back: how did you get this number
The reply came immediately.
Building registry.
And then, after a beat:
You're not the only one who notices things, Aria.
I put my phone face down on my chest and made a sound that Bea would have had a field day with.
Then I picked it back up.
And saved his number.