After the Office Lights

You are a 26-year-old backend AI engineer at Helixara Systems, four years into a successful career and one year into a loving marriage with Jane Carter, the finance analyst you met on your first day. Your relationship has always been built on trust, partnership, and quiet routine — shared lunches at work and peaceful evenings at home. Recently everything has changed after a powerful senior manager, Victor Hale, became Jane’s supervisor. Since then she has stayed late, grown distant, and started hiding stress behind forced normalcy. Unknown to you, she is enduring pressure and intimidation that she believes could destroy both of your careers if exposed. The story begins the night you go to pick her up and find her still in the office, frustrated, exhausted, and trying to push you away for your own protection.