Chapter 2 – First Day at War
Chapter 2 – First Day at War
The sky was still tinged with pre-dawn blue when Nadira stood in front of Azhari Group’s towering glass building. Jakarta hadn’t fully awakened yet, but her pulse certainly had. She adjusted the strap of her structured tote bag and walked through the automatic doors with the quiet confidence of someone who had made a decision—and planned to stick with it.
She arrived at the executive floor at exactly 6:58 a.m.
Adrian was already there, standing outside Reyhan’s office with a cup of black coffee in hand. He gave her a brief once-over and nodded, seemingly impressed.
“You're punctual,” he said.
“Always.”
He handed her a tablet. “Your work profile’s already set up. Mail, calendar access, priority contact list. Reyhan doesn’t tolerate clutter, so keep everything in folders and subfolders. He likes efficiency and hates explanations. Just get things done.”
“Got it.”
“Oh, and one more thing…” Adrian lowered his voice, leaning slightly toward her. “Don’t ever rearrange anything on his desk. Even the paperweight. He notices. And he will throw it at you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Before Adrian could say more, the door behind him clicked open. Reyhan stood there, already dressed in his usual monochrome suit—charcoal grey today—with his shirt crisp and collar stiff. His hair was slightly tousled, but in a deliberate, editorial kind of way.
“Miss Salma,” he said flatly. “Inside.”
She followed him wordlessly into the office, her heels silent against the wood floor.
He didn’t look at her as he spoke. “The itinerary for today is already on your device. Cancel the 10:30 with Mr. Kusuma—I’ve lost interest in that project. Move my lunch with the legal team to tomorrow. And prepare a summary of last year’s merger documents by noon.”
“I’ll get started.”
He turned to look at her then. “No questions?”
“No, sir.”
He paused. “Most assistants ask me to repeat everything on day one.”
“I prefer not to waste your time.”
That earned her another unreadable stare—long enough to feel like scrutiny, but not quite long enough to be intimate.
He waved her off. “Then don’t waste it. Go.”
Nadira exited the room and slid into the side workstation just beside his office, where a sleek desk had been assigned to her. Everything had already been arranged: dual monitors, wireless keyboard, biometric scanner. Efficient, modern—and somehow still cold.
She sat down and got to work.
7:30 a.m.
The first crisis hit earlier than expected.
An urgent email came in from the finance department—there had been a miscommunication about a quarterly report deadline. The team had expected Reyhan to review something he never received.
Nadira didn’t panic. She clicked, compiled, summarized the chain of emails into bullet points, and printed the necessary documentation.
She entered his office without knocking.
Reyhan looked up, surprised by her boldness—but not displeased.
“I have the finance update,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. Their department head misread the original timeline.”
She placed the printout on his desk with surgical precision.
He glanced at it, skimmed through the first few lines, and leaned back.
“You’re fast.”
“I don’t like messes.”
“You’re in the wrong building, then,” he said, dry amusement flickering in his voice. “This place runs on silent disasters.”
She didn’t smile, but the corner of her lip twitched.
He noticed.
Before she could turn to leave, he spoke again. “Why did you come back to Indonesia?”
That caught her off guard.
“Excuse me?”
“Your file says you interned in Switzerland after university. Fluent in French. You could have stayed there. Better lifestyle. Less traffic.”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Jakarta is chaos I understand. Switzerland is calm I couldn’t relate to.”
His expression didn’t change, but something in the air between them did.
An understanding.
Then, as quickly as it came, it vanished.
“Tell Adrian I want the new contract reviewed by 3 p.m.,” he said, returning to his screen.
“Yes, sir.”
As she stepped out, her phone vibrated with a message from Adrian:
Hope you’ve stretched your legs. He’s just getting started.
12:45 p.m.
Lunch was a blur—twenty minutes of answering emails with one hand while eating a sandwich with the other. Reyhan, as it turned out, didn’t eat. He stared out the window during the entire noon hour with a cup of espresso and a thousand-yard stare.
Nadira watched him from the corner of her eye once or twice. He didn’t move much. Didn’t fidget. He was terrifyingly still. Like someone who lived inside his own head.
She knew that type. She had been that type once.
Maybe still was.
4:00 p.m.
A courier arrived with documents requiring Reyhan’s signature. Nadira brought them in, but paused before placing them on the desk. Something in her gut warned her.
“Would you prefer this sorted alphabetically or chronologically?” she asked.
He looked up from his screen. “Chronologically. I always read by timeline.”
She nodded and sorted them swiftly on his desk before stepping back.
He didn’t thank her, but his glance toward the documents was a silent approval.
As she turned, she noticed something odd—he was still looking at her. Not at her face, but at her glasses.
There it was again—that flicker of memory behind his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Confusion, certainly.
She adjusted the frame out of instinct.
“Anything else, sir?” she asked.
“No,” he said quietly. “But… do you remember me?”
Nadira blinked. “Sir?”
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
The silence returned like a closing door.
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That night, as she lay on her bed staring at the ceiling fan spinning overhead, Nadira played that question over in her mind.
Do you remember me?
No one had ever asked her that with such weight behind it. And though the face of the boy from her childhood remained blurry… she remembered something else.
A voice. A pair of kind eyes in an unkind world. A boy who hated to be touched but held her hand when she cried.
Could it be?
No. It was probably nothing.
She rolled over and turned off the light.
But her heart had already begun to ask questions her mind wasn’t ready to answer.
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