Bonus Epilogue
WITT - TWO YEARS LATER
The first thing people notice about my office is the glass.
Floor-to-ceiling panels wrap around the top level of Armadillos Arena like a goddamn spaceship overlooking downtown Dallas.
The second thing they notice is the silence.
No TVs blasting sports commentary.
No music.
No assistants hovering.
Just the soft mechanical hum of servers in a 20 foot climate-controlled closet and the faint click of my keyboard.
Exactly how I like it.
Dara steps into my office carrying a tablet and an iced coffee I forgot I ordered forty minutes ago. “Your viewers think you died.”
I don’t glance up from the letter in my hand.
“Statistically unlikely,” I say.
“That was sarcasm.”
“I know.”
She drops the coffee beside me before adjusting the sleeve of her blazer. Dara’s worked for me long enough to understand the rules.
If I’m wearing the black headphones, don’t talk unless the building is on fire.
If I’m holding a letter, don’t interrupt.
And if both are happening simultaneously?
Run.
“You disappeared from the internet for four days,” she says carefully.
“Three.”
“Normal people don’t know that.”
Normal people also don’t turn a streaming channel into a billion-dollar empire.
But I did.
Synatrix Global Interactive started in the bedroom of my home with a broken headset, and two flat screens operating as monitors and an obsession with gaming.
Games are patterns.
People are patterns.
Success is figuring out which one breaks first.
Now the company owns esports teams, game studios, a streaming platform, merch lines, convention partnerships, and the fastest-growing competitive football gaming league in the country.
Two years ago, I expanded into sports gaming with professional football. Of course, I started it with the Austin Armadillos. Now every team in the league has its own esport division. All owned by their respective teams but pay royalties to SGI—me.
Now investors throw around words like revolutionary and market disruptor while Forbes estimates my net worth high enough to make people uncomfortable around me.
I don’t care about the money.
I care that the systems work.
My thumb brushes over the folded edge of the letter.
Real paper.
Real ink.
Most people stopped writing letters years ago.
She never did.
Encrypted messages.
Even after voice chats.
Hours spent gaming together online.
Sometimes a letter still shows up.
And every single time, my chest tightens before I open it.
Dara notices where my attention is focused and sighs dramatically. “The mystery woman again?”
“She has a name.”
“You don’t know her name.”
I look up slowly.
Dara raises both hands. “Right. Sorry. The mysterious possibly fictional woman.”
“She exists.”
“She also vanished three months ago.”
The words hit like a bruise.
Ninety-three days.
No messages.
No voice chats.
No late-night gaming invites.
Nothing.
The silence shouldn’t bother me this much.
Except she’s been part of my life for almost a decade.
Every major moment somehow traces back to her.
Product launches.
Panic attacks.
Three a.m. coding spirals.
The night I almost sold the company.
She was there for all of it.
And then suddenly…gone.
A loud pounding rattles the glass office doors.
Dara winces. “Looks like they’re looking for you.”
The doors fly open before I answer.
Parker strides inside wearing gray sweats and a backward Armadillos cap while Annika follows behind him carrying two coffees and significantly more patience.
“You were supposed to be at Dad’s an hour ago,” Parker says. “And you won’t answer your phone.”
“I was busy.”
Parker looks around the silent office. “Doing what? Plotting world domination?”
“Already did that,” Annika says mildly.
I like Annika. Mostly because she doesn’t fill silence just to escape it.
Parker points at the headphones hanging around my neck. “You’ve had those on all day, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You know normal people would text and say they can’t make it instead of pretending they can’t hear the phone ringing.”
“The headphones are noise-canceling.”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
Annika walks over and sets one of the coffees on my desk. “Birdie threatened to send J.D. after you if you skipped dinner again.”
“That’s emotional terrorism.”
“That’s family,” Parker corrects.
I unfold the letter again without meaning to.
Parker notices instantly.
Unfortunately, all O’Ryans operate like emotionally unstable FBI profilers.
His eyes narrow. “Oh my God.”
“No.”
“You’re reading one of her letters.”
Annika’s gaze softens slightly. “Still nothing?”
The fact that Annika asks gently instead of curiously makes something in my chest pull tight.
“No,” I say.
Parker drops into the chair across from me. “Bro, at this point she either joined the CIA or murdered someone.”
“She didn’t murder anyone.”
“You defended her awful fast.”
Becoming even more defensive, I snap, “She cries during animal rescue videos.”
Parker blinks. “That tells you absolutely nothing.”
“Maybe she’s sick?”
Annika hides a smile behind her coffee cup, and it wouldn’t shock me if she hears the desperation in my voice.
My phone buzzes against the desk. Every muscle in my body locks.
Parker notices first. Annika notices second.
Dara quietly backs toward the door because she’s smarter than everyone else in this room.
The notification flashes across my computer screen.
Every muscle in my body tightens, hoping it’s my online friend.
“You get weird every time one of your million devices goes off,” Parker says, pointing at me.
“Fair.”
I ignore him and open the email.
FROM: HR — Synatrix Global Interactive
My brow furrows.
“That’s the face,” Parker says to Annika. “That’s his serial killer face.”
“Rude,” I mutter as I open the email.
Dara pauses near the door. “Oh. Is that the applicant?”
“What applicant?” Parker asks.
“The one for the new creative strategist position,” Dara explains.
That gets my full attention.
Slowly, I scroll through the attached portfolio.
Marketing projections.
Community retention strategies.
Narrative integration concepts for competitive gaming.
No wasted language.
No filler.
No ego.
My pulse gives a strange, unexpected kick.
Because this—
This is how Rune thinks.
The same kind of precision.
The same pattern recognition.
The same terrifying ability to predict player behavior before the data catches up.
A line from one of the attached notes catches my attention.
Gamers don’t stay loyal to platforms.
They stay loyal to emotional experience.
I reread it twice.
Then a third time.
Annika looks over my shoulder, watches me carefully over the rim of her coffee cup. “You like this one.”
“Maybe.”
Parker grins. “That means yes.”
I keep scrolling.
The applicant has experience in competitive gaming communities, audience analytics, narrative design, and esports branding. No photo attached. Minimal personal information.
Just qualifications.
Exactly how I would’ve submitted it.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
And for the first time in three months, my brain shifts away from the silence left behind by a missing pen pal.
Maybe this is good.
Maybe obsessing over someone who vanished without explanation is finally getting pathetic.
Maybe what I actually need is distraction.
A challenge.
Someone capable of keeping up with me.
Someone smart enough to work beside me without needing constant handholding.
My thumb taps once against the edge of my phone.
“Schedule the interview,” I tell Dara.
Parker leans back in his chair dramatically. “Wow. He likes them so much he used a complete sentence.”
I ignore him.
But as I stare down at the application again, something unfamiliar settles low in my chest.
Anticipation.
And for the first time in months… I almost forget to wonder where she is—my online rival, my pen pal. But like the sideview mirror says:
Warning! Objects in mirror might be closer than they appear.
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Want more Parker and Annika?
One skating competition. One surprise labor. What could go wrong? Download the Bonus Scene here!
And up next is Witt in Glitched Play! Grab it now.
He built the biggest gaming empire in the world.
She’s the anonymous girl he’s been obsessed with through headsets, encrypted chats, and years of letters he keeps locked away.
But the second the new hire walks in, he realizes there’s a glitch in his system and she’s...dangerously familiar.