His voice softened, and he turned to face Elara, hisgreen eyesdeep and sincere. "You are the only one, Elara, who truly sees me. Who sees the man behind theGhost. All the others, my team, are loyal because I pulled them out of the abyss, because I freed them in ways the world would never know. They saw theGhostin action, and they serve me because I saved their lives, their families. Henry, Chef Antoine, the maids... each of them owes a debt that money could never repay. They are my family, not by blood, but by bonds of gratitude and understanding. They know what I am, and they accept it. But you..." He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "You see me. You accept me. You make me feel... human. You are my anchor in reality, my sun in the darkness."
The sound of the music and conversations at the party seemed to fade, becoming just background noise as Daniel's words filled the space between them. Elara felt hot tears well up in her eyes.green eyesThey weren't tears of sadness or fear, but of profound understanding. This man before her, the richest and most powerful man in the world, the invisible vigilante operating in the shadows, was, at heart, a complex and lonely being, searching for connection and a greater purpose. The irony was that, in trying to become a "blank slate," a ghost, he had inadvertently become the only one capable of restoring a dark kind of balance to an unbalanced world.
"And the children?" Elara asked, her voice thick with emotion, remembering the explicit order he had given to the Wagner Group leader. "Why 'don't kill children'?"
Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, there was a shadow of pain on his face, a vulnerability she rarely saw. "There are lines, Elara," he said, his voice almost a hoarse whisper. "Even in the darkness, there are lines that cannot be crossed. Innocence... a child's life is the purest thing in this world."What I saw happen, the barbarity against defenseless children in that attack and in so many others, like the children who lost their parents in the September 11 attacks... is the ultimate sin.Touching it, corrupting it, taking it away... is proof that there is no redemption, that humanity has utterly failed. I operate in a world of ash, but I am not the fire that creates it indiscriminately. I fight the monsters, but I do not become one of them, not like that. If I crossed that line, I would be no better than them. I would not be theGhostthat punishes; I would be just another demon."
He squeezed her hand tightly, his gaze intense. "This is my unbreakable rule. It's what keeps me going, what reminds me why I do what I do. It's because of these children, because of this innocence, that I became who I am. I am the barrier. I am the retribution."
The weight of his words filled the air, denser than the dark night around them. Elara looked down at the city below, at the millions of lights representing millions of lives, and at the man beside her, the god and the demon, the savior and the destroyer. She could no longer deny him, nor his complexity. She was part of that universe now, and acceptance was her only option. Understanding was a heavy burden, but also a liberation.
She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. The warmth of his body was a safe haven, despite the storm of thoughts consuming her. "I understand," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. She didn't understand everything, perhaps she never would, but she understood enough to know that the man who loved her was also a lonely warrior, fighting his own private war. And she was with him. In every shadow, in every light, in every act of love and retribution. The night continued, the music playing, the stars shining, and theGhost, now visible to a single heart, continued its journey into the vast and complicated tapestry of the world.
The night continued, the stars shone and the conversation flowed, revealing more and more of the intricate tapestry of Daniel's universe.
Daniel continued to tell his story, his voice a continuous thread intertwining with the sound of the music and the whisper of the wind, as if each word were an intimate revelation, a portal to his dark past. He squeezed Elara's hand, and she sensed the fragility beneath his imposing strength.
"I never knew what a family was, Elara. I never knew what it was like to have a father or a mother," he confided, his voice taking on a melancholy he rarely allowed to show. His eyes, which moments before had scanned the vastness of the city with an almost cold precision, now lost themselves in an invisible distance, traveling through time tunnels only he could see. "For as long as I can remember, from the first conscious memory of a biting cold and an emptiness in my stomach, until I was fifteen, I lived on the streets. My home was the shadow of abandoned buildings, where the smell of mold and dust was constant. My mattress, forgotten cardboard boxes. My walls, the cold concrete of closed shops that served as temporary shelter on rainy nights. My hiding places were dark alleys, in labyrinthine lanes, where the moonlight barely dared to penetrate."
He paused, a barely perceptible sigh escaping his lips. "I moved like a ghost before I even knew there was a name for it. I learned to read danger in the wind, in distant footsteps, in the gleam of other people's eyes. I found food where there was none, fighting for scraps with hungry animals, and above all, I learned to be invisible to survive. Each day was a silent battle, where the only goal was to see the next dawn. I felt the gnawing hunger on my skin, the bone-chilling cold, the constant fear of being seen, of being noticed by anyone who might do harm. That loneliness, Elara, was a constant companion, an invisible weight that shaped me."
His fingers lightly traced the skin of her hand, an almost unconscious gesture of searching for connection. "I never knew my real name. I never knew the day I was born. There was no birth certificate, no record, no proof that I formally existed, that I was a person. There was no face to associate with a past. It was Henry, my loyal Henry, who invented a date. He said that was my birthday, and since then, every year we celebrated. A day to mark my existence, even if the formal world, the world of names and papers, didn't recognize it. I never had a single document, not a single piece of paper to prove that I was someone, that I was born, that I existed. My life was an omission in the records, a blank page."
His gaze returned to meet hers.green eyesof Elara, and she saw the depth of vulnerability there. "And so, because of that, Elara... because of that absence, because of that non-existence in the formal world, in the records that give identity to others, because of that blank slate that I have always been... because of that,Ghost. The ghost. I am living proof that one can exist without being registered. That one can act without being tracked. The one who moves through the cracks the world doesn't even know exist, the shadow that dances between the invisible threads of reality. It is my essence, my perfect disguise, my way of operating outside any control network, because I was never in it in the first place.
He paused, the sound of the city below seeming more distant, swallowed by the gravity of his words. "This experience, this childhood without a harbor, without parents, taught me what helplessness is. It made me understand every child without parents, every child who lost their parents in that attack in Israel, and in so many other horrors that humanity inflicts upon itself. The pain of loss, the confusion of being abandoned, the desperate search for a protective figure. I feel it in my soul, Elara, as if it were my own pain replicated a million times."
Daniel leaned back on the couch, his head tilted slightly toward the night sky, as if reliving every detail in his mind. "Do you remember September 11th? Those towers falling, the smoke that swallowed the horizon, the smell of burning metal, and the silence that followed the booms? I wasn't there physically, but the resonance of that day... the image of helplessness, of chaos. But also... the image of unwavering courage. Those firefighters, those police officers... they knew. They knew they were entering a hell, a death trap that was closing in on them with every second. The press at the time spoke of voices on the radio, whispers caught amidst the noise of destruction, saying, 'I won't leave them here alone.' They chose to die together, Elara. They chose to protect until the last moment, even knowing they would die."
Daniel's face hardened at the memory, but there was a glint of admiration, almost reverence, in his eyes. "Think of the people trapped inside, the overwhelming fear of death approaching. But for those trapped in that building with a firefighter or a police officer by their side, I can assure you they were less terrified of death. They didn't die alone. They didn't die in the terror of being helpless, like so many who weren't fortunate enough to have a hero by their side. They had a protector until the end, a presence that gave them a shred of hope, a last breath of humanity in the midst of hell. It's proof that even in the most absolute darkness, courage can ease the terror."
Daniel felt her tremble slightly in his arms, and with a soft sigh, he pulled away slightly, keeping his hands on her arms, his thumbs stroking her skin. A tender smile, light and genuine, lit his face, the glow in hisgreen eyespushing away the shadows of memories. He knew the weight of his words had been immense, and that, although she understood him more deeply now, the burden of his universe was vast.
"Let's put the sad things aside for a moment, my lotus flower," Daniel said, his voice changing from confidential to lighter and more inviting, a conscious relief from the heavy atmosphere. He helped her up from the couch, the transition smooth and natural. "I have something for you to see. Something... lighter. Let's see your car."
Elara blinked, the surprise in her eyes replacing the melancholy. The car? She'd completely forgotten about it amidst the avalanche of information. The promise of something new and less burdensome was like a relief, a breath of fresh air. She nodded, curiosity reigniting in her chest.