We boarded the jet and I chose my seat near a window, laptop open, TraceNet resting in a stable, half-attentive state. The cabin was quiet in that curated way money buys — insulated, muted, designed to make movement feel optional.
The seat across from me dented. The air shifted. I lifted my gaze.
Sylus sat opposite me.
Dark shirt, collar open. Sleeves rolled back. Comfortable.
I closed the laptop the moment he settled in, resting my hands lightly on the casing, and met his gaze.
"Boss," I said.
Not deferential.
Not defensive.
Simply attentive.
He watched me for a beat longer than necessary.
Approval flickered there — or something close to it.
"You work everywhere," he said.
Not a question.
"I'm motivated," I replied. "I want to live."
A corner of his mouth shifted.
"You didn't return to the common areas after you left the kitchen," he continued. "You went to your room."
Direct.
Unadorned.
"I needed space."
He leaned back slightly, folding one ankle over the opposite knee. Relaxed posture. Controlled center.
"Yet you work better around people," he said mildly. "At least, you did today."
A measured observation.
"Sometimes distractions are useful," I said.
The jet leveled out. The hum evened. The world narrowed to the space between us and the quiet pressure of altitude.
Sylus regarded me for a moment longer.
"Viktor has been escalating," he said.
Just like that.
No preamble. No warning.
"He is no longer content with observation or threat," Sylus continued. "He has moved into demonstration."
My fingers stayed still on the laptop.
"He induced a panic response," Sylus said. "Deliberately. He then forced your attention."
The cabin lights caught faintly in his eyes — unreadable, precise.
"He destroyed a civilian vehicle," he went on. "Killed a man unrelated to you. Ensured you understood the message."
A pause.
"And he chose the image carefully," Sylus added. "The girl resembled you."
I didn't react.
"You were seated across from me when this occurred," he said. "You know exactly how much danger you are in. And you are afraid."
True.
"And yet," Sylus continued calmly, "your first request was not protection for yourself."
I took a steadying breath.
"As you said," I replied evenly, "I was sitting across from you. I wasn't physically vulnerable at that moment."
I held his gaze.
"And he had just proven he would use other people to reach me."
"Elara is the only person who cares about me. And she was alone."
Silence stretched — thin, deliberate.
"You check on her frequently," Sylus said.
Then, without softening it:
"Do you consider her your responsibility?"
The question landed deeper than the others.
Not because it was unexpected — but because it named something I hadn't.
Elara wasn't helpless. She was capable. Strong.
But I'd made her choices once. All of them. Back when mistakes were reversible.
Now they weren't.
I kept my hands folded, posture steady.
"I consider her someone who doesn't deserve to be collateral."
Silence followed.
Sylus studied me like a puzzle that refused to lie flat.
"And what," he asked quietly, "do you believe she is to me?"
The jet cut through a pocket of thin turbulence — just enough to remind us both that we were moving whether we acknowledged it or not.
I didn't look away. I considered my options.
Lying would be pointless. Deflecting would insult him. And silence would confirm more than words ever could.
The truth — the real truth — would put too much on the table. Give him leverage he hadn't earned.
But a partial truth?
A truth about scale, not source.
About gravity, not history.
Something honest enough to satisfy him.
Dangerous enough to be noticed.
"She's everything."
Silence settled between us.
Not the awkward kind. Not the kind that begged to be filled.
The jet's steady hum pressed in, a low constant that made the moment feel sealed—contained at altitude, moving forward whether either of us spoke or not.
Sylus didn't look away.
He didn't react either. There was no tightening of his jaw, no flicker of surprise, no visible recalculation.
Just attention.
The kind that felt like being measured against a standard I hadn't known existed until now.
For one suspended beat, I wondered if I'd said too much.
Then I realized that wasn't the danger.
The danger was that I'd said exactly enough.
Sylus rose from his seat with unhurried grace, the movement smooth and economical.
Before he stepped away, his gaze returned to mine.
Not approval.
Not warning.
Recognition.
The kind that didn't ask permission and didn't offer reassurance.
"We'll speak again," he said quietly.
It wasn't a promise.
It was a statement of inevitability.
Then he turned and left, his presence receding without haste, without a backward glance.
The space he'd occupied felt larger for his absence—like the air had shifted to accommodate what had just been acknowledged.
I remained still for a moment longer, hands resting on the closed laptop, heart steady but alert.
Somewhere in the distance, the engines adjusted pitch.
We were still moving.
And something between us had just locked into place.
4:37 a.m.
We landed in Linkon City.
5:02 a.m.
I was dropped off at my building.
The hallway was quiet. Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that didn't register as danger until you were already inside it.
I unlocked my door and stepped in.
The air inside the apartment felt… dense.
Wrong.
Like the oxygen had been breathed too many times without leaving the room.
Then I took another step.
And smelled blood.
Fresh.
Metallic. Wet. Sharp enough to make the back of my tongue go numb.
My hand went to my gun automatically, fingers closing around the grip before the nausea had time to crest. My stomach dropped hard anyway—a sudden, violent lurch I barely contained by bracing myself against the console table. My pulse slammed into my ears, loud enough that for a heartbeat I couldn't hear anything else.
Recent.
Too recent.
I didn't turn on the lights.
I didn't need to.
Dawn was already bleeding in through the windows, pale and colorless—just enough to outline shapes and edges without softening them. Enough to see without forgiving.
I moved down the hall slowly, every sense sharpened, the part of my brain that catalogued threats already awake and working. The smell grew stronger with each step—unmistakable now. Blood, and something warmer beneath it. The faint, sickening sweetness of a body that hadn't yet cooled.
The bedroom door was open.
She was on my bed.
Positioned carefully. Deliberately.
As if Viktor had adjusted her himself until the image satisfied him.
The same pose as the photograph he'd shown me.
Only now it was real.
Her eyes were open.
That was what did it.
Wide. Unfocused. Glassy. Her skin hadn't gone pale yet—still held the wrong kind of color, flushed unevenly where blood had pooled beneath the surface. The sheets beneath her were soaked, bright in places, darkening fast as they absorbed more than they could hold.
She hadn't been allowed to rest.
The wounds were fresh. Angry. Layered. Some precise, some vicious—not all of them fatal on their own. Viktor hadn't rushed. He'd taken time to decide how much was enough.
And then, finally, he'd stopped.
Not because he had to.
Because he was done.
My vision tunneled.
The room tilted just slightly, bile burning up the back of my throat. I breathed through it—slow, controlled, measured—refusing to let my body make noise.
Refusing to give him even that.
He had been here recently.
Minutes? An hour?
Close enough that my skin prickled with the irrational certainty that if I listened hard enough, I might hear him breathing somewhere just out of sight.
I stood very still.
Listened.
Nothing.
Only the soft hum of the city outside.
And the wet, copper-heavy smell of violence settling into fabric.
My phone vibrated.
I looked down.
Unknown ID: Did you like my gift?
Anger snapped through me—clean, bright, stabilizing.
There it is.
He wasn't asking about the body.
He was asking about me.
I didn't reply.
I moved.
I documented everything with mechanical precision: her face, the wounds, the positioning of her limbs, the way the sheets were pulled smooth around her. Presentation mattered to him. The blood was still spreading, creeping outward in slow, ugly blooms.
Time of death: very recent.
Too recent.
I backed everything up twice.
Then tucked the phone back into my pocket.
I approached the girl and closed her eyes.
"Rest in peace," I murmured.
And turned.
I didn't look at her again.
I moved methodically.
This wasn't about erasing him.
It was about controlling the narrative.
In the kitchen, I unplugged the coffee machine and crouched, loosening the outlet plate just enough to expose the wiring beneath. I bent one contact slightly out of alignment, nicked the insulation with a blade from the drawer.
Not enough to look deliberate.
Enough to fail.
I splashed water into the outlet housing—careless, uneven, the way someone spills a mug and never thinks twice about it—and left the machine plugged in, cord twisted under its own weight.
In the bedroom, I scattered clothes near the bed. Synthetic fabrics. Pillows. Ordinary things that burned fast once they caught.
I didn't rush.
I didn't dramatize it.
I went back to the kitchen, flicked the breaker, then turned it back on.
The outlet sparked almost immediately.
A sharp crack.
The smell of hot plastic.
Smoke—thin at first, then thickening.
I turned away.
I didn't pack.
I didn't hesitate.
Just grabbed the same backpack I'd taken on the trip.
Nothing else.
I left the apartment calmly, the door closing behind me as smoke began to crawl along the ceiling.
Outside, the early morning air hit my lungs hard and cold.
I walked.
Two blocks.
Then three.
Only then did I pull out my phone and text Sylus.
Diana: Viktor was in my apartment.
Diana: He left a body. Recent kill.
Diana: I destroyed the space.
Diana: I'm relocating.
Fire engines screamed past moments later, sirens tearing through the early morning.
I didn't look back.
Viktor had crossed a line he couldn't uncross.
He hadn't just threatened me.
He'd come into my home.
And that meant this was no longer a message.
It was war.
I kept walking.
Not fast. Not slow. Just steady—another early riser cutting through Linkon before the city finished waking up.
The fire would buy me time, but not safety. Authorities would arrive to smoke and water and a body too damaged to tell its full story. An accidental blaze. A tragic victim. A tenant conveniently out of town.
I couldn't stay predictable. And I certainly couldn't hover near Elara—not now, not when he'd just proven how easily he could turn proximity into a weapon.
I needed distance.
And leverage.
My phone vibrated again.
Not Viktor.
Devil: Where are you?
I didn't stop walking when I typed.
Diana: On foot. Three blocks from my building. Heading east.
The reply came almost immediately.
Devil: Stay visible.
I exhaled through my nose.
Of course he'd say that. Visibility meant witnesses. Cameras. Noise he couldn't choreograph.
Another message followed.
Devil: I want your live location.
I didn't hesitate.
The map icon pulsed once, then locked in.
Good.
If Viktor was still nearby, he'd see the shift soon enough. The invisible weight of being hunted replaced by something sharper.
Ownership.
I slowed, letting myself blend into a cluster of commuters waiting at a crosswalk. Steam rose from a nearby food cart, the smell of oil and coffee cutting through the lingering copper in my nose.
Think.
Viktor wanted escalation. Fear. Reaction.
He wouldn't get either.
I would move first.
My phone vibrated again.
Devil: Walk for two more blocks then turn right.
A pause.
Then:
Devil: Let him think you're still playing defense.
I smiled faintly.
He really did understand this kind of game.
The light changed. People surged forward. I moved with them, just another body in motion, another story passing unnoticed.
For now.
But not for long.