Location: WindCore Headquarters, Security Briefing Room, Syndey NSW Australia.
Time: 36 Hours Before Departure
[Scene: Closed High-Level Strategy Meeting]
"Objective! No chance I would agree with Lyra going in person." Jenny's voice was low, but held a rare steel edge.
"He's uncontrollable. Owns a private army, a fortified base, and an autonomous weapons network. If anything goes wrong, you'll be exposed on his turf with no fallback."
Jenny looked at Lyra, her expression uncharacteristically serious. "You're CFO of WindCore. A woman with a purely commercial background. You're not military. You're not field-trained. You have no physical means of self-protection."
Lyra didn't reply. Her gaze shifted quietly to Mulan.
The West Wind leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, eyes sharp."He's smart."
"If it's not one of us walking through that door, he won't even open it." "He's not looking for a sales rep, he's waiting for a decision maker."
She paused, her voice calm but precise."Jenny's military rank means she can't step foot in the U.S. Fay needs to stay tethered to our data systems, she's the terminal. And me? He knows Keaton Rennick is my husband. He'll never sit down across from me."
A long silence followed. All eyes returned to Lyra. The only one left on the board.
Fay smiled softly. "And he prefers to see faces." She tapped her terminal, projecting a profile dossier onto the shared screen.
[Arthur Graves – Full Psychological & Behavioral Profile]
The file included not just his operational records, combat transcripts, and professional resume, but also a series of in-depth interviews with several of his former lovers.
Detailed notes outlined everything from his preferred positions to specific durations.
More intriguingly, they all mentioned the same peculiar habit:Before falling asleep, he would ask his partner to place a hand on the back of his neck, press down with the index finger for exactly three seconds, and say, "Graves, I see you. You look tired."
They exchanged glances before Mulan, the psychologist, finally spoke:"Fay, you've dug deep enough. What we're looking at is likely PTSD symptoms maybe even rooted in childhood trauma from his family of origin. It's not severe, but… it does point to something else: a profound sense of unworthiness. Insecurity he can't quite shake."
Fay's voice was soft, analytical. "That's the beauty of intelligence. You don't just trace what someone does, you uncover what they truly need. If we want to reach his core, trauma might be our most effective point of entry."
She flipped to the final page and read aloud:"He's not just a mercenary commander, he's a gambler. The kind who lives like there's no tomorrow. What most call 'opportunity,' he treats as a test. Like many men, he only worships three gods: Power, Sex & Guns.
Unless we offer him a game he's never seen before, something big enough for him to bet his entire career and life on, he'll never truly come to our side.
And the problem with a purely commercial partnership? It's too easy to flip the table. No equity, no personal loyalty. You can't leash a wolf like him with paperwork."
Fay looked up at the others, his voice calm but surgical in its precision."He's a Texan. And Texans only play two kinds of hands: they fold, or they go ALL IN."
Lyra leaned forward, eyes sharp. "Classic alpha man. Overconfident to a fault. He might not grasp the subtleties of finance, but his territorial instincts are razor-sharp. The only way in… is to let him believe he's the one hunting. The moment he thinks he's won? That's when we close the net."
Jenny turned sharply toward Lyra, her tone razor-sharp."What now East? You really plan to walk into this yourself? WindCore doesn't need a princess sent over the mountains to broker peace. Even if this entire system collapses, it won't be the CFO's job to offer herself up as tribute. Ignore the Fan family's marriage demands, my brother can handle that alone. You don't have to sacrifice yourself like this!"
Mulan leaned back and laughed, loudly, deliberately."Oh North, don't be so dramatic. I can tell, our dear Commander Graves is exactly her type, handsome, wild, and untamable.""Even if he doesn't sign the contract, he'd make a fine… guest behind the curtain, wouldn't he?"
Lyra didn't rush to respond.
She lifted the tea cup in front of her, took a sip, the bitter raw Pu'er tea scraped over her tongue, leaving a dry trace of astringency.
Then, she spoke, softly, evenly.
"South, I want everything about him. Down to the last detail. I want to speak to all those 5 women he used to sleep with. I need to know everything, physical, psychological, even sexual."
Fay laughed out and nodded: "As you wish, glad you finally found a man who piques your interest." Then she turned to the others:"Let's not stand in her way just yet, ladies."
Location: Lyra's House, Sydney NSW Australia
Time: 9:50 pm
Late at night, the office room of Lyra's house was dim and silent.
The holographic projection rotated slowly, freezing on a single frame of Arthur Graves. He was leaning against a military-grade off-road vehicle, comms device in hand, apparently in the middle of commanding a nighttime exercise. Clad in a black tactical tee, his frame was lean, not large, but there was something in his posture, a sharpness, a presence, that made it impossible to look away.
His face was striking, almost dangerously so. That trademark smirk curled at the corner of his lips, calculated, amused, and never quite sincere. But it was his eyes that drew the line in the sand: cold, grey-blue, like iron beneath Arctic waters. They held the look of a man who had never trusted anyone, and never planned to.
Lyra reclined on the velvet couch, one hand cradling a bone china tumbler. The amber whiskey swirled gently inside, catching the glint of the whole screen. The entire room seemed to live in that single reflection.
"A handsome gambler," she murmured, her voice barely above breath. "Dangerous. Unruly. But undeniably… compelling."
She had analysed countless men before, commanders, diplomats, financiers, but never like this. Because this wasn't about acquisition.
It was about absorption. She wasn't negotiating a partnership. She was preparing to fold an entire private army, its leader, its chaos, its underground economy, into the future structure of WindCore.
A soft chime. Fay's intelligence feed lit up. Lyra opened the file with a single slide of her finger.
The first pages were clinical: military history, psychological assessments, operational transcripts. Clean, almost unnervingly so.
But then came the deeper layers: five full interviews with former lovers. Each voice carried a different shade, obsession, fear, desire. Yet they all described the same core man.
She drained her glass in a single sip. The whiskey hit her throat with the burn of black pepper and the dry bitterness of oak. She glanced at the bottle beside her, Blanton's Single Barrel, Graves' favourite.
A bourbon beloved by American officers: aggressive up front, smooth at the centre, smoked and defiant at the finish. Not her usual drink. But she could taste him in it.
The man, like the whiskey, made no effort to be liked, but every note had been precisely engineered to leave an impression.
Lyra stared at the projection a moment longer, then smiled faintly. Not affection. Not intrigue. But strategy.
The kind of smile a hunter wore when the prey finally wandered into view. She picked up her phone, unlocked the screen, and opened the encrypted group chat shared with her three cousins.
Then, in a tone as gentle as a lover's whisper, but firm as a deal sealed in blood, she pressed record and sent a voice message.
East Wind · Lyra: "I want this man."
A few minutes later, the screen lit up.
South Wind · Fay: "Do you want the man, or do you want his team, East?"
East Wind · Lyra: "Both? Why should I be forced to choose?"
North Wind · Jenny, she stayed silent for a moment before sending just a single word: "Fine."
That was the bond between the Four Winds: business could be handled as business, but when it came to the personal, they backed each other without limits. After all, they'd grown up together as cousins.
West Wind - Mulan: "You do need to be prepared. If it's only about Umbra for the contract negotiations, that's simple enough. But if you also want that Commander himself, Sis… then your eyes, your body language, even your subconscious, everything has to be ready. Because you are the ace in the hole."