Chapter 34
2228words
Lucian Sinclair’s Estate
The dining room still echoed with fading warmth—the kind that lingered long after the food had gone cold. Ash was recounting a childhood Christmas disaster involving a collapsed tent and a raccoon invasion, while Vex interjected every few seconds with scandalized gasps. Eli laughed so hard he nearly choked on the last bite of ginger cake.
Kristina smiled behind the rim of her glass. It was a light kind of chaos—loud, offbeat, entirely unrefined. But for a moment, it felt like family.
“You sure you guys don’t want to stay until dinner?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
Ash slung an arm over Vex’s shoulder. “I’ve got an aunt who turns her living room into a karaoke war zone. If I don’t show up, she’ll sing every Mariah Carey song in my honor.”
“Do you mean in vengeance?” Vex asked.
“Exactly.”
Kristina laughed softly. “Fair enough. Safe travels.”
Eli gave her a brief salute. “Try not to miss us too much.”
And just like that, the noise began to thin. Coats were gathered. Backpacks slung. Boots stomped at the threshold.
Kristina walked with them to the front hall. Car doors slammed shut one by one, muffled in the snow’s hush.
Sebastian lingered near the doorway, quiet as always.
Kristina touched his arm lightly before he could follow the others out.
“First time going home for Christmas?” she asked gently.
He gave a small nod. “First time in a long while.”
She hesitated, then said, “They’ll be glad you came.”
Sebastian looked at her then—not with his usual reserved formality, but something quieter. Almost grateful.
“Thank you,” he said. “For giving him reason to let me go.”
Kristina blinked, caught off guard. “I didn’t—”
“You did,” he said. “He trusts you.”
A soft silence passed between them.
“Happy Christmas, Sebastian.”
He inclined his head. “And to you.”
Then he turned—shoulders squared, ever vigilant—and stepped outside.
But he didn’t leave just yet.
He waited until the others had gone, until the tires had crunched down the long drive. Then he turned back toward Lucian.
“Thank you,” Sebastian said. “For letting me go home this year.”
Lucian didn’t respond immediately. His gaze was steady, unreadable.
“You’ve spent nearly every Christmas here since you started,” he said quietly. “You’ve earned one with your family.”
Sebastian’s eyes flickered. “Still. I didn’t expect it.”
Lucian added, “Your father still plays chess in the mornings, doesn’t he?”
A rare, faint smile. “He cheats.”
Lucian almost smiled. “Then let him. You’ll be back on the second?”
“Sunday evening. Before we resume.”
Lucian nodded. “Good.”
And with that, Sebastian left.
Lucian stayed by the window as the taillights disappeared into the gray-blue hush. The estate behind him felt too large. Too still.
After Sebastian left, Kristina had quietly slipped away. No words. No echo of steps.
Now she returned from the west hallway, a small plastic crate in her arms—one from the untouched stack in the back of the supply pantry.
She didn’t speak. Just passed by with quiet purpose, a tangled string of lights tucked under her arm.
Lucian turned slightly, his voice low. “You’re decorating?”
“Not really,” she said, offering a soft, almost sheepish smile. “Just a few things. The quiet feels heavy.”
Her tone held reverence. Not restlessness, but intent. Like she was filling a space she didn’t want to disturb.
She didn’t wait for permission. Just kept walking—shoulder brushing the wall, a ribbon trailing behind her.
Lucian looked back at the window, but it was his own reflection he caught—strangely unfamiliar in the stillness.
By evening, the changes were small but deliberate. A garland curled around the banister. A candle flickered on a side table, throwing the scent of fir and wax into the air. On the kitchen counter, two mismatched mugs waited. One with hot chocolate. One black coffee—untouched.
The house didn’t look festive. But it felt… softer. Like someone had drawn breath into its lungs.
Lucian found her in the sunroom, curled on the couch with a blanket around her knees and an unread book in her lap. She looked up when he entered, but didn’t move.
“I didn’t wrap it,” she said. “It’s not even really a gift.”
Lucian stepped closer, frowning. “You got me something?”
Kristina hesitated, then pulled a small, bound notebook from behind the cushion. She held it out like it might vanish if she changed her mind.
“It’s just notes. From that copy of Meditations in your library. I reread it. Marked some pages. I thought—maybe you’d want to see it through someone else’s eyes.”
Lucian sat beside her, silent.
Inside were pages filled with her handwriting—thoughts in the margins, underlines, questions she never expected to answer. It wasn’t an interpretation. It was a dialogue. A quiet conversation across time.
“No one’s ever given me anything like this,” he said.
Kristina looked down. “It’s not much.”
“It’s more than enough.”
She gave a small nod, then stared at the space between them. The silence pressed in again—but this time, she broke it first.
“You don’t have to give me anything. Just… stay.”
That word hung between them.
Not an order. Not a plea. Just… an offering.
Lucian didn’t respond right away. He looked at her—really looked. Not just her profile in the soft light, not just the way her shoulders curled inward like she wasn’t sure what she’d allowed herself to ask for—but the weight of that word as it left her lips.
It was such a small thing. A single syllable. But it lodged somewhere deep in him, like a key in a lock he wasn’t ready to open.
He’d heard that word before. From colleagues, from partners, from people who wanted more than he was willing to give. Stay for the night. Stay for appearances. Stay for power. It always came with expectations. Conditions. Barbs.
But this—this was different.
Kristina wasn’t asking him to fill a space. She was inviting him into it.
He could give her a dozen things: protection, precision, control. That was easy. But this? This meant presence. Softness. Vulnerability.
He hadn’t known how much he feared the word until she said it aloud.
And yet, he wanted to give it to her.
Not because she asked.
But because she didn’t demand.
And for once, he didn’t deflect.
Lucian nodded once, quiet and sure.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a dark velvet pouch.
“It’s not wrapped either.”
Inside was a pendant. Simple. Silver. A compass rose etched into its face—not like the first one he’d given her, with her initials. This one pointed outward. Forward.
“To find your way back,” Lucian said. “If you ever need it.”
Kristina closed her fingers around it, tightly. “I already have.”
Later, in the study, the old record player crackled softly to life—grainy piano that trembled through the air like it remembered something long gone. Notes spilled gently from the speakers, hesitant at first, then steady. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to.
Snow had started to fall outside. The kind of snow that hushed everything without trying.
Lucian sat in his armchair, a tumbler of untouched scotch resting in his hand. He hadn’t taken a sip. His gaze was locked on the glass doors across the room, watching the flakes accumulate slowly over the stone ledge just beyond them. A part of him was still there—outside, with the snow. Detached. Thinking of things he’d never said aloud.
Kristina sat beside him on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her, her oversized sweater slipping past her hands. She didn’t fidget or force conversation. But her eyes moved—between the window, the record player, and the man she was slowly learning how to read.
She tilted her head slightly, her voice quiet enough that it barely rose above the piano.
“Did you use to celebrate Christmas?”
Lucian didn’t answer right away. His thumb moved absently along the rim of the glass, slow and deliberate.
“Not really.”
She watched the way he said it—how the words came out flat, almost distant. Like he wasn’t answering her as much as he was speaking from memory.
“With your family?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Sometimes my grandfather. Sometimes just work. Sometimes… no one.”
Kristina let the silence stand. But she felt the weight behind the simplicity of his words—the spaces between them that carried more than the words themselves. No one. That wasn’t just a fact. It was a pattern. A season he’d learned to endure, not experience.
“Do you hate it?” she asked.
Lucian exhaled, not quite a sigh. His answer was quiet. Honest.
“I used to,” he said. “But it feels different now.”
Kristina let that settle.
It would’ve been easier to smile, to say something light. But she didn’t. She understood that some silences were meant to be kept—not because there was nothing to say, but because saying too much would bruise something that had just started to heal.
So instead, she leaned into him—slowly, gently. Her shoulder found his. A quiet touch. Steady. Present.
Lucian didn’t flinch. Didn’t look at her.
But he didn’t move away either.
And that, for him, was a kind of gravity.
The warmth between them wasn’t loud. It didn’t demand. It just… stayed. Like the music. Like the snow. Like a memory that chose not to leave.
The silence wasn’t empty anymore.
It was shared.
The house was steeped in quiet as midnight neared.
Kristina stood in the doorway of his room, hair damp, sleeves pushed to her elbows. Lucian was already in bed, lamp casting gold across the sheets.
He saw the glance she gave the hallway.
“You can stay,” he said. “If you want to.”
She looked at him. “Even after Papa nearly combusted?”
Lucian’s voice didn’t waver. “This isn’t about him.”
Then: “I’ll stay.”
She crossed the room and slid beneath the covers. Their hands met under the blanket.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Lucian turned his head.
“I don’t sleep well,” he said. “Never have.”
“But I think I might tonight.”
Her fingers curled into his. “Then sleep.”
He did. Not to escape—but to remain. With her.
Outside, the snow continued to fall—soft, steady, silent.
The night wrapped the estate in velvet hush, all edges softened, all noise tucked beneath layers of frost and distance.
But beyond the gates—somewhere past the bend in the private road, where the woods grew darker and the ground dipped into silence—a car sat idle.
Lights off. Engine cold.
Inside, two figures watched. Their breath fogged faintly on the windshield. The interior smelled of damp wool and old coffee. One of them leaned forward, elbows on the dash, binoculars cradled loosely in gloved hands.
“They’re alone,” said the first voice—low, patient, detached. “No team. No guard rotation. Just the two of them. It’s the best shot we’ve had.”
The second voice was harder. Sharper. Less convinced. “Or it’s bait.”
A quiet pause. Then:
“She’s the bodyguard,” the second one continued. “You think it’s a disadvantage she only has one person to protect?”
A faint scoff. “That just means her focus is clean. If anything goes sideways, she won’t blink. She’ll kill before you breathe.”
The first figure hummed under their breath. “That’s assuming she sees it coming.”
Another silence.
The second voice was quieter now. Calculating. “You still think she’s just a weapon.”
“No,” the voice said flatly. “She used to be. Now she’s something else. That makes her worse.”
Outside, a wind shifted through the trees—rattling the high branches, scattering flakes sideways across the windshield.
The first voice spoke again. “We wait. Tomorrow or the next. When they’re warm. Soft. Comfortable.”
“When they stop expecting the world to burn.”
Neither of them moved.
The snow continued.
The house remained lit in the distance—golden and still.
They never saw it.
But Kristina had.
Not fully. Not clearly. Just… enough.
She’d caught the shape of the car earlier that afternoon—tucked just past the curve in the private road where the trees leaned in too close and the snow made shadows blur. It hadn’t moved since.
She hadn’t mentioned it. Not when she walked the team out. Not when she passed Lucian in the front hall with the crate in her arms.
But as she’d rounded the corner that hour, her gaze had flicked—once—toward the front window. Not long enough to draw notice. Enough to confirm it was still there.
She’d said nothing. Just kept walking, lights tangled beneath her arm, fingers steady.
Lucian hadn’t caught the glance.
And the silence went on.
Now, hours later, she lay awake in the dark, curled on her side beneath the weight of Lucian’s blanket, her eyes fixed on nothing and everything at once.
That car hadn’t moved.
Not when the snow thickened. Not when the world softened.
And not even when the lights of the estate dimmed, one by one.
She told herself it might be nothing. A delivery left behind. A stalled engine. A harmless traveler caught in the quiet.
But her spine said otherwise.
It hadn’t stopped whispering since sunset.
Kristina didn’t reach for her weapons. Not yet.
She let Lucian sleep.
She let the calm remain intact.
But she watched the dark a little longer.
And this time, she didn’t blink.
Some silences are earned. Others are warnings in disguise. And this one wasn’t quiet by accident.
—To be continued.
