Chapter 39
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Lucian Sinclair’s Estate
Late Morning
The front doors slammed open like the house owed someone an apology.
“HAPPY NEW YEAR, BITCHEEEEEEEEEESSSSS!!!”
Eli Voss stood in the foyer, arms spread wide like he was returning from war—or worse, vacation. Oversized sunglasses still on, despite being indoors. Snow clung to his jacket. A duffel bag hung off his shoulder like a well-traveled secret. And that grin—wide, unbothered, completely Eli.
Silence stretched for half a beat. Then—
“Wait, what the hell—”
“Where have you been, man?!”
Vex was the first down the stairs, skipping the last three steps like he was twelve again. Ash followed, blinking at Eli like a dream just walked into the room with too much attitude. Sebastian leaned out from the kitchen with a spatula still in hand, halfway between breakfast and disbelief.
Kristina… just froze.
She hadn’t seen him since before Christmas. No messages. No updates. Just… nothing.
And now he was here. Loud as ever.
“Relax,” Eli said, kicking snow off his boots. “I turned off my phone. First vacation I’ve had in years. You think I was gonna let you psychos ruin it?”
Ash narrowed his eyes. “So you ghosted us?”
“Not ghosted,” Eli corrected. “Stealth retired for ten days. Totally different vibe.”
“You do realize we thought you were dead,” Vex said, still half-laughing as he pulled him into a hug. “Sebastian was two minutes away from hacking satellite traffic.”
“I was three,” Sebastian corrected.
Kristina stayed where she was.
Eli’s eyes found hers for just a flicker of a second. He didn’t say anything. Just lifted the duffel off his shoulder and dropped it to the floor with a theatrical thud.
“Don’t worry, I brought gifts.”
Ash perked up immediately. “Actual gifts? Or the kind that require plausible deniability?”
“Little of both,” Eli said. “Depends how much you like illegal imports.”
He started digging through the bag, tossing out items one by one like Santa with a mild disregard for international law. A miniature drone for Ash. A sleek, custom multitool for Vex. A vintage lighter engraved with coordinates for Sebastian. A weathered paperback with a cryptic title for Lucian—though Lucian wasn’t even in the room yet.
And finally—
“Here,” Eli said, almost too casually, tossing a small box toward Kristina.
She caught it.
It was light. Neatly wrapped. No label.
She opened it.
Inside: a Rubik’s cube. Old, worn around the edges. But the colors were crisp, almost too perfect. Like it had been solved—and unsolved—hundreds of times.
Kristina stared at it.
“You always liked puzzles,” Eli said, not quite meeting her eyes. “Figured you’d appreciate the challenge.”
“You decided to come back.”
Everyone turned.
Lucian Sinclair stepped into the room, barefoot, a dark henley pushed to his elbows and charcoal lounge pants hanging just sharp enough to still look intentional. He looked like he hadn’t meant to walk into a reunion—but he didn’t back out of it, either. His tone wasn’t cold—but it wasn’t warm. Calm. Controlled. Watching.
Eli straightened a little, the smirk dropping just slightly from his mouth.
“Miss me?” he said, same grin, but softer now.
Lucian didn’t answer right away. He just walked further in, stopping a few feet from him.
“You were unreachable for ten days.”
“Yeah,” Eli said. “On purpose.”
Lucian’s brow lifted faintly.
“My phone was off. I warned everyone. No calls, no trackers, no mission briefs. Just snow, silence, and overpriced beer.” He shrugged. “Can’t burn out if you’re already frozen.”
Vex snorted.
But Lucian wasn’t laughing. He studied Eli for a long second.
Then simply said, “Next time, you let me know first.”
It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a question.
It was… something else.
Eli held his gaze. “Next time,” he agreed. “Scout’s honor.”
Lucian nodded once, then turned to the others. “If you’re all done with reunions, we have a meeting in ten.”
And just like that, he disappeared down the hallway again.
Ash let out a low whistle. “Did anyone else hear the passive-aggressive concern in that, or just me?”
Sebastian replied, “It’s Lucian. That was concern.”
Eli grinned. “Aw. He missed me.”
Lucian Sinclair’s Estate | Conference Room
The conference room had shifted the energy entirely. Floor-to-ceiling windows let in the pale January light, casting long shadows across a table scattered with tablets, datapads, and a live-projected schematic of global wire transfers mapped in pale blue and red.
Lucian stood at the head of the room, remote in hand, no longer barefoot—though his sleeves were still pushed up. Focused. Controlled. Back in full command.
Kristina sat to his right, notebook open, pen idle in her hand. Sebastian and Ash flanked the other side of the table. Vex sat half-sprawled, but alert. Eli leaned back in his seat, arms crossed, listening.
Lucian clicked the remote once.
The projection shifted.
“Three shell companies,” he said evenly. “Inactive since 2005. All recently reactivated within the last six months. All routed through layered offshore trusts. Two in Liechtenstein. One in Jakarta.”
The map zoomed in on a dense cluster of routes.
“On their own, it’s noise. But the frequency of encrypted transactions spiked—twice. December 14. Then again on December 27. Just after the Prague mission, and while we were off-duty for the holidays.”
Sebastian leaned forward. “Same shell group we flagged in Milan?”
Lucian nodded. “Yes. And the recipient accounts match three separate consulting firms—on paper. But deeper pull shows direct links to an old Dominion contract.”
Ash frowned. “One of ours?”
“One of Alton's,” Lucian said coolly. “Years ago. Decommissioned after the biotech asset collapse in '07. Supposed to be burned.”
Kristina shifted subtly.
Lucian didn’t look at her. But he continued, calm and precise.
“We don’t know if the pattern is coincidence, intel laundering, or a probe. But if someone’s resurfacing old infrastructures, I want to know why.”
Eli finally spoke, casual but sharp underneath. “Could be a misdirect. Or a prelude.”
Lucian’s gaze flicked to him. “I want eyes on both.”
He turned back to the group. “Sebastian, you’ll run background crawls on all three consulting fronts. Trace the owners. If you hit firewalls, call Ash.”
Ash gave a lazy salute.
“Vex, Kristina—you’ll go in quiet. Jakarta and Vaduz. Vex takes point in the field. Kristina on ground recon. Leave no digital signature.”
Kristina nodded once.
“What about me?” Eli asked.
Lucian didn’t blink. “You’ll coordinate domestic end. One of the firms recently leased a property in Virginia. We need surveillance—low exposure. Take whoever you need.”
“Copy that,” Eli said.
Lucian clicked the remote again. The screen went dark.
“That’s all,” he said. “You have your roles. Move quiet, move fast.”
Chairs scraped against hardwood as the team began to rise. Vex yawned theatrically. Ash pocketed a protein bar. Sebastian was already scanning intel on his tablet.
Kristina lingered only a second longer—long enough to see Lucian exchange a glance with Eli. Brief. Wordless. But not neutral.
Then she turned away.
Later, alone in the quiet of her room, Kristina opened the small gift box again.
The Rubik’s Cube rested inside, perfectly still.
She turned it once in her hands. The center squares didn’t match. Just slightly off—like someone had solved it with too much muscle memory. Or maybe not solved it at all.
She traced the edge of the cube with her thumb.
And for the first time all day, she didn’t know what to think.
Lucian Sinclair’s Estate | Kristina’s Bedroom
The door clicked softly behind her.
Kristina stepped into the quiet like it was a different world. No briefings. No surveillance grids. No voices bouncing off concrete logic.
Just her. And the cube.
She sat at the edge of the bed, the small box still in her hand. Its wrapping had been discarded earlier, neat and folded, like she couldn’t quite bring herself to crumple it. She opened the lid again.
The Rubik’s Cube sat inside, undisturbed.
Old. Familiar. Worn in a way that made her fingers itch.
She took it out.
It turned with a whisper-click, just stiff enough to feel real. The red side aligned with white, the green skewed just slightly off. A single blue tile was chipped—just a corner. Like it had been dropped once, maybe twice. She pressed her thumb against it, and the plastic resisted, then yielded.
She wasn’t sure what bothered her more:
That Eli had remembered.
Or that he hadn’t said a single thing that told her why.
Kristina exhaled through her nose, shifting the cube in her hand.
One turn. Then another.
Yellow faced up. Orange misaligned.
She moved by instinct—methodical, not solving, just… searching.
The cube clicked again.
The colors rearranged.
Her hands stilled.
He always did. Knew how to make her laugh when the static in her brain wouldn’t shut up. Knew when to talk and when not to. Knew the value of distraction disguised as irreverence.
But this… this wasn’t irreverence. This was deliberate. Specific.
The weight of it wasn’t in the object—it was in the silence wrapped around it.
Kristina set the cube on the bedside table, not fully solved. Not fully scrambled.
She sat there for a long moment, elbows on her knees, fingers curled in thought.
Something wasn’t right.
She didn’t know what yet.
But her pulse knew before her mind caught up.
She glanced at the cube again.
Then stood and walked to her desk.
If Eli had given her a puzzle…
She would solve it.
Just not all at once.
Lucian Sinclair’s Estate | Lucian’s Study
The fire was low. Not dying—just steady. Controlled. Like everything in the room.
Lucian stood near the decanter, pouring himself a drink he hadn’t decided whether to finish. Behind him, the door clicked shut.
Eli didn’t bother waiting for an invitation. He stepped in and leaned against the bookshelf with the ease of someone who’d done it a hundred times. But there was something tighter in the set of his shoulders. One hand stayed tucked in his coat pocket.
“That was a warm welcome,” he said dryly. “Would’ve brought cake if I knew we were having a briefing.”
Lucian didn’t look over. “You weren’t expected.”
“That’s the charm of a vacation,” Eli replied. “Surprise arrivals. Poor timing. Snow.”
Lucian finally turned, glass in hand, gaze unreadable. “Don’t insult me.”
Eli’s smirk thinned, though it didn’t quite disappear. “Wasn’t trying to.”
“You were off-grid for ten days.”
“I told you—no signal, no contact. My choice.”
Lucian walked toward the fire with slow, measured steps. “You’ve never taken a vacation. Not in the years I’ve known you. You don’t vanish without cause.”
“Maybe I finally needed space,” Eli said, shrugging a little. “Is that so unbelievable?”
Lucian studied the amber in his glass. “It is when the man who never runs… suddenly does.”
A long beat passed. Then Eli said, quieter, “I didn’t run.”
Lucian’s gaze lifted. Steady. Sharp. “You brought her a Rubik’s cube.”
Eli blinked. “Is this really about the cube?”
“You could’ve given her anything. You chose a puzzle. Worn. Familiar. Intentional.”
Eli didn’t flinch. “She likes puzzles.”
“She is a puzzle,” Lucian said, voice low.
Silence stretched like a wire between them. Eli held it. Didn’t move.
Then Lucian asked, almost too calmly, “Is there something I should know?”
Eli exhaled once through his nose. “Such as?”
“Something personal.”
Lucian’s gaze sharpened. “Are you in love with her?”
The words landed without warning—and Eli, to his credit, didn’t recoil. But he didn’t laugh either.
He straightened a little from the bookshelf. His voice came quieter this time, not mocking—just level. “If I said yes, what would you do?”
Lucian’s grip on the glass didn’t change. But the air in the room did.
“I’d reevaluate your place here.”
Eli nodded slowly. “Fair.”
Lucian waited. Silent. Unmoving.
Eli’s eyes didn’t break away. “But I didn’t take her from you.”
His voice, when it came again, was quieter. “If I wanted to… I would’ve. Years ago. Before she even knew what she wanted. Before you realized what you felt.”
Lucian didn’t speak.
Eli stepped forward, just once. “But I didn’t.”
There was nothing performative in his tone now. Just fact. Memory. Weight.
“I never crossed that line. Not because I didn’t care. But because I did. Don’t question my loyalty, Lucian.”
He paused. “I’ve spent years keeping her safe. From everything. Including myself.”
The room was silent except for the quiet snap of the fire.
Lucian’s eyes narrowed slightly. Not in threat—but in calculation.
“Years?” he said quietly. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Eli held his gaze. “Not yet.”
Lucian set the untouched glass down on the edge of the sideboard. He looked at Eli again—not as a subordinate. As a man he’d known almost a decade. One of the few people who could meet him without flinching.
“You kept this from me.”
Eli gave the barest nod. “Because I didn’t want to hurt her. Or you. But mostly her.”
Lucian’s jaw flexed. Not anger. Not resentment. Something heavier.
A long beat passed.
Then Eli stepped back toward the door, his voice quieter now. “I’m not your threat. I never was. And she chose you.”
Lucian didn’t answer.
Eli’s hand found the doorknob. He hesitated.
“You’re not wrong to ask,” he said finally. “But you’re not right yet either.”
Lucian’s voice was low, almost unreadable. “I will be.”
Eli opened the door, half-turned. “Then I’ll see you when you are.”
And he left.
Some silences protect. Others unravel.
—To be continued.
