Chapter 44
2157words
Sinclair Dominion HQ | Ops Briefing Room
The morning passed in motion.
Gear was checked and checked again. Comms tested. Cover identities scrubbed through last-minute layers of encryption. The briefing from the day before hung in the air like static—unspoken, but fully charged.
Kristina double-checked the forged customs paperwork for Jakarta, scanning over the names and seals with the quiet precision Lucian had come to expect of her. Vex lounged nearby, pretending to be bored, though his left knee bounced restlessly. A sign he was keyed in, already itching for movement.
Across the room, Sebastian and Ash were running final recon batches through a secure terminal, eyes flicking between data streams and thermal images of the compound in Vaduz. The building was colder than it looked.
Eli stood in the corner alone, eyes on a tablet, but Lucian had the sense he was watching more than just blueprints. Eli had barely spoken since the night in the study. And when he did, it was strictly business.
Lucian's gaze slid back to Kristina. She was rolling a spare earpiece into her carry kit.
He stepped toward her quietly. “Can I speak to you a moment?”
She looked up, surprised, but nodded. “Of course.”
He gestured to the hallway. They stepped out together, leaving the low hum of mission prep behind.
For a beat, neither said anything.
Then Lucian asked, “Are you all right with this? Jakarta isn’t a light assignment. If anything feels wrong out there—”
Kristina’s expression softened, but she didn’t interrupt.
He went on. “Just… be cautious. Vex will have your back, but you don’t need to prove anything. Not to me.”
She gave a small smile. “I know.”
He searched her face. “You don’t have to be fearless.”
“I’m not,” she said, quieter now. “But I’m ready.”
Lucian hesitated. Then his hand brushed hers, briefly. A silent tether. “Come back.”
“I will,” she said.
A flicker passed between them. Nothing overt. Just the weight of everything they still hadn’t said.
Then she turned and walked back inside.
Lucian watched her go, his face unreadable—but his hand lingered at his side, like he hadn’t quite let go.
Sinclair Dominion HQ | Helicopter Pad
The wind ripped across the rooftop, tugging at the coats and clipboard papers of two security staff as they watched Kristina approach.
She wore black — field-ready — with her duffel slung over one shoulder, hair pinned back, eyes locked ahead. No hesitation in her gait. No Dominion escort. Just her.
The sleek, black craft waiting at the edge of the helipad wasn’t a Dominion asset. Its paint was matte, unmarked — no logos, no serial numbers, no registration tags. Not standard. Not even close.
One of the security guards muttered to the other, brow furrowed.
“Is that... a Legion bird?”
“Looks like it. She had it brought in earlier. Not on the flight log.”
The rotors spun as she buckled in. Through the tinted glass, her eyes swept over the skyline — once. Just once. Then she turned to her console, syncing comms with Jakarta, checking encrypted files, fingers quick and practiced.
She didn’t look back.
Jakarta – Off-Site Shell Facility
The air smelled of dust and rotting paper.
Kristina stepped carefully through the tight corridor, flashlight cutting across rusted filing cabinets and broken tile. Vex moved ahead in near silence, sweeping each room before signaling the all-clear. The place was abandoned — but power still ran to the lower levels. Someone had kept it alive.
“This the place?” Kristina whispered, crouching near a half-collapsed storage door.
Vex’s voice buzzed through her earpiece. “Yeah. Registry matched the shell corp Dominion flagged. You’re looking for any local names tied to the offshore funding trails.”
Kristina nodded and pulled on gloves. She pried open a dented cabinet, the metal groaning in protest, and began leafing through warped folders, eyes scanning for anything familiar — anything personal.
Mostly logistics. Fake invoices. Contracts routed through meaningless names.
Then something stopped her.
Observation Group B: 1993
A folder stamped in faded ink.
And just beneath it — a surveillance photo. Grainy. Poor quality. A boy, maybe thirteen, standing alone in what looked like a stairwell. Eyes slightly turned from the camera. Unclear. Blurred by time.
Subject: Voss, Everett L.
Location: Riverside. Monitor only.
Kristina’s breath caught.
Not because of the face. She didn’t fully recognize it. But the name.
Everett L. That stirred something old — something buried.
Everett Lysander.
That was the name of the boy who lived a floor above them when she was young. The boy with the spectacled eyes who gave her a Rubik’s cube and challenged her to solve a puzzle.
But that wasn’t all.
Her gaze dropped to the surname:
The chill spread down her spine.
Eli’s last name.
Her mind scrambled to make sense of it — to link what she was seeing to the man she knew now. Eli had never talked about siblings. Never mentioned a brother. But Everett Lysander Voss? The timing lined up. The address — Riverside Apartments — was her building in 1993.
“What the hell is this doing here…” she murmured.
Vex glanced over her shoulder. “You good?”
Kristina didn’t answer right away. Her hand was still frozen on the folder.
“Yeah,” she said finally. Tucking the file into her pack. “Just… thought I saw a name I knew.”
But her chest felt tight. Her thoughts stuck in a loop.
Everett L. Voss.
They couldn’t be the same person. Could they?
And yet, if they weren’t… then why the same last name? Why the same building? Why 1993?
She moved on — deeper into the dark — but her mind wouldn’t let it go.
Somewhere, beneath everything else, a quiet truth started to rise.
Rural Virginia | Surveillance Post Alpha
The wind pressed against the sides of the trailer, sharp and constant. Frost crept along the corners of the double-paned windows, fogging slightly where breath met glass. From the outside, the structure looked abandoned—rusted aluminum siding, patched roof, weeds grown tall around the skids.
Inside: precision.
Three monitors, encrypted feeds, thermal overlays, shortwave antennas. A sniper’s perch pointed straight toward the entrance of a derelict warehouse across the frozen field.
Eli sat motionless in a folding chair. Hood up. Eyes on the screens.
No movement.
No sound but the wind.
Lucian had flagged this site himself—said the warehouse was likely a shell for Dominion’s corporate enemies, masked through fake logistics firms and dormant subsidiaries. Something was hiding there. Something important.
But not tonight.
Tonight, it was quiet.
The kind of quiet that wasn’t peace — just absence.
Eli leaned forward and adjusted the gain on the secondary channel. Static. Wind. A dull mechanical hum.
He didn’t blink.
Kristina had gone dark about an hour ago. Standard protocol during insertion. She was with Vex, she could handle herself. And yet—
He rubbed his thumb against the inside of his palm. His old tell. Still there.
He hadn’t said anything when she left. Hadn’t let himself look at her.
Not your place.
He closed his eyes. Just for a second.
A memory flashed.
Riverside Apartments. Dim hallway. The hum of a vending machine that never worked. Kristina, crouching and counting coins.
He’d approached her then—awkward, curious, trying not to sound nervous.
They talked. Just for a while. A short, strange exchange.
And before he left, he handed her the Rubik’s cube.
Back then, she called him Everett. Everett Lysander.
He exhaled sharply, shook the thought, and opened his laptop. Fingers moved automatically.
Field Surveillance Log – Jan 5, 2011 – 22:45
Warehouse: No visible movement. Thermal feed flat.
Power: Low irregular draw — possible underground systems.
Comms: All channels quiet.
Personal Note [Encrypted]:
K. and V. on mission. Jakarta target still dark. No contact since drop. Holding pattern.
She remembers something. She has to.
Rubik’s cube. My name. My face.
But not the whole truth. Not yet.
He hesitated. Deleted that last part. Rewrote it:
She deserves the truth. But on her own terms. In her own time.
He encrypted the file, closed the lid.
A flicker on the central monitor.
Thin green pulse. Narrow-band frequency. Scrambled.
Eli straightened. Adjusted the antenna. Filtered the feed.
A voice. Male. Muffled. Mid-transmission.
“...shipment moved... schedule’s changed... target’s already in play... move on her early... no backup.”
Then—static.
Line dead.
Eli’s stomach dropped. He rewound it, cleaned the audio, ran a match scan. No immediate hits.
Not enough data. But something was wrong. Someone was moving early.
He clipped the file, encrypted it, and sent it to Dominion’s central server with a priority-red tag.
Then he stood. Quietly. Reached for his rifle. Checked the sights.
Someone just made their move.
And if Kristina was anywhere near the fallout…
He wouldn’t be sitting here next time.
The faint shuffle of boots on old concrete.
Eli moved before thinking, years of muscle memory kicking in.
The intruder didn’t hear him. Not until it was too late.
In one breath, Eli surged from the shadows — a blur of movement, quiet as a ghost. He hooked the man’s wrist mid-reach and slammed him against the nearest column. A sharp grunt. Disarmed. Disoriented.
Before the man could scream, Eli’s forearm pressed hard against his throat. The barrel of his gun rested gently beneath the man’s chin.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
Cold. Controlled. Final.
The man froze. Eyes wide.
The man didn’t belong. Tactical build. Clean hands, but dirt under his boots. Not local. He hadn’t come to scout — he’d come to erase.
To check if the place had been breached. To ensure there were no eyes left to see what was inside.
Maybe Eli’s surveillance had been noticed. Maybe this facility was more active than they thought.
Eli didn’t wait to find out.
A quick injection to the neck — one of the sedatives from his field kit.
Fast-acting. Non-lethal. Enough to keep him out for transport.
As the man slumped, Eli caught him and eased the body down.
He stared at the stranger for a moment — just long enough to burn the moment into his memory.
“You’re going to tell us everything,” he murmured.
He radioed in the exfil code. One of Sinclair Dominion’s black-ops cleanup teams would arrive within minutes. They wouldn’t ask questions. Just follow Eli’s orders.
Sinclair Dominion HQ | Executive Floor Private Command Terminal
The light from the monitors painted the room in cold blue.
Lucian stood by the glass wall of his office, staring down at the city. Below him, the machine of Sinclair Dominion kept humming — planes rerouting, satellites pinging coordinates, agents chasing trails across continents.
But all he could think about was Kristina.
He turned when he heard movement behind him.
Ash had returned earlier than expected, jacket draped over one arm, a slight sheen of sweat on his brow. “Vaduz is in motion,” he said. “Sebastian’s staying behind to comb through some files. I’ll debrief in the morning.”
Lucian gave a quiet nod. “Anything from Jakarta?”
“Vex checked in ten minutes ago. They’re deep in the archive—still digging.” A pause. “No problems.”
Lucian’s eyes narrowed faintly. “And Virginia?”
Ash hesitated. “That’s why I came straight here.”
He stepped forward, pulling a tablet from his bag and handing it over. “BlackOps-2 pulled surveillance from Eli’s feed. It was flagged for executive-level eyes only.”
Lucian arched a brow. “Flagged by who?”
That earned Ash a sharper glance. Lucian waited until the door closed behind him before returning to his terminal. The file loaded without fanfare: grainy infrared, audio stripped.
The camera was mounted high, possibly from Eli’s drone or an external static cam. It showed the edge of the tree line, a single man creeping past a security blindspot.
Eli moved like a ghost.
The takedown was swift. Methodical. A silent sprint, then an injection to the neck. The target didn’t even have time to scream.
Lucian watched the body crumple. Watched Eli kneel beside him, murmuring something the camera didn’t catch. Then radio in the exfil code.
He watched it twice.
Then once more — slower.
His jaw flexed.
Eli hadn’t been given permission to engage.
But he’d done it anyway. Without hesitation. Without emotion. Just efficiency.
Lucian leaned back in his chair, temple resting against steepled fingers.
He’d known Eli was intelligent. A strategist. Someone who could vanish into crowds, extract data, break systems.
This was surgical. Lethal. Controlled.
In all the years Eli had worked for him, Lucian had never seen him move like that. Not in training simulations. Not in field reports.
Never with that kind of focus. That quiet, unshakable violence.
It unsettled him.
This wasn’t about orders.
Eli had made a decision — a personal one.
And Lucian felt the weight of it settle cold in his chest.
He’s not just protecting her.
He’s hunting for her.
Some choices don’t need approval. They already know who they’re made for.
—To be continued.
