Chapter 18
2144words
Lucian Sinclair’s Estate
Almost Midnight
“You coming?”
Kristina nodded once, then stood.
And together, they made their way toward the stairs.
The rooftop door clicked shut behind them. The stairwell was dimly lit, hushed and narrow. Their steps echoed in tandem, a soft rhythm against stone. Somewhere on the third turn, their shoulders brushed—not by accident, not entirely on purpose. Neither of them moved away.
They didn’t talk. They didn’t need to.
By the time they reached the main floor, the warmth of the house pulled them back into something real. Familiar. The glow of lamps still lit the dining area where plates had been cleared but the chairs hadn’t been tucked in.
Something waited at Kristina’s seat.
A single book—old, paperback, upside down.
Kristina blinked at it, recognizing the faded spine before she could read the title.
Lucian reached over casually, picked it up without showing the cover, and began flipping through the pages.
“Found this gathering dust in Dominion’s old training archive,” he said, voice just this side of casual. “Figured you might appreciate the classics.”
Page 3: He tilted it just enough for her to see a stick figure sketched beside a tactical diagram, complete with angry brows and a caption: This is you. The other guy’s unconscious.
Kristina’s brow lifted.
He flipped again. Page 12: This move is theoretical. Results may vary. Vex tried it once. Never again.
Page 47 had a note circled in red pen: Disregard. Ash’s left hook is more reliable.
Lucian gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Very minor edits.”
Then he closed the book and finally showed her the cover. Advanced Threat Elimination Tactics, 2nd Edition. Scrawled across the top margin in block letters:
THE KRISTINA EDITION.
Kristina stared.
Her mouth twitched.
And then she laughed—quiet, surprised, the sound breaking out of her before she could stop it.
“You annotated doctrine.”
Lucian leaned back slightly. “Might be the only safe way to argue with you.”
She smirked. “You're not wrong.”
Her laugh wasn’t loud. Not sharp or wild. Just soft and real—like she hadn’t heard herself do it in years.
Lucian didn’t look away. He couldn’t. For the briefest moment, he forgot what guilt felt like. What walls were for. Because for the first time—truly—Kristina laughed. Sincerely.
She was still laughing, a little breathless, as she turned to him. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I guess I’m getting sentimental in my old age,” he replied, lips tugging into the faintest smile.
She shook her head and said, “You’re not old.”
Lucian just smiled. But neither of them moved toward their rooms.
“Tea?” he asked, almost casually.
Kristina tilted her head. “You make tea?”
“I own a kettle. I figure that counts.”
She followed him into the kitchen.
It was quiet. Warm. The kind of quiet that didn’t require explanation. Lucian moved with the ease of routine—kettle on the stove, two mugs placed on the counter, one sugar packet set beside hers without needing to ask.
Kristina leaned against the opposite counter, arms loose now, her sweater sleeves pushed up just enough to reveal the fresh bandage still wrapped around her upper arm.
They didn’t speak again until the kettle hummed.
“I didn’t think anyone would remember,” she said softly. Not looking at him. “Not after all this time.”
Lucian poured the water. “That’s not how it works here.”
Kristina looked up. “It’s not?”
He passed her a mug, fingers brushing hers. “You’re part of this house. That’s all the reason anyone needs.”
She held the cup closer to her chest.
And for a long moment, they just stood there—two shadows in soft light, hands warming on ceramic, silence no longer something to fear.
Lucian’s hand shifted. Not far. Just slightly. Close enough to brush against hers again.
Neither pulled away.
The clock above the stove ticked toward midnight. Somewhere beyond the windows, rain still whispered along the glass.
When they finally stepped out of the kitchen, it was quieter than before.
They walked the hallway slowly, footsteps soft against the wood floors. The air had shifted again—not heavy, not urgent. Just something suspended. Unfinished.
They stopped outside her door.
Lucian hesitated. “Get some rest.”
Kristina turned the knob. Opened the door, but lingered in the threshold.
She looked at him—not guarded, not unreadable, just… still.
“Good night, Lucian.”
The sound of her voice saying his name like that made something turn over in his chest.
He nodded once. “Good night, Kristina.”
The door clicked softly shut behind her.
Lucian didn’t move right away.
One hand remained in his pocket, fingers brushing the edge of something small and square. A box. Slim. Still unopened. Still waiting.
He exhaled, jaw tightening.
And walked back down the hall alone.
Maybe tomorrow.
Saturday | December 11, 2010
Lucian Sinclair’s Estate | Kristina’s Bedroom
Past Midnight
The door clicked softly shut behind her, and Kristina stayed there—motionless, her back resting against the wood, as if the quiet weight of the night needed time to settle around her before she moved.
She listened.
Not with intent, not as an operative scanning for threats or changes in the environment, but with something more delicate. A kind of inward listening, where every breath and shift beyond her door resonated like a faint vibration under her skin. She could hear him—Lucian—still standing outside, unmoving for a moment too long, the faintest shuffle of his foot, a held breath that said more than it should have. She didn’t reach for the knob again. Didn’t open it. Didn’t call him back. She only waited—until she heard the soft cadence of his steps retreating down the hallway, slow and deliberate, like even he wasn’t sure if walking away was the right thing to do.
And when she knew he was gone, truly gone, she peeled herself away from the door and walked toward the bed. Her steps were quiet, the pads of her feet brushing against the wooden floorboards like she’d done it a thousand times before—like there had always been a place here for her to return to.
The bed was still unmade. She’d left it that way on purpose, maybe because she knew the night wasn’t finished yet. And now, laid out across the blanket, were the gifts—simple, unwrapped, yet unmistakably meant for her. She stood there for a long moment, just looking at them. As if she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe they were real. As if touching them might make them vanish.
There was Vex’s knife—sleek, balanced, tied with a crimson ribbon that looked suspiciously like it had been pilfered from a first-aid kit. Its weight was perfect, the kind of gift only someone who knew her too well would dare to give.
Then there was Ash’s creation—a folded fan, carved from scrap wood and twisted brass. Its structure was imperfect but deliberate, a strange, throwable thing she didn’t ask how to use. She just understood it was meant for her, crafted with hands that fidgeted more than they spoke.
Eli’s gift bag was no less on-brand—practical, impersonal at first glance. Inside: blister packs of vitamins, a reinforced phone holster, a slim black notebook, and a lot of pens. No card. No explanation.
But as Kristina flipped open the notebook, something caught her eye.
A sticky note pressed to the first page—square, unassuming, written in Eli’s neat, all-caps handwriting:
FOR THE GHOST IN OUR HOUSE. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLACKBIRD.
She stared at it for a long moment.
Then—softly—she smiled.
And finally… the book.
Advanced Threat Elimination Tactics, 2nd Edition. Paperback. Slightly worn. Left upside down, exactly as Lucian had handed it to her.
She picked it up, flipped through the pages, and immediately saw them: Page 3—A stick figure drawn beside a tactical diagram, fists raised, angry brows and all. This is you. The other guy’s unconscious.
Page 12: This move is theoretical. Results may vary. Vex tried it once. Never again.
Page 47: Disregard. Ash’s left hook is more reliable.
Across the top of the cover, scrawled in block letters: THE KRISTINA EDITION.
And then she laughed.
Not forced. Not polite. A quiet, startled sound that slipped free before she could contain it.
“You annotated doctrine,” she muttered, amusement curling through her voice.
She shook her head, still smiling as she sat on the edge of her bed, the book resting beside her, the note still open on the notebook page.
Each gift felt like a thread—offered not to tie her down, but to remind her she wasn’t drifting anymore. That she wasn’t just a name on a file, a shadow passing through their lives.
She belonged here. And for the first time in years, it felt like the truth.
Changing felt unnecessary.
Instead, she moved toward the bathroom, took a short, hot shower under dim lights, and let the water slip over her healing shoulder and down the curve of her spine. Her mind wandered. Not wildly, not with urgency, but in soft spirals that carried her further back than she’d meant to go.
Twenty-seven.
It sounded too solid, too rooted for someone like her. Her life hadn’t been built in years—it had been measured in days. In escapes. In sharpened instincts and assignments that blurred into each other until time became weightless. Birthdays had stopped mattering after the sixth one she’d spent hiding in another name. Maxim had always remembered. Always sent something, whether she wanted it or not. A pressed flower in an old book. A weathered charm from a bracelet she once wore as a child. A letter that said too much in very few words.
But she’d never let him celebrate.
She’d never let anyone.
Not until now.
When she returned to bed, damp hair curling softly at the ends, the room was quiet again. The rain outside had slowed to a hush. The walls felt different—less like a stronghold and more like a haven. She lay back on the mattress, pulled the blanket up, and stared at the ceiling. Not searching. Just thinking.
She thought of Lucian. The way he had looked at her when she laughed earlier. The rare, open stillness in his eyes like he didn’t want the moment to end. The way he hadn’t smiled much that night, but everything in him had softened.
She thought of how she’d watched him for years, even before he knew her name. She’d memorized his movements, tracked his routines, convinced herself it was just part of the job—until the night of the ambush, the night she stepped between him and death. That had been the first time she admitted to herself that it was never just the job.
She still wore his shirts. Not because she had to. Not for comfort alone. But because each one carried the shape of him—creases that bent where his arms always folded, faint impressions of his breath in the collar, the scent of something cool and sharp and steady that clung like memory. She wore them on mornings she didn’t know how to begin. On nights she couldn’t stop thinking. On days when being herself felt too heavy. And somehow, they anchored her.
She still kept the tracker watch on her bedside table when she slept. The signal hadn’t blinked in weeks. No missions. No callouts. But she still checked it, absently, like muscle memory. It wasn’t about surveillance anymore. It wasn’t about duty. It was just a small black shape that said: he’s alive. He’s here. You didn’t lose him.
She still watched over him—because she couldn’t not. She told herself it was instinct. That protecting him came as naturally as breathing. But instinct didn’t explain the way her gaze lingered when he passed her in the corridor. It didn’t explain how she noted the slope of his shoulders when he was tired, or the edge in his voice when something had gone wrong and he hadn’t said a word. It wasn’t duty anymore. It was something quieter. Deeper. Undeniable.
And now, lying there with rain in the windows and silence wrapped around her shoulders like a blanket, she felt something rising inside her that she could no longer ignore. It wasn’t sudden. It had been blooming slowly, painfully, through the cracks she’d spent years sealing shut. Like warmth finding a place it hadn’t touched in a long time. Like breath after too many minutes underwater.
She’d fought it for so long—out of necessity, out of fear, out of everything she’d been taught to suppress. Because feelings made you weak. Made you reckless. Made you hesitate when you were supposed to act. That’s what they drilled into her. That’s what she told herself, again and again, until she almost believed it.
But now… She wasn’t sure she had the strength to keep it down. And for the first time, she didn’t want to pretend she didn’t feel it.
She wasn’t supposed to belong. But somehow, she did.
—To be continued.
