Chapter 45
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Sinclair Dominion HQ | Ops Briefing Room
The air in the briefing room felt like the pause before a storm—tight with unspoken things.
Kristina was the first to arrive. Her coat was still damp from Jakarta’s monsoon haze, and the manila file in her hand looked as worn as she did. She sat without a word, placing it on the table with a quiet finality, like it weighed more than paper.
Ash followed not long after, yawning into his fist, trying to mask the faint edge in his demeanor. Vex appeared behind him, his expression unreadable as always, but there was a charged glance exchanged between him and Kristina—too quick to clock, too loaded to ignore.
Sebastian was already in the room, leaning against the wall with a tablet in hand. But he wasn’t reading. His eyes flicked to Kristina. Then to the file. Then away again.
Still missing one.
Eli entered last.
Lucian had been waiting for him. He didn’t say anything—just watched. Eli’s coat was folded over one arm, boots still dusted from Virginia soil. No blood. No injury. But something hung off of him anyway. Not exhaustion. Not triumph.
Restraint.
He took the seat across from Kristina without looking at her. Kristina didn’t look up either—but her fingers curled slightly against the file, as if steadying herself.
The silence stretched.
Lucian finally broke it. “Debriefs will be individual. You’ll be contacted within the hour.”
Ash raised an eyebrow. “Not the usual post-mission roundtable?”
“Not this time,” Lucian said, tone sharp and clear. “This isn’t business as usual.”
The team slowly began to rise—some more hesitant than others. Vex left first, Ash and Sebastian behind him.
But Sebastian paused at the door. His eyes caught Lucian’s, and in that one look, Lucian knew.
He’d found something.
Lucian gave a small nod. A silent later.
Only Kristina and Eli remained.
Kristina finally glanced at him. He looked… tired. But not in the usual way. This wasn’t from lack of sleep. This was the kind of weariness that came from choices. From knowing you crossed a line and couldn’t come back.
Her fingers brushed the edge of the file she’d brought in.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked softly.
Eli didn’t answer. His gaze stayed on the table. His voice, when it came, was quieter than usual.
“Not yet.”
She nodded. But her throat felt tight.
Lucian lingered outside the briefing room, letting the distance give him perspective. He didn’t need to hear them. He already knew something had shifted.
Later, Sebastian joined him in the glass-paneled overlook above the city.
“I spoke to someone,” he says. “Old researcher from the Quintis facility. She remembered the name.”
Lucian waits.
“She called him that Voss kid. Said he was always watching. Asked questions he shouldn’t have known how to ask. And then…”
“She said he disappeared. No trace.”
Lucian doesn’t respond immediately. The city glows silver in the distance.
“Did she say anything else?”
Sebastian hesitates.
“Yeah. She said if he’s back — someone’s in trouble.”
Sinclair Dominion HQ | Strategic Debrief Chamber
Mid-Morning
Ash and Vex had already been called in, one by one. Each exited the debrief room with that same post-mission fatigue—not physical, but the kind that lingers in the space between what you say and what you leave out. Sebastian has finished, too.
Now it was Kristina’s turn.
She stepped into the room expecting Lucian alone. But Sebastian was still there, standing just behind the curved console, arms loosely crossed, tablet resting at his side.
She blinked. “I thought this was individual.”
Sebastian gave a small shrug, but Lucian answered for him. “It is. He’s here because he needs to be.”
Kristina frowned slightly but didn’t press it. She took the chair opposite Lucian, dropping the worn manila file onto the surface between them.
“I found something,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but steady. “In Jakarta. In the archived medical records of the researchers who were stationed near the Quintis facility in ’93.”
Lucian didn’t interrupt. He watched her carefully, waiting.
Kristina exhaled. “There was a name. Everett L. Voss. It caught my eye because—I knew an Everett. When I was little. I told you about him, remember?”
Sebastian’s gaze flicked toward Lucian at that.
“I remember,” Lucian said.
“Well,” Kristina continued, her hand flat against the file, “this Everett had the same last name. Voss. And he was listed as being present in the facility around the same time… just a kid. But… why would a kid be in a place like that?”
Lucian didn’t speak right away. His eyes moved to Sebastian, then back to her.
It was subtle, but enough.
Kristina’s breath caught. “You knew.”
Lucian nodded once. “Just recently.”
Sebastian added, “It wasn’t easy to confirm. But it’s real.”
Kristina’s heart started to pound. Her voice dipped, uncertain. “So you’re telling me that Eli… he’s…”
Sebastian finished for her. “Everett Lysander Voss.”
She stared between them, trying to make the connection stick in her brain. The boy with the Rubik’s cube. The man with the sharp tongue and hidden eyes. They were one and the same?
“But why didn’t he say anything?” she asked, confused. “Why would he hide that from me?”
Lucian leaned forward, resting his hands on the table. “That’s not our story to tell.”
Kristina opened her mouth to protest, but then—
A soft knock on the door.
Lucian didn’t look surprised. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Eli stepped inside.
His expression shifted the moment he saw Kristina—and the file on the table in front of her.
She turned toward him, slowly, her throat tight.
“Everett?” she said, her voice breaking around the name.
Eli froze. His eyes moved from Kristina, to Lucian, then Sebastian. Then back to her.
She stood up. “Is it true?”
A long pause. Then, finally, he gave the smallest nod.
And that was all she needed.
Kristina crossed the space between them in an instant and threw her arms around him. Her body hit his with the kind of force that spoke of years unspoken. The kind that remembered puzzles, lost faces, and unanswered questions.
She buried her face into his chest—and cried. The kind of cry that didn’t need sound, only surrender.
The tears came fast, unannounced. Not from pain. Not from joy. But from the flood of memory and recognition, from the quiet ache of finally knowing that the boy she never forgot had never really been gone.
Eli staggered slightly, caught between shock and something deeper.
His arms wrapped around her slowly, cautiously—like he wasn’t sure he deserved to.
She remembered. God—she remembered.
He never meant for it to happen like this.
Not in front of them. Not before he was ready. Not when he still didn’t have all the answers she deserved.
But she remembered him.
And that broke something open.
Sebastian looked away.
He’d seen classified intel and ruined families, watched betrayals unfold across boardroom screens—but this? This was too human.
He didn’t expect it to feel like this.
Eli wasn’t just some name in a file anymore. He was real. And the girl in his arms… she wasn’t just a casualty of the past. She was the reason he came back and stayed.
Damn it, Lucian was right.
Lucian didn’t look away.
He just stood there, arms crossed, watching the reunion with a gravity that weighed more than words.
So it’s true. All of it.
He was the boy. Everett Lysander. Hiding in plain sight.
And she still ran to him.
She didn’t flinch. Even knowing what it meant.
That... changes everything. But maybe it was always going to.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.
The past had finally arrived.
And no one in that room would leave unchanged.
Kristina pulled back just enough to look at him, her hands still gripping the sleeves of his jacket. Her face was already streaked with tears, but her voice was clear. “How, Eli? Why? All of it. Please.”
Eli didn’t speak right away. His eyes dropped, and he exhaled like it hurt. The silence wasn’t resistance—it was gathering.
Then, slowly, he began to explain.
He told her the truth—finally.
About how he was just the nosy neighbor kid back in Riverside. Everett Voss. How he’d overheard things before the crash—threats, voices that didn’t belong in apartment hallways. How the night Kristina disappeared, he knew something was wrong.
She was just gone.
He tried to find her. For years. No records. No mention in the news. No funeral. It was like she’d vanished.
Then when he was already in his early twenties, he tracked down a man named Maxim Thorne. Found inconsistencies in police reports. A trail of shell companies that led to an off-grid estate.
He confronted him. Demanded answers.
And got them.
Kristina was alive. Being raised in secret. Being trained.
Maxim offered him something unexpected—not a warning to leave, but a job. A mission. A way in.
He didn’t join for power, or access. He didn’t care about Lucian’s empire or Sinclair Dominion’s weight.
He joined for her.
To watch. To protect. To find the truth from the inside.
Lucian and Sebastian remained silent during all of it—like they’d heard this part before, or had at least pieced most of it together by now. Every so often, Eli glanced at Lucian. Not for approval, but for grounding. For permission. For help, maybe.
But Lucian didn’t offer any.
He just watched. Or looked down. Not out of disinterest—but because this wasn’t his part to speak in. This was Kristina’s.
She was trying to absorb it all. Decades collapsed into minutes.
Then she asked quietly, “Why did you do all this? Why come back? Why try to find me?”
Eli’s voice dropped. “Because you were my friend.”
The weight of it landed heavier than expected.
Lucian and Sebastian exchanged a glance. Faint, furrowed. A shared understanding passed between them—old pain, old friendships, old debts that shaped the lives they lived now.
Kristina stepped forward again and hugged him, tighter than before. The tears came back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t recognize you.”
Eli shook his head gently, voice soft. “You weren’t supposed to. I made sure of it. It was to protect you.”
Lucian looked away then. Not from discomfort—but reverence.
Sebastian didn’t move. But his expression had changed. It wasn’t suspicion anymore.
It was respect.
Sinclair Dominion HQ | Rooftop
Late Afternoon
The cold air didn’t bite. It simply existed — still, indifferent, clean.
Lucian found him there, seated on the low ledge of the rooftop, his elbows resting on his knees, head bowed like the sky above him weighed more than it should.
Eli didn’t turn when the footsteps stopped behind him. Didn’t have to.
Lucian stood for a moment. Silent. Let the city stretch out beneath them, distant and untouchable.
“I didn’t mean to…” Eli’s voice was quiet. Rough around the edges. “I wasn’t trying to—cross any line.”
Lucian didn’t respond right away.
Not because he didn’t have anything to say — but because there was too much.
Eventually, he exhaled.
“I’m not angry,” he said.
Another pause.
Then, with more weight: “But why did you tell her it was because she was your friend?”
Eli blinked slowly, then looked down again, jaw tight.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe it was true. Back then.”
“And now?”
Eli didn’t answer. He just smiled. Barely. Bitterly.
“She’s not a child anymore,” Lucian said. “And neither are you.”
Silence again. A breeze moved between them, lifting the edges of Eli’s jacket.
“I spent years,” Eli finally murmured, “thinking maybe she’d forgotten me. Or that I’d imagined what we had — the way kids do. But when I saw her again…” He trailed off. “Everything came back. And I still couldn’t tell her.”
Lucian’s gaze stayed fixed on him.
Eli shrugged once, but it wasn’t casual.
“Because I thought… if I said it out loud, I’d lose whatever this was. She trusted me. I didn’t want to take that away. I didn’t want to make her choose.”
Lucian’s jaw tensed, but not with anger. His voice dropped softer.
“You already chose.”
Eli looked at him then.
And in his eyes — not guilt. Just the sorrow of someone who’d known from the start what the end might be.
“I know,” Eli said.
Lucian stepped forward, closer now, his shadow brushing against Eli’s boots. He didn’t sit, but his voice grew more level. Not cold. Just careful.
“She still came to you.”
“And you let her go.”
“I had to.”
Lucian looked out at the skyline. The hum of the world below.
“She cried,” he said. “For you.”
Eli’s throat moved, like he was swallowing something hard.
“I’m not trying to take her from you,” he whispered. “That was never the plan.”
Lucian gave a quiet, humorless breath. “Some things don’t need a plan.”
They stood there in the hush between men who understood too much — both protectors, both carrying pieces of the same girl’s past and present.
Lucian didn’t say anything else.
He just gave a slow nod — something like understanding, something like surrender — and turned to leave.
But before he did, he said quietly, without looking back:
“She deserves the truth. All of it.”
And then he disappeared into the stairwell.
Leaving Eli alone with the night.
Some truths aren't loud—they arrive like whispers, and change everything.
—To be continued.
