Chapter 67
2256words
Zurich | Kessler Villa Grounds | Private Estate Lounge
Evening (CET)
Kristina didn’t look back.
The moment Lucian’s grip loosened, she was already gone—through the door, down the hall, lungs full of fire. The chaos behind her faded into muted shouts and stomping boots, but none of it mattered. Not now. Not when Lina Rehn was still breathing and running.
Kristina moved fast and silent, her boots barely making a sound on the polished floors. The villa seemed to bend before her—a blur of antique portraits and marble insets and fire-lit alcoves passing like ghosts in her peripheral vision. One hallway fed into another, narrow and curved, then opened into a wider stairwell lit by recessed sconces. Still warm from the firelight of the lounge. Still hiding shadows.
She heard the whisper of movement—something ahead. A flutter of fabric, too fast for the eye. Kristina’s breath caught in her throat.
She pressed a finger to her wrist comm.
“Subject’s moving east. Garden wing.”
Ash’s voice responded in a clipped murmur. “Copy. On your—”
“No,” Kristina cut in. “Do not leave Eli and Lucian.”
A pause. Then static. Then silence. Good.
She turned the corner at a run, chasing the fading trace of motion. A servant’s passage—cramped and dark—opened to her left, the kind used by staff long dead or dismissed. She plunged into it without hesitation, shouldering past a curtain of hanging coats and linen covers. Dust clung to the air like memory.
The silence became thick.
No sound now but her own footsteps, the controlled rhythm of her breathing, and the distant throb of adrenaline behind her ears.
Then a scent.
Wine. Steel. Gun oil.
Lucian bleeding in the dirt.
The triangle tattoo.
A neck breaking beneath her hands.
The moment everything changed.
She blinked hard. Pushed it down.
A glint of movement cut across the far end of the corridor. Lina. Just ahead, slipping through a side door. Her silhouette fractured in the old glass panes. Kristina surged forward again.
She reached the door Lina had disappeared through and threw it open.
Cold air hit her. Sharp. Bracing.
The chase had moved beyond walls now.
And Kristina didn’t hesitate.
Zurich | Kessler Villa Grounds | East Garden Wing
Kristina stepped into the cold like a blade unsheathed.
The garden was too quiet.
Frost shimmered on the hedges, untouched. The lantern light flickered golden on the stone path, but no footsteps disturbed the gravel. No sign of movement.
She paused. Listened.
Nothing but the distant hum of the city behind the walls.
Each breath hung in the air like vaporized fury. Her pulse no longer raced—it calculated—but the fury that had driven her through the hallway was cooling now. Crystallizing.
Lina had vanished. That fast.
She crouched low, one gloved hand brushing over a patch of crushed frost by the path’s edge.
A footprint. Light. Wrong angle.
Lina wasn’t running anymore.
She was hiding.
Kristina rose slowly, eyes sweeping the line of tall hedges. Not just garden decor. Cover. She moved left, easing down a narrower side path framed by iron trellises. Beyond it, the grounds descended toward a sculpted ravine—a place where sound disappeared easily. So would a body.
She stayed close to the hedge, knife loose in her grip. Her boots made almost no sound on the mossy stone.
The villa was now a warm glow behind her. She was alone in the dark with someone trained, armed, and cornered.
Barely a twig. Enough.
Kristina stilled.
Then she saw it—a shadow slip between two hedges across the clearing, crouched low. Not fleeing now.
Setting up for an ambush.
So Lina wanted to make this personal.
Kristina turned slightly. Not to run.
To disappear.
Kristina moved like mist—low, deliberate, silent.
The path curved down toward a marble clearing ringed with cold statues and winter-bare trees. Once a summer retreat spot, now it felt like a forgotten stage, waiting for a final act.
She stayed off the main path. Moved through shadow. Her footsteps whispered over old stone, barely brushing the edges of dried leaves. Every breath she took, she measured.
Ahead, a shape flickered—quick movement behind a trimmed yew hedge.
Kristina didn't go straight for it.
She circled.
Lina was expecting her to charge, again. But Kristina wasn’t burning anymore. She was calculating.
She crouched behind a wide stone urn and tapped her comm once—silent ping. If Ash or Vex were in range, they’d hear it. But she couldn’t wait for them. This was hers.
Another flash—movement on the opposite side. Lina had crossed the clearing, now retreating behind one of the pillars. She had the high ground briefly, looking down over the curved garden wall.
Kristina saw the glint of the pistol again.
Not pointed at her. Not yet.
Lina was watching the path.
For Kristina to be predictable.
Kristina didn’t take the path.
She scaled the low stone wall to the left, slipping into the trees, moving parallel to the clearing’s edge. The frost here hadn’t been disturbed.
Her heart was steady now. Breathing low. She kept the knife ready in one hand—her gun still holstered. She didn’t need it yet.
This wasn’t an execution.
It was a reckoning.
Below, Lina finally stepped into the center of the clearing—spinning once, slowly. Looking. Breathing hard.
“Come on, then,” she muttered into the cold air. “Let’s finish it.”
Kristina didn’t give her the satisfaction.
She stepped out from the dark instead—behind her.
Lina turned sharply—too slow.
The knife was already at her throat, angled upward, steady and silent. But Kristina didn’t cut. Not yet.
But Kristina didn’t cut.
Lina didn’t breathe.
“Try anything,” Kristina said, her voice low, “and I open your throat.”
Lina stood still. Her pistol dangled loosely in one hand, angled toward the ground. Not surrendered—just limp.
“You followed me,” Lina said after a long moment. Her voice was bitter. Quiet.
Kristina didn’t answer.
“You’re faster than you look.”
“I’m not here to impress you.”
Lina gave a dry laugh. “No. You’re here for blood.”
Kristina’s grip tightened just slightly. “I’m here because you pulled a gun on them. Because you nearly put a bullet in Eli. In Lucian.”
Her voice cracked the frost in the air.
Lina tilted her head just a fraction—enough to feel the blade push back. “And you care about them. How sweet.”
Kristina didn’t rise to it. She breathed once, then again, slow and sharp.
“You talk like you’re clever,” she said. “But all I see is a woman so buried in orders she forgot what it means to stand for something.”
Lina’s eyes narrowed. “You think you stand for something?”
“I stand in front of them,” Kristina said. “Every time. That’s the difference between us.”
Lina smirked. “That’s not nobility. That’s weakness.”
“No. It’s a choice.”
Kristina pressed the blade tighter—enough to draw a thin line of blood. Lina winced but didn’t move.
“You tried to fracture a deal. You tried to frame the wrong people. You planned to disappear while others took the fall. That’s not strength, Lina. That’s cowardice dressed up in strategy.”
Lina’s voice was quieter now, almost unreadable. “Do you think any of this matters? One knife. One body. One woman choosing loyalty over logic.”
“It matters to me.”
“And if you kill me?” Lina asked. “Do you think that changes anything? Bravotek won’t stop. People like me aren’t the disease. We’re symptoms. Replaceable.”
Kristina met her eyes then—flat and unwavering.
“Good,” she said. “Because that means I can keep going.”
She finally knocked the pistol from Lina’s hand, sending it skidding across the marble. Then she stepped back just enough to let the woman breathe.
“But I want you to look at me when this ends,” Kristina added, voice deadly quiet. “I want you to see who stopped you.”
Lina stared at her, eyes burning.
“You don’t scare me.”
Kristina flipped the knife once in her grip, lowering into a ready stance.
“You should.”
Lina lunged first.
A tight, calculated strike — all precision, no hesitation. Kristina blocked it, catching the blow with her forearm before driving her shoulder forward, knocking Lina off-balance.
Kristina slammed her shoulder forward, driving Lina into the stone railing. Boots scraped wet gravel as they fought for balance.
Lina spun with a hook, fast — Kristina ducked, slipped past her side, and elbowed her in the ribs.
Grunt. Stagger.
No words now. Only breath. Movement. Impact.
Lina recovered quickly. Her stance was different now — sharper, more trained. A blend of military and covert styles. Not just Bravotek. Legion too, maybe. Kristina recognized parts of it — the way she pivoted with her back foot, the way she baited the upper quadrant.
But Kristina had never relied on borrowed forms.
She moved like instinct. Precision honed by pain, not doctrine.
Lina’s knife appeared from a hidden sheath—sleek, blackened steel. She slashed sideways—Kristina dodged, barely, the blade grazing her coat.
Kristina answered with her own, arcing low. The steel kissed flesh. Lina hissed and stumbled back, clutching her side.
“You’re good,” Lina spat. “But not clean.”
Kristina didn’t reply.
She closed in.
Another exchange — brutal, quick, almost silent. The kind of fight trained people had when they weren’t trying to prove anything. Just finish it.
The knives locked. Face to face. Muscles strained.
Lina growled. “Do they even know what you are, Kristina? What you’ve done?”
“Yes, they do.”
“So, they know you’re a killer.”
Kristina twisted suddenly, wrenching the knife from Lina’s hand and sending her backward into the trellis wall. Ivy crumpled around her.
“You talk too much,” Kristina said, breath steady.
She walked forward again, knife in hand.
Lina fumbled, reached for the second blade at her boot.
Kristina kicked it away. Then grabbed her by the collar and slammed her into the stone pillar.
“Finish it,” Lina hissed. “Isn’t that what you came for?”
Kristina stared at her — face shadowed, eyes burning.
“I didn’t come to kill you,” she said. “But you made that choice for both of us.”
She raised the knife.
Lina’s face didn’t change. There was no plea. No mercy offered.
Just the faintest shift in her eyes—uncertainty breaking through the fury.
Kristina froze.
For one second.
Footsteps. Voices.
Lucian. Eli. Close.
Lina’s eyes darted toward the sound — and Kristina drove her knee into her chest, knocking the air from her lungs.
Lina collapsed to the gravel, gasping, barely conscious.
Kristina stepped back, chest heaving.
She looked down at the blade in her hand.
Then dropped it.
Not out of mercy.
But because she wanted Lina to live — and remember exactly who chose not to kill her.
Behind her, flashlights swept through the trees.
Lucian’s voice, sharp: “Kristina!”
She turned — bloody, scraped, but still standing.
Not a victor.
Not a monster.
Just herself.
Lucian was the first to reach her.
He stopped just short of Kristina, his gaze dropping to the blood on her knuckles, the torn sleeve, the faint cut at her collarbone.
No questions.
Just a quiet look.
Then: “Where is she?”
Kristina stepped aside.
Lina was slumped near the stone pillar, curled against the trellis, barely breathing. Blood streaked her blouse, one arm limp beneath her. The knife lay a few feet away, untouched.
Eli appeared next, flashlight bobbing as he slowed to a stop beside Lucian. His breath caught when he saw Kristina’s face.
“Are you hurt?”
Kristina shook her head once. “She’s worse.”
Sebastian came into view behind them, signaling for Ash and Vex across the grounds. The others began sweeping the perimeter, confirming containment. The situation was under control again—or close enough to pretend.
Lucian crouched beside Lina, pressing two fingers to her neck. Pulse. Weak, but there.
“She’ll live,” he said quietly.
Kristina stood a few feet away, her posture rigid. Still coiled.
Eli turned to her. “You didn’t kill her.”
A statement, not a question.
Kristina nodded.
“I wanted to,” she admitted. “Every step, I wanted to. But if I did…” Her jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t be able to look either of you in the eye again.”
Lucian stood. “You chose restraint over revenge.”
“No.” She looked up. “I chose you.”
Silence hung heavy for a moment.
Then Lucian walked toward her, closing the last few feet between them. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his hand to brush a loose strand of hair from her face.
His thumb grazed a smear of dried blood on her cheek.
“I told you she wasn’t worth it,” he murmured.
“And I told you I wasn’t letting her walk away,” Kristina replied.
He gave the faintest smile. “You both kept your word.”
Eli looked toward the villa, then back at Lina.
“What do we do with her?”
Kristina answered before Lucian could.
“She talks. Everything. Everyone. Names. Bravotek’s structure, financing, targets. If she holds back, she disappears. Quietly.”
Lucian nodded. “Where’s Fischer?”
“Back inside. Said he would help with whatever we need,” Sebastian confirmed from behind.
Kristina stepped past them and crouched in front of Lina.
“You’ll stay alive,” she said coldly. “But not comfortably.”
Lina coughed once, pain etched across her face. “You think this changes anything?”
Kristina’s voice didn’t rise. “You’re still breathing because I let you.”
She stood and walked away.
Lucian and Eli followed a step behind, without needing to ask.
And in the silence of the cold Zurich night, the war had shifted.
Bravotek wasn’t a ghost anymore.
It had a face now.
And soon, it would have nowhere left to hide.
Some victories are chosen, not claimed. —To be continued.
