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Chapter — Carson's POV: The Burn Before the Bloom
There's a certain silence that only comes after you've accepted you're being hunted.
Not the kind that soothes. No, this one screams. Constantly. A chorus of dread humming just beneath your bones. Like God muted the world just to see what would crack first—your voice or your will. Every heartbeat, a war drum. Every breath, a countdown. Each step forward felt like walking on glass already shattered inside your chest.
And in that silence, Ryder handed me another file.
"Your father's not just watching anymore," he said. "He's planning. All of us. One by one."
My pulse didn't spike. My hands didn't tremble. I'd run out of fear months ago. I had nothing left but sharp focus and a stomach lined with steel.
Because hiding was done.
I was done.
No more shadows. No more mirrors. No more pretending to be a ghost in my own skin.
If he wanted war, I'd bring the battlefield to his doorstep. I'd carve out the silence, pour gasoline on it, and light it with a grin he taught me to wear. I was his creation—but I would be his destruction.
"We will bring it to him," I said. Calm. Cold. Certain.
Ryder nodded. "I'll tell the others."
They didn't argue. Not Marco, not Alex, not Leona, not any of them. They were all tired. Of lies. Of funerals that hadn't happened yet. Of mourning parts of ourselves we hadn't even buried. All of us walking epitaphs.
So Alex—ever the tactician—took a page from Leona's chaotic gospel and booked us a vacation.
Morocco. Five-star hotel. Private floors. Suites wired with surveillance. Snipers on standby. Tourists who weren't who they seemed. Death hiding behind aviator glasses and fake accents.
A perfect lie.
But I needed more than strategy. I needed clarity. I needed something to silence the thought that maybe it wasn't death I feared anymore—but surviving.
So I went to the one man I swore I'd never return to.
Tony Kuruyami.
My therapist.
My savior.
Sixty. Stern. Hands calloused by saving lives that didn't want saving. His voice had the weight of confessionals and the cold detachment of morgue reports. He didn't greet me. He didn't smile.
He laughed.
"You? Want to live now?"
I didn't respond. Just sat down. Let the silence weigh. Let him feel the storm I dragged in.
"It's not for you, is it?"
I shook my head.
"It's for the girl," he said. "The one who said you were needed."
Elise.
He chuckled. "We play. You win, I help."
Chess.
Thirty-two pieces. One game. The clock ticked like a loaded gun. His gaze never wavered. Mine burned through the board. Pawn. Bishop. Knight. I almost had him. Almost.
Then he moved—quiet, ruthless. Checkmate.
The door creaked open.
Makoto. Charlotte's best friend and hell in dior.
A wraith in denim. Black eyeliner like warpaint. Chewing gum and fate. Tony's daughter. Heck i knew of her as Elise's friend.
"You're planning a war and didn't invite me?"
She heard everything. The threats. The blood trail. The part where I almost didn't make it. And instead of running—she sat down.
"I'm a love doctor," she said. "And Elise looks like someone stole her galaxy."
She crossed her legs like a queen laying out terms of surrender. "I want in. One condition."
Her smile was slow. Dangerous.
"Pierce. When this is over—I want his head."
I didn't ask why. Tony didn't blink.
"Done."
The next day, we flew.
Seven bloodhounds. Damian. Marion. My mother. The elegant ghost of my childhood. She smelled like grief and lavender.
Suites were divided like fate:
Me and Elise.Ryder and Leona.Marion and Damian.Alex and Diego.Dante and Marco.
Rule one: Have fun.
Rule two: Don't get caught.
First day? Silence. Everyone walked on glass. No one dared to smile too big. We unpacked paranoia like it was luggage. The air hummed with static, and every shadow felt like a loaded question.
Second day? Heavy. Dense. Like the air was holding its breath.
Chaton barely moved. Curled into me like she could nestle herself inside my ribs and hide. Her breaths were soft. Measured. Like she didn't trust herself to stay if she inhaled too deep and then slept.I admitted it to myself, I'm obsessed with her, every part.
We didn't talk. We just listened to the ache inside each other.
Third day cracked the shell.
Ryder called, whispering. "She locked me out. Leona. She's not talking."
I went to the door. Knocked. Pleaded. Cursed. Nothing.
Then Elise stormed in.
Barefoot. Wearing my shirt. Hair messy, eyes sharp like broken glass.
"Girl, open the damned door," she muttered, shouldering past me.
She didn't knock. She entered. Slammed it shut.
For a while, there was only silence. But not the good kind—not peace. It was the silence of a scream mid-birth, of pressure building inside a body not meant to hold it.
Then the world cracked.
Glass shattered. Not just in sound, but in meaning.
Something slammed against the wall. Then again. Then again. The kind of violence that made your bones brace instinctively, even if you weren't the target.
Ryder flinched. "She's gonna hurt herself."
I didn't answer. Couldn't. My ears were ringing with the echo of something not quite human.
Inside that room, Leona wasn't crying. She was howling. Not sobs—keening. Like a wounded animal digging its own grave with its bare hands. Like every locked drawer in her memory had blown open at once.
I heard Elise. Calm, quiet. "Leona, sweetheart. Look at me."
Then more crashing. A lamp? A mirror?
And then her voice—Leona's voice—broke through. Ragged, feral.
"They buried me," she shrieked. "They tied ribbons around my throat and called it healing!"
A thud. I knew she had trauma. I just didn't think it was enough to break her.
"Lies, lies, lies—every smile was a noose!"
I moved toward the door, Ryder grabbed my arm. "Don't."
"Elise is in there."
"She's the only one who can help."
I bit my tongue so hard it bled.
Inside, more chaos. The sound of drawers pulled out and overturned. Elise's voice, low and firm, slicing through the storm.
"You're not their doll anymore."
A scream. It rattled the lights in the hallway.
"I was perfect! And they still left me in the dark! So I made the dark mine!"
Another crash.
Ryder whispered, "I should've asked if she was fine."
Then, silence. A long, brittle silence, sharp as icicles in the chest.
And finally, Elise's voice. Soft. Broken, but steady.
"I know."
And that was the last we heard.
Ryder and I sank to the floor, backs to the door, like guards outside a tomb. No one spoke. No one moved. We just listened.
To heal.
To grief with its claws out.
To the sound of a girl finally screaming because no one ever let her before.
Locked out.
Ryder and I stood there like children who'd broken something sacred. I gave him a look. "We're fucked."
Because both these dummies-our dummies are inside there broken.
We did what anyone in love with a damaged girl would do.
We panicked, then went shopping. Even if it wasn't enough. It showed we were with them.
"I say flowers," I told him.
"Candles," Ryder argued.
"Knives," Tony offered, from my phone.
Makoto, voice like bubblegum vengeance: "Tracking bracelets. With affirmations." The fuck.
We got all of them. Then got detained for yelling, "It's for love!" in a marketplace.
A condition they gave us in order to open the door.
Eventually, they accepted it. Accepted us. And bailed us out.
Girls are complicated.
The next day was hers.
Chaton's.
Spa day. She picked dusty rose for her nails. Said it matched the color I turned when she teased me.
I let her. We did what she wanted even if it ended with a bunch of heavy bags.
Shopping for hours, surfing, horse rides on the beach, bungee jumping, even sitting together and listening to her telling me all the drama in the university no matter how I was not interested. We asked questions we did not know about each other and I found out her favourite colour was, green-jade green-just because of my eyes. The one part I hated about myself.
Because her smile—her real smile—was something I'd kill to protect.
We wandered the souk. She held my hand like she owned it. The sun turned her hair a deep gold. And for a second, I thought—maybe heaven didn't have to be somewhere else.
She dragged me into a tattoo parlor.
My birthday. She inked the date onto her wrist. Not my name. Not hers. Just the day she decided to remember forever. 07.11.2000
I gave her one of my cards.
The one no one had touched. The one that led to my emergency fund. My escape route. My backup life. And I handed it to her like it was nothing. She didn't need money, she had her own but since she had the pin on her wrist, why not just give it to her.
She blinked. "The pin is your birthday?"
I nodded.
"Your birthday is next week," she said.
I agreed, "Surprise me."
Oh and she did.
Roped in Leona. Ryder. Marco got distracted by a fire-breather. Diego and Alex bought fireworks. Dante stole a goat. Don't ask.
Damian took me to tea shops tucked in alleys that smelled like dreams. Mom played lookout. They went to bed early.
Then—boom.
Confetti. Lights. Elise under a banner that read I Choose You.
Which made the night end amazing and for once I felt like I belonged.
Everyone was there. It was a 'fun'
Leona with a plastic crown. Ryder brought vodka and whiskey. Marco passed out in the lobby next to a half-eaten cake. Diego and Dante had sharpie drawings on their faces done by none other than me. Alex slept upright in a chair like he had backup plans even in dreams.
"Happy birthday," Elise whispered. Her lips brushed my cheek.
And for a moment—
It felt real.
That night, I couldn't sleep. Ryder and Leona got into another spat over nothing—how to cut a mango, probably.
And Elise—she pulled me back into the suite.
We lay on the bed, our backs to the ceiling, silence thick.
"Did you mean it?" she asked. "Do you want to live?"
I turned. Looked at her. All of her. The ache. The edge. The exhaustion.
"I want to live because of you, Chaton," I said. Holding her tighter.
"Why do you call me that?" she asked.
"Call you what?" I replied pretending I said nothing.
"Chaton you dumbass. You're really going to pretend that you don't call me kitty in French," she retaliated.
"Fine. But it's not a name, it's what you are to me, a good, lovely person, my obsession, my queen," I answer watching her cheeks flush red.
"So you can be romantic, then let me show you what a real kitty is like," her reply met with her on top of me.
And she kissed me like she was both salvation and ruin.
So we obviously had some fun for ourselves.
I made sure to show her my position as a monster and hers as mine. Tangled in the sheets doing the devil's game with passionate kisses indulging each other as I left marks all over her. She is mine. My Chaton. And I will leave her more than satisfied.
When we were done, she stayed.
We didn't talk.
We breathed.
And for once, that was enough.
Let them come. Let every blade and bullet wear my name.
I'm not dying anymore.
I'm alive.
And I'm bringing hell with me.
Alex's POV
In war, the worst mistake you can make is blinking.
Because when you blink, blood tattered psychological profiles of our enemies, pacing like a lion stuck in memory.
Every message came with a calmness that felt surgical.
Our room looked like the inside of a tactician's skull: blueprints, laptops, burner phones, old hotel menus scribbled with kill orders.
We were ready.
Damian had changed. He wasn't a child anymore. Fourteen years old and eyes like a man who'd already survived two lifetimes. Marion hadn't intended to be in the field, but blood calls blood. She kissed his forehead before we deployed. He didn't flinch. Neither did she.
That night, we moved.
First wave: Dante and Diego. Rooftop surveillance team. They neutralized a sniper nest posing as a faux AC unit. Dante, silent and deliberate, slid behind the marksman and slit his throat while Diego distracted him with a thrown wine bottle and a smirk.
Second wave: Marco seduced a would-be poisoner in the lounge, cuffed her to a bed with her own hair tie, and whispered in three languages until she gave up her whole mission plan.
Third wave: Leona and Ryder hit the spa. Two assassins pretending to be masseuses. They fought in towels. Ryder got kicked into a jacuzzi. Leona took one down using a steel massage stone and a bottle of eucalyptus oil. I don't know if I'll ever smell lavender again without remembering that fight.
Me? I handled the west corridor. Room 817. Four targets. They thought they were the hunters. I let them believe that. For a moment. I moved through the shadows, struck fast. Neck, temple, heart. I finished the fourth with a knee to the sternum and a whisper in his ear.
"Tell God it was Alex."
By the time we regrouped, our cover was cracked, but not broken.
And that's when the message came.
Midnight. Ballroom. A concert invitation.
From Pierce.
Carson's POV
He wants me to perform.
It's always been about the stage with him. He thinks I care about the craft. The finesse. The symmetry of art.
But I'm not an artist. I'm not a performer. I'm the ghost of the recital no one survives.
Elise begged me not to go. Her hands trembled as they held my face. She kissed the corner of my mouth like it was the edge of a cliff.
"You don't have to be what he wants," she whispered.
"I'm not," I replied. "I'm worse."
I entered the ballroom like a glitch in the gold. The chandeliers flickered when I stepped in. Maybe I imagined that. Maybe not.
Pierce was already on stage, playing a Steinway grand like he was born inside it. His fingers painted grief. Something dark, nostalgic. Beautiful, if you didn't know him.
I did.
Applause followed. His goons clapped like trained seals. Every seat was filled with Theodore's plants. Judges. Executioners.
He stood.
"Your turn," he smirked.
I walked past the piano.
Didn't sit.
I had a violin, played the first verse before twisting the bow on the string like an archer and hit his face.
Pulled a gun and shot through the middle C string.
The room exploded in screams. Not music. Not applause. Pure chaos.
Except Pierce. He laughed.
"You never play fair," he said.
"I never play to lose."
He moved like he wanted a duel. Drew a blade—slender, polished, theatrical. A prop from hell.
He expected rhythm. A scene. He expected art.
But I'm not his twin.
I'm his reckoning.
I didn't let him dance. I didn't let him monologue. He took one step forward and I unloaded the chamber into his chest.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
He staggered. No elegance. No dramatics. Just a man who'd never learned he could die.
"Oh grow up, life ain't a movie, i don't have time to dance,"
He crumpled like memory foam soaked in blood, limbs twitching as his consciousness refused to believe what his body already knew.
"This isn't art," he choked, red at his teeth.
"No," I said, lowering the barrel, "this is Carson—the kind I taught myself."
His hand reached for the piano bench as if dying on stage would mean he still mattered.
I stepped forward and kicked his hand away.
"No honour to this."
And he was gone.
The applause was gone, too. The room is silent. As if no one could tell whether what they witnessed was murder or justice. Maybe it was both. Cowards. They can't even fight.
Makoto's voice crackled in my ear.
"Ten more incoming. East wing. We've triggered a full lockdown."
I tilted my head toward the chandeliers, then back to the still bodies scattered across velvet seats that I just shot. Then I stared at Chaton, in my shirt and a pair of shorts and slippers, watching me from a seat next to the entry, legs and arms crossed just waiting for me to finish.
I felt alive, this is worse than dead no, I felt great.
"Let them come."
I stepped over Pierce's body. Holstered the gun like a punctuation mark.
"The show's over," I said to the frozen crowd. "Anyone still sitting is volunteering to die."
They ran.
Cowards, clattering across marble like rats in a palace they never earned.
"Hurt Chaton and it is a straight ticket to hell," I said watching as they walked past carefully.
I looked at the blood. The piano. The cracked chandelier. My reflection in a thousand shards.
This wasn't the end.
This was the overture.
;Let them come.
The theater of war had found its star.dries. Hope curdles. And everything you fought for starts to rot like it was never real.
That's not happening. Not here. Not on my watch.
We were supposed to be on vacation.
Morocco. Desert breeze. Luxury suites. Sunset rooftops and mint tea. That's what we told the world. What the world didn't know was that half this hotel was crawling with Theodore's men and mercenaries hiding behind sunglasses and waitstaff uniforms wanting my head for just ten million. How damn desperate are you to walk to death. The other half? Our people.
The Bloodhounds and a secured team from Kylon, that bastard.
EVERYONE POV
Makoto and Tony remained in New York, eyes glued to monitors, tracking thermal heat signatures and intercepted whispers through hacked hotel servers. Makoto sipped black tea while analyzing pressure plate triggers in the elevator shaft like she was reading horoscopes. Tony helped when suddenly they got a system shut down. This is where life and death actually began.
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