-Devon.
The gym reeked of sweat and metal, that raw, familiar scent of effort clinging to every surface. After our session, the locker room felt quieter than usual. Humid air thickened around us, broken only by the soft hiss of the overhead vents and the dull click of lockers closing in the distance. I sat down to untie my shoes, but my eyes—traitorous things—had already wandered.
He was right there, leaning back on the bench like he belonged in some ad campaign he'd never agree to pose for. Shirt damp with sweat, clinging to the subtle lines of his torso, rising just enough to reveal a sliver of his stomach—flat, defined, like a smooth slope of warm skin leading into the drawstring of his shorts. His hand was still lazily holding onto the hem, fingers brushing against the fabric, like he hadn't realized how goddamn distracting he looked. But he had. He always did.
His legs were slightly parted, relaxed, one knee bent just enough to tilt his posture toward carelessness. There was a chain resting against his collarbone, thin and silver, catching the white of his shirt and gleaming faintly when he moved. The way he was looking at me, head tilted just slightly, lips parted like he was halfway through something or about to say something—I don't even know. His gaze was unreadable. That was the worst part. He could look at me for hours like that and I still wouldn't know what it meant.
His hair was a mess, tousled from the workout, damp near the temples. A strand had fallen over his brow, and he didn't bother to fix it. He looked like he walked out of a painting done in sweat and silence, with that sharp jaw, that calm-bored mouth, and those eyes. Always those eyes. They held me hostage and didn't even care that I noticed.
And I knew he knew I was staring. But he didn't look away.
I thought that with time, this would die out. I thought that if I kept him close enough, touched him when I needed, gave him what he wanted, stayed his friend, his roommate, his safety net—then maybe I'd win. Maybe I'd walk away from this bargain with everything.
I was wrong.
What I got wasn't love. What I got was torment. A front row seat to everything I'd ever wanted, packaged into a body I could touch but never keep. His time, his warmth, his lips, his laugh. I could have it all—except the part that mattered.
Yeah, he's soft with me. He's kind. He checks in. He leans on me when things get hard. But it isn't the kind of softness that roots itself in the chest. It doesn't curl into the ribs and nest there. It doesn't look back and say, you, it's always been you.
It's not love.
What I want from him... it's not something I can casually name. It's not even something I'm proud of. Some days, when I let my thoughts rot too long in their own silence, I start wondering if I locked him up—physically, emotionally—if I just took him somewhere far away from everything and kept him, would he eventually fall in love with me?
And the answer is no. Because he's not mine. Because he never was.
The ship didn't just sail—it never even docked. I never had a chance. I thought I did, once. Back when he kissed me like he meant it. Back when we were kids and everything was uncertain enough to hope. But hope is a dangerous thing to grow inside you when nothing has ever been promised.
There was no possibility. There was just me… Holding onto a dream that wasn't even written for me.
After our showers, we dried off in silence, slipping into the polished armor of our business attire—black button-ups, pressed slacks, stiff holsters clipped in place, watches buckled tight, and the faintest scent of cologne layered over clean sweat. Treasure stood in front of the mirror for a second too long, adjusting his collar with a detached sort of grace. I didn't say anything. I just watched.
We got into the car—our poor, half-broken little rental that wheezed like a tired animal whenever we asked it to move. The air conditioning worked only if we hit the dash just right, and the back left window made this whining sound when rolled up. But it got us by. That was enough. We drove through the city with the radio murmuring under our thoughts, neither of us reaching to change the station.
Inside the agency, the air was cold and artificial. Fluorescent lighting gave everyone a slightly sick tint. Trevor was already waiting in the briefing room, leaning against the table with a folder in hand and that same half-casual, half-knowing smirk that made him impossible to read.
He didn't waste time. "Right, listen up. You four are officially assigned to the Elias Maxwell detail. And I know what you're thinking—yes, that Elias Maxwell. The tech guy. The AI freak. The one that probably bathes in cryptocurrency or some shit."
Treasure gave a low chuckle, but didn't say anything. I could feel his knee bump against mine beneath the table. Casual, like it didn't mean anything. Like he didn't know what that did to me.
Trevor continued. "Devon, I want you to work on building the primary movement route and identifying soft spots—entrance layouts, foot traffic, any logistical bullshit. You know the drill."
I nodded once, already thinking through street maps and elevation points.
"Treasure," Trevor said next, turning his gaze. "You're doing close-range coverage."
"What?" Treasure frowned. "Why me?"
"Because you read people well," Trevor replied, not missing a beat. "And because you're adaptable. You can blend, mirror, charm. He's going to need someone beside him who doesn't make him feel like a bodyguard is breathing down his neck. That's you."
Treasure didn't seem thrilled. His fingers tapped restlessly on the table. But he didn't argue further.
"Michael, Sandro—you're running external eyes. Surveillance and comms. There's already a system in place, but you'll be supplementing with our own gear. The usual."
Trevor let the words settle before he closed the folder with a crisp snap.
"Keep in mind," he said, "when we get there, things might change. Don't get attached to a single role. Elias likes to rearrange people like chess pieces depending on how he's feeling. I've seen him swap out a lead guard because he didn't like how they walked. So be ready for anything."
We nodded, and with that, we were dismissed. No unnecessary speeches. Just orders, then motion.
We took the agency's van—plain silver, fitted with reinforced sides and custom locks—and headed out. The ride was short, but every stoplight made it feel longer. I kept thinking about the way Treasure had looked in that mirror earlier. How the light caught on his cheekbone, how his lips had been slightly parted like he was holding back something he never meant to say. Or maybe that was just me, always imagining words that weren't there.
EdgeTech's headquarters rose from the asphalt like a monolith. Glass and steel, cold and towering. The kind of building that screamed: I know more about you than you know about yourself.
We were met at the front entrance by a woman in a black suit, hair scraped into a tight bun, eyes sharp enough to slice. "Follow me," she said simply. No name, no smile. Just turned on her heel and walked.
We trailed her through the lobby, past high ceilings and sleek security gates, down a long corridor where the silence felt manufactured. Like it was designed to make you aware of your own breath.
Finally, we were led into a private meeting room. Frosted glass, a polished table, untouched water bottles at every seat. The cityscape stretched out behind the window like a painting—detached, indifferent.
And yet, for all the modern sleekness around me, all I could feel was the nearness of Treasure. The heat radiating off his shoulder. The smell of that stupid clean cologne we both wore. The way he exhaled just a second before I did, like we were accidentally synced.
We were about to meet the chief of staff of one of the richest men in the country. A briefing that would define our professional standing. A moment that required precision and clarity.
And all I could think about was him.
How I wanted this job to go well. How I wanted him to lean into me after it was over. How I wanted more than I was allowed to say.
She walked in like she owned the building. Not just in the literal sense—though that wouldn't have surprised me—but in the slow, deliberate way her heels struck the marble floor, each step echoing with intention. Cassandra Connolly. A name we'd heard once or twice in whispers, but now she was real and towering—taller than she needed to be, all angles and elegance, with her hair pulled into a high ponytail that looked surgically precise. Long bangs curtained just above her eyes, sharp as blades.
"Good afternoon," she said, with the kind of voice that didn't need to be raised to take up space. She sat at the head of the table like the throne was built for her—back straight, chin lifted. She flipped open a slim black tablet and began scanning through our files. The air in the room shifted, like the temperature had dropped just a few degrees.
"You were handpicked by Trevor," she said, without looking up. "I trust his instincts."
Her finger tapped the screen once. "But instincts can be wrong. I've dismissed five teams in the past two years. Let's keep that in mind."
In my head, I wanted to laugh. That wasn't something you hang a medal on. If five teams walked out, either she made their jobs impossible, or she didn't know how to choose the right people. There was nothing threatening about what she said—just poor management, polished in luxury and dressed like authority.
She looked up then, gaze slicing across the table like a scalpel. "Let me be clear," she continued. "No personal conversations with Elias. No surveillance devices in his vicinity unless you've received written clearance. Do not interfere with his schedule—observe, adapt, but don't direct. He's not a child. You are not his keepers."
It wasn't a speech. It was an indictment.
Then she did something calculated. She leaned back in her chair, angled slightly to the side, and started asking questions. Not logistical. Not tactical. Personal.
She asked Sandro where he'd worked before, then pressed him on why he left. Michael got grilled about a lapse in a past client's itinerary. She was watching reactions more than answers. Who got defensive. Who stayed passive. Who lied with a straight face.
Then her eyes flicked to Treasure.
She turned her chair fully and folded one leg over the other, the movement slow and deliberate. "Treasure Quinn," she said, her voice smooth but loaded. "You've had six jobs in two years. No family. No references outside this agency. Why should I trust you with Elias Maxwell's life?"
I felt his shift before he even moved. His smirk, the one he always had tucked somewhere at the corner of his mouth, disappeared. But he didn't look away. He didn't dress himself up in false confidence either. He just met her gaze and said, flat and honest—
"I've got no one else to worry about. And I don't quit once I give a damn."
The air in the room thinned for a second. Even she paused.
Her expression didn't change, but her posture did. Slightly forward. Watching him now like he was something worth inspecting more closely. Maybe not impressed—but interested. Sometimes that's all you need.
She turned to me next.
"Devon Calloway," she said. "You studied physical education at a university. No elite recommendations. No military background. What makes you think you're cut out to lead planning for a man like Elias?"
I didn't flinch. I didn't blink.
"Because I don't chase chaos. I build around it. I follow routine, identify patterns, and predict risks before they surface. I don't wait to be told what's wrong—I prepare for what might go wrong."
She held my gaze for a beat too long, then glanced down at her tablet again. Something unreadable passed across her face. Maybe recognition. Maybe calculation. She didn't say anything else—just locked the screen and set it down softly.
That was the end of it. But I knew we were still being judged. Every second after that was just another test.
Cassandra leaned back, fingertips tapping lightly against the curve of her tablet as if weighing something invisible between them.
"It's either you're very well trained," she said, her gaze landing squarely on me again, "or you're actually dedicated to the role. But we'll figure it out. Hopefully sooner than later."
Her voice wasn't sharp, not exactly, but there was an edge under it—refined, practiced, the kind of cold civility that people like her used instead of knives. It didn't bother me as much as it should have. I'd learned how to let that kind of tone pass through me without damage. What irritated me more was the way she said it like we were all another round of test subjects beneath her microscope.
Trevor stepped in then, peeling away the tension with the ease of someone used to managing strong personalities.
"You won't have to worry about it," he said, light, easy, leaning forward a little. "You've got to show some trust, Cassandra."
Her lips curved into a tight, clipped smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Trust isn't cheap, Trevor."
He shrugged, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. "Right. And that's why you're paying a lot."
I didn't laugh. None of us did. The silence that followed was sterile and rehearsed, the kind you find in boardrooms or mausoleums—where nothing good ever truly happens, just decisions.
In my head, I was already exhausted. I didn't like this part of the job. Didn't like the meetings, the passive-aggressive power plays, the smug glances across too-shiny tables in too-cold rooms. I didn't like the way every client we worked for walked in with a puffed chest and a superiority complex, acting like their time, their safety, their lives were worth more than anyone else's. I hated the rich. Hated the detachment in their eyes. But still—at the end of the day, I had to be grateful for the hand that paid for my meals and kept the rent from going unpaid. I had to stay useful.
Cassandra's manicured fingers swiped across the screen of her tablet before she locked it and set it aside.
"You won't be shadowing Elias Maxwell just yet," she said. "We need to see how you operate on the ground, away from desk briefings and controlled drills. So here's what you'll do."
She paused, making sure she had everyone's full attention—not that she needed to. Her presence demanded it without effort.
"You'll escort a prototype drive. Compact, but highly encrypted. It's a neural interface Elias developed personally—stores layered cognition patterns, artificial memory sequences. Don't ask what that means. Just know that in the wrong hands, it's worth more than your combined annual salaries. Your task is to accompany it during a scheduled handoff between EdgeTech's vault storage and a third-party lab in East Valmont."
She tapped the table once with a red nail. "Two vehicles. One decoy. You're on the real one. No weapons drawn unless engaged. Minimal contact with the lab personnel. Eyes sharp, attention sharper. You're not just delivering hardware. You're delivering a piece of Elias. If you can move what matters to him without raising a single red flag, we'll consider moving you closer."
There it was. The first true gate. A trial masked as logistics. A test dressed up as a mission. My shoulders tensed, just slightly, the muscles in my back aligning like pieces on a chessboard. I was already pulling up a mental map of EdgeTech's internal routes, the blind spots in their building's reflection patterns, the probable angles of every camera tucked into the marble.
Cassandra rose from her chair with a fluid motion, her heels striking the polished floor again as she collected her tablet. She gave us a last look, her expression unreadable, then turned and walked out, her scent lingering behind like expensive ink on paper.
The door clicked shut.
Treasure, who had been quiet longer than usual, lingered by my side as we both stood.
He leaned in, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his breath near my ear, and muttered, "She reminds me of Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians."
I didn't respond. But the image flickered in my mind, a flash of a fur coat and a growl beneath lipstick. Accurate.
Trevor clapped us both on the back, the sound sharp in the quiet room. "Well," he said with a smirk, "you didn't crash and burn. That's already better than the last guys."
I didn't laugh, but I allowed myself a short exhale. The kind that doesn't mean relief. Just... not failure.
We began at dawn. Not because the mission demanded it, but because I did.
There was a quiet clarity to the early hours—before the traffic thickened, before the streets echoed with impatience and noise. I needed that stillness. I needed to see the day unfold from its first breath if I was going to anticipate every exhale it took after.
I had barely slept. Instead, I sat hunched over my laptop for most of the night, mapping every possible route from EdgeTech's central vault facility to the third-party lab in East Valmont. Not just the streets, but the terrain, traffic patterns, potential choke points, alternate exits, proximity to hospitals, dead zones in cellular reception, and which side of the road caught the worst of the sun glare. By the time the sun scraped itself up over the skyline, I already knew the mission backwards.
We arrived at EdgeTech headquarters thirty minutes early, dressed in clean black. Standard suits. Covert earpieces. ID badges clipped discreetly. Not flashy, not tactical—just corporate enough to blend in. I wore mine slightly crooked on purpose, like an overworked employee who didn't bother to fix it. The goal wasn't to stand out. It was to become so familiar to the eye that no one ever remembered seeing us.
Inside the vault, the handoff was quiet, clinical, and unceremonious. The prototype was housed in a sealed titanium briefcase, matte gray with no logos or serial numbers. It was lighter than I expected. No dramatic biometric scan. Just a timed unlock code and a short exchange with the vault manager, who double-checked our documentation against the internal manifest with the care of someone whose job depended on it. We signed, nodded, and walked out.
The transport setup was simple but precise. Two identical vehicles, dark gray sedans. One driven by Sandro, the decoy, carrying an empty case weighted for believability. He had a shorter route, and we coordinated a staged visual tail with a dummy courier van that would "accidentally" follow him too closely, just enough to make it look real if anyone was watching.
Our vehicle—Michael driving, Treasure in the back beside the case, me riding passenger—took a longer path with less exposure. I had designed the route to snake through mixed zones of commercial and residential clusters, where surveillance was higher and traffic slightly slower. We moved at legal speed, obeyed every light, and didn't speak unless we had to.
I kept my eyes outside the window most of the ride. Watching reflections in glass doors, in shop windows, in parked car mirrors. You can learn a lot from what doesn't move the way it should. But there was nothing. No shadows, no repeats, no sudden lane changes behind us. It was quiet. Tense in the way that made you doubt the silence.
Treasure stayed unnervingly calm. He leaned back, one arm over the seat like he was born for it. His eyes tracked movement out his window, but his body language stayed loose, unreadable. He didn't touch the case, didn't hover near it. Just sat beside it like it was an ordinary briefcase full of unremarkable paper.
We didn't speak of Elias. Not of the device. Not of Cassandra.
I gave quiet cues to Michael when to slow down, when to switch lanes. We approached a tunnel and I had him adjust speed to keep a two-car buffer ahead and behind. I made note of a couple crossing the street slowly near 9th and Lister—nothing suspicious, just a delay we hadn't calculated. Still, I filed it away.
At the third-party lab, a glass-fronted facility near the river, we were greeted by two in-house security officers and a technician in a white coat who clearly didn't know what he was carrying. He signed off with a trembling hand. I scanned his badge, checked the paperwork, had Michael document the timestamp.
We handed off the briefcase. No alarms. No red flags.
The technician carried it through the doors and disappeared into a coded lab sector that slid closed behind him with a mechanical hum.
I exhaled through my nose, the tension releasing like a valve quietly turned.
Treasure muttered, "That's it?" as we stood by the vehicle.
I didn't answer. I was already scanning the lot again, running the checklist once more in my head. No inconsistencies. No trailing vehicles. No deviations from the manifest. No one asked too many questions. No one said our names.
We drove back in silence. I was still tense, but it was a focused kind of tension, not panic. The kind that only eases when you're off the field and back in a room with doors that lock.
It was a clean job. Clean in a way that made it forgettable. And that's what made it successful.
We returned to EdgeTech headquarters just past noon. The glass facade shimmered under the heavy light, refracting streaks of sun across the asphalt like the building was trying to dazzle or blind whoever approached. But something felt off. There were more guards stationed at the front entrance than usual—stern men with pressed collars and comms tucked discreetly under their earpieces. Two of them flanked the revolving doors, standing rigid with that familiar posture that said: don't come close unless you belong.
One of them held up a hand as we neared.
"You're not coming up" he said plainly, not rudely, just like someone reading off a protocol.
Treasure cocked his head but didn't say anything. Michael gave a half-nod, already used to this kind of shifting structure. I looked past the guard, through the thick glass, and caught the glimpse of more security gathered around the elevator bay—too many for it to be standard. Black uniforms. Tactical boots. Not EdgeTech's usual pale-blue corporate ones.
And then she appeared.
Cassandra stepped out through the front door like she'd been watching from behind some hidden pane of mirrored glass, just waiting to make her entrance at the most curated second. Her heels clicked against the stone steps, her tailored coat falling over her shoulders like a knife sheath, sharp and elegant.
"Well done," she said, chin slightly lifted. "Let's go home."
I blinked once. Treasure shifted beside me. Michael squinted. Sandro looked like he wanted to ask something, but kept his mouth shut.
We all stood there like idiots for a second too long.
Cassandra glanced around, sensing our confusion with something bordering on amusement.
"You signed the NDAs already, right?" she asked, casually, as if discussing weather. Her tone didn't invite questions.
Treasure answered, "Yeah, yesterday. When you left." He said it slow, like he was unsure if it was the right answer to a question that made no sense.
"Perfect," she replied. "I saw the forms pass by my office this morning. Everything's set. I think we're ready to go."
Then she turned and headed to a black SUV waiting at the curb, its windows so tinted it looked like a rolling void. Not a word more. No instructions. No destination.
We were guided toward a second black SUV—not the one Cassandra entered, but one identical in make, tinted just as dark, waiting with its engine already humming low. The rear passenger door was held open by a driver in a plain black jacket, no name badge, no introduction. He didn't say a word, just nodded once as we climbed in.
No one told us where we were going.
No one asked.
The doors locked with a soft mechanical click. I exchanged a look with Michael, who sat on my right, jaw tight. Sandro was beside Treasure in the back row, arms crossed, eyes on the road even before we pulled away. Treasure looked out the window like he was trying to memorize passing trees for later.
I leaned forward a little, subtly watching the path unfold. The route didn't match anything familiar. It wasn't toward the agency. Wasn't toward any hotel or known site we'd worked before. The further we drove, the less sense it made. Wide turns into neighborhoods too quiet for a weekday, high hedges, tall gates, security cameras on corners. We weren't just leaving the city. We were being taken somewhere deliberately... off-grid.
The driver never spoke. Not once.
The deeper we drove, the stranger it felt. Not dangerous. Just unnerving.
And then we reached it.
The gates parted without a word spoken. We drove into what looked like a compound, not a home. A mansion, technically, but not the kind you imagined from movies or magazines. This was a structure carved from minimalism and iron. Brutalist architecture softened only by glass walls and slate accents. Not a hint of warmth. No hedges. No fountains. Just clean, polished surfaces that rejected personality.
It was massive. Industrial. Cold.
It looked like it was built to house secrets, not people.
As we parked in front of the entrance, I stared up at it, feeling something lodge under my ribs. The building didn't just look expensive. It looked intentional. Everything about it was curated to make you feel like you didn't belong unless you had clearance. The kind of place where even the silence felt regulated.
Treasure let out a low whistle and said, "This place looks like a tech cult built it."
And honestly, it did.