Content Warning:
This chapter contains discussions of staged violence, explosion aftermath, and psychological manipulation. Reader discretion advised.
20:41 PM | Ironcliff City, The Veil Society Gala Entrance
A blur of silver cutlery, crystal glass, and low laughter dissolved behind Adrian as he stepped out of the gala. Ironcliff's city lights broke into jagged streaks across every parked windshield, slicing through the mist that hovered above asphalt like a theater curtain refusing to rise.
The night air held the memory of rain, petrol, smoke, and the expensive perfume of strangers drifting after him as if the evening itself resented being left behind.
He paused under the awning, jaw locked, as the chaos of the auction clung to him, electric, agitated, impossible to shake. It wasn't the heady swirl of money or the silent threats traded in coded glances that twisted his stomach.
It was that single word.
"Handsome."
Spoken too sweetly. Too deliberately. Cutting through professional armor like glass.
Adrian's lips formed a silent retort, more vexed than embarrassed. Who tosses that out mid-mission? A compliment as a weapon, smile sharpened to a dare. The city around him felt complicit, every puddle reflecting neon light back at him like it was in on the joke.
He thumbed the fob, unlocking his car, a battered but loyal Lamborghini, paint dulled by years of surveillance and storms. He slid into the driver's seat, Ironcliff's skyline unfurling in the rearview as he pulled away.
20:57 PM | Ironcliff Expressway, Northbound to Metro City
Traffic thinned near the docks, where hollow warehouses hunkered against nightfall, shadows stretching long and wary. The engine hummed beneath him, a steady pulse to anchor restless thoughts.
Adrian's mind replayed the evening on loop: Aveline's smirk, the glint in her eye as she dropped that one word, the way it unsettled him more than any loaded gun ever had.
He gripped the wheel, knuckles white, as the city's skyscrapers receded in the rearview mirror.
The drive north was a noir film scrolling past his window, rain-sheened asphalt, the metallic hush of tires slicing up reflections, and billboards blurring into smears of color. His safehouse, tucked on Metro's border, waited like a memory he couldn't quite trust.
Tonight, adrenaline still crackling under his skin, he let the radio play static-laced jazz.
He couldn't shake that word.
"Handsome."
Flattering. Infuriating. Dangerously effective.
21:31 PM | North Metro City, Adrian's Safehouse
Inside, Adrian let the door swing shut behind him, the lock falling with a sense of relief he would never admit aloud. The apartment was a study in intentionally cultivated anonymity: bland rental furniture, unremarkable art prints, but the city glow filtering through blinds painted everything in gold and blue.
He loosened his tie, poured two fingers of whiskey, the cheap kind, but poured deliberately, to mimic control. The liquid caught the low light like a promise waiting to break.
He raised the glass in mock salute. "To emotional stability... may it never come."
The fridge yielded little. He assembled a dinner only a field agent could love: microwave steak (charred at the edges, texture questionable), overwhipped powdered mash that tasted faintly of cardboard, and a reckless drizzle of "wine sauce" that was, in reality, last night's Merlot gone faintly sour.
He plated everything with the care of a five-star chef, kicked off his shoes, and let the TV flicker on for background noise.
What came next was anything but routine.
22:06 PM | Safehouse Living Room
The news anchor's voice burned through his self-mocking spiral.
"Breaking news: motorcycle accident on Ironcliff Highway. Victim unidentified at this time..."
Adrian's world contracted.
The split-screen showed flashing strobes, ambulance, fire trucks, police barriers. And his gut recognized the bike at once.
A Royal Blue Ducati Panigale V4R.
Paintwork luminous even under streetlights. White pinstripes curling along the fairing like phantom wings. The camera lingered on the crumpled mass of metal and chrome, and his heart missed a beat.
He was halfway out of his chair, glass clattering onto the table.
No. No, no, no. That's her bike.
He'd memorized every detail the first time he saw her on it, something about the contrast between the machine's elegance and her own sharpened composure. Tonight, battered chrome and shattered plastic meant only one thing.
He felt bile tighten at the back of his throat.
"...preliminary reports suggest brake failure may have caused the accident," the reporter said, voice quivering with manufactured sympathy.
Adrian's jaw clenched. She'd checked every bolt before leaving. He'd watched her, methodical, precise, paranoid. She didn't believe in accidents.
He closed his eyes for half a second, fighting back the sick certainty that nothing in his world could be random anymore.
The coverage switched to live footage at the scene. Smoke curled like a phantom up into night, swirling blue and red beneath the streetlamps. Sirens split the darkness. Crowds kept back by barriers of caution tape and fear.
For a moment, it was chaos, bystanders murmuring, police shouting, a wrecker inching closer to the wreckage.
Then, from the very middle of it, out of the roiling dark, someone moved.
The camera zoomed, shaky and uncertain, as a figure in a fireproof suit pushed the paramedics aside.
And Adrian's world, already teetering, tipped entirely.
Aveline.
Her silhouette stepped through the smoke, slashed by firelight and cop car strobes. The fireproof suit's surface was scorched but not breached, a modern marvel in navy and graphite, pitted from the blast but cut close to her form, reinforced seams glinting orange from the residual flames.
The helmet came off. Black visor flipping upward. Her hair spilled out, a shadowy curtain, perfectly untouched beneath the soot.
She was unbothered. Like she'd stepped out of a meeting instead of an inferno.
The camera, for a split, cinematic heartbeat, caught every bystander as their bodies leaned back together, oxygen knocked from the crowd as if a ghost had walked out of the fire.
Adrian muttered, breathless and dry, "Of course she did."
She wore a goddamn fireproof suit. She always knew someone would try to get rid of her.
He watched, transfixed, as shockwaves rippled through the crowd, murmurs, disbelief, then shrieking relief. A paramedic stumbled, nearly dropping his kit. She just adjusted her jacket, nodded at the crowd with the faintest hint of a smirk, and shrugged, unscathed, unsinged, unshakeable.
He perched on the edge of his couch, cold whiskey forgotten in his hand, watching through split fingers.
She calls me handsome, survives an explosion, and then looks bored on the evening news. Fantastic.
22:37 PM | Adrian's Safehouse
He went digging.
Social media. Police feeds. Underground chatrooms. Not a whisper. Not a candid photo. Not a digital footprint beyond controlled leaks.
All trails led nowhere.
Damned ghosts.
But then, she was an agent in the C.R.I.M.E Division, privacy wasn't just policy; it was self-preservation.
Yet the blankness felt personal. She was a black hole around which dead ops and missing files orbited, no birthdate, no family records, only the shape of her absence. The kind of person even shadows didn't trust.
Dinner forgotten, Adrian slumped into the couch, city lights streaking the window. The TV still blared; he didn't even hear it anymore.
Somewhere out there, she was laughing at the universe's little joke.
07:43 AM | N.P.U. Headquarters
Sleep had come reluctantly, dreams trailing after him like unfinished dossiers. Adrian shuffled into the elevator, each ding another small defeat. The world beyond the doors was as grey as his mood.
The N.P.U. headquarters was its usual hum of threats, bureaucracy, and burnt coffee.
And there she was.
Coffee in hand. Browsing mission files with effortless calm, like the events of last night had never happened.
"You..." Adrian's voice cracked slightly. "You're here."
She didn't even spare him a glance. "Good morning."
"You got blown up."
She looked up from her mug, expression unreadable. "Minor accident. I've had worse Mondays."
Adrian nearly laughed, a sound caught somewhere between disbelief and hysteria. She labels infernos as inconvenience. What do you even say to that?
Before he could answer, Elias sidled up, grinning as always. Of course he'd be here to witness Adrian being outmaneuvered on his own turf.
My life is a circus, Adrian thought darkly, and she's the ringmaster.
Aveline looked up, voice sly and almost affectionate:
"You thought you were getting rid of me as your partner? Just know, I'd show up to work dead, Adrian."
He pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated beyond words.
He caught her smirk, shot her a glare sharp enough to cut. The office bustled around them, innocent bystanders in a silent battlefield, as he realized with the cold clarity of dawn:
Surviving explosions was second nature to her.
Surviving Aveline?
That was the real mission.