I tore my gaze from the wall of notes and stepped away. I swept the room—sharp, careful. Was he really the Kingfish? I dug through old memories; I'd heard things about him years ago. His real name… what was it? After a beat, it came back: Severin Harper—nicknamed the Kingfish, later the Night Crawler. A strange, secretive prodigy whose family had been killed under eerie circumstances years ago.
I moved to the wooden table in the centre of the room. The dining table was buried under papers and maps, with a few pages scattered across the parquet floor. The air sat tight in my lungs—maybe the room was small, or maybe it was the anxiety and the distrust. I focused on the scribbles: locations… unfamiliar faces… What exactly was he after? Did he really plan to bring down both the Rose Organization and the Triad Union? But how? Could I trust him? Was he supposed to be my Noah in this story?
If he truly was Servin Harper—the Kingfish—if he'd walked out on the Organization and meant to spark an uprising, then for the first time in this wretched life of mine, I might actually get the chance to live for myself.
I turned towards him. He unzipped his leather jacket, shrugged it off, let it drop, and went back to the evidence wall.
'Why would one of the greatest minds in human history,' I asked, 'choose to live in a damp cellar?'
My voice came out rough, a growl as I tried to pull in a deep breath. 'I feel like I can't breathe.'
He had his back to me, circling a line of text on a sheet taped to the wall. In that black vest, the muscles along his shoulders stood out. My curiosity snagged on the tattoo along his arm—a girl, hair caught in the wind. Why was the ink red?
Still facing the wall, snapping the cap onto the marker, he said in a cool, flat voice, 'That's the point. When you can use more than a sliver of your brain… even a small room is enough to start a war.'
He gestured towards his kit without looking at me. 'In a space smaller than this—with that set-up—I leaked NASA's classified files.'
A low, wicked laugh rolled through the room as he turned. His eyes sparked, bright all the way down. 'It was… satisfying.'
I narrowed my eyes, considering. A glance at the map spread across the table, then at the black cases stacked in the corner—ammo, probably. I slid my hands into the pockets of my baggy black trousers. 'You said you left the Organization, and you want to take down both the Triad Union and the Rose Organization. I'm not even going to touch how far-fetched that sounds. But you also said you're infiltrating that party. What's happening there?'
I moved to the table and tapped the maps. 'You'd better start telling me the truth.'
I lifted my head and locked my stare on his easy smile. 'Because if you're lying, I'll kill you myself.'
He gave a thin, careless smirk, tossed the marker aside, and came to stand opposite me at the table. My attention snagged on the tattoo again: the girl's windblown profile… and the black lines snaking from his arm to the curve of his ear. He planted his hands on the table, leaned in, and met my gaze.
'I worked for the Organization for years—same as you. I thought they saved me. They didn't.'
Another small, icy smile. He tilted his head. Under the bare bulb, his eyes looked sharper, almost unreal; in my head, Greek gods always looked like this. His lips moved, soft but steady. 'I fell in love with a girl. She had the same rare genetics as you and Ashur have, and the Organization was watching her from a distance. When I learnt what they'd done to her… how much they'd hurt her… I decided to stand against them.'
I studied his face, the set of his mouth, the heat in his stare. Something fierce moved there—too raw to be a lie. I folded my arms and didn't look away. His gaze flicked to the maps, then back up, hate lighting his eyes from within.
'They hurt my girlfriend over and over. Not just them—the Triad Union too. I had to walk away from her so she wouldn't get caught in it—so I could burn all this filth down.
Because as long as the Organization and the Triad Union exist, we will never get to live.'