A Ghost In Common

Reid.

Silence.

I looked up at the towering skyscraper hotel, eyes locked on the exact room Thorne claimed to be occupying.

"Are you sure he's in there?" I asked, my voice low, cold.

Cassius stood beside me, unmoved. "Thorne might be many things, ruthless, savage, a goddamn storm. But a liar? No. And he doesn’t fear you enough to fabricate something just to bring you to him."

I frowned at that last part. He doesn’t fear me enough?

Of course he doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t.

"My staff?" I asked, stretching out my hand.

Cassius placed it into my palm with reverence.

To the world, it looked like a cane, an elegant accessory, perhaps something for a limp.

They didn’t know it housed mechanisms far crueler than bullets. Poisons that could melt nerves. Blades that sliced without sound. Needles that pierced arteries before a scream could be born.

But today, I only needed it as a guide, a quiet companion for the storm I was about to bring. If the storm rise up, I might make use of it in another dimension.

I hope I don't. I stepped into the elevator.

Cassius didn’t follow. He knew better. Thorne wanted only me.

The lobby was polished, clinical, too quiet. I moved like a shadow among them, my staff clicking softly against the marble.

Every person I passed glanced once, then quickly away. Maybe it was the presence. Maybe it was the silence I carried like a second skin.

The elevator opened without delay. Room 1709.

As I ascended, my pulse stayed calm, but my mind wandered. Why now? Why return? Zoey... Katherine... Whatever name she wore now, she had no idea what she reignited in me.

What Thorne buried when he took everything I had and left me with just a reason to breathe.

The doors opened. I stepped into the hallway, too pristine, too untouched. At the end of it, the door stood half-open, like it was waiting for me.

My grip tightened on the staff.

I didn’t knock. I pushed it open.

Thorne stood inside. Alone. Shirt half-buttoned, glass in his hand, like he’d been expecting me.

That same wicked calm sat on his face like it had years ago right before he set fire to everything I’d built.

"Reid," he said, as if it were a welcome.

I stepped in, closed the door behind me, and smiled, not with my lips, but with the war boiling in my eyes.

"Thorne."

Two kings in one room.

One of his guards appeared between us, his presence quiet but commanding. His hand extended politely, too politely for the moment.

“I’m going to need you to hand over the cane, sir.”

I didn’t blink. I didn’t move.

“My cane stays with me.”

The guard’s fingers twitched at his side. “Thorne holds no weapon. He requests you do the same.”

I laughed, quiet and razor-thin. “Thorne is a killer, and a master of control. The day I match his courtesy, I’ll already be dead.”

The guard didn’t budge, but I could feel his discomfort. I shifted slightly, enough to let the tip of the staff kiss the marble floor again.

“This isn’t a weapon,” I said coolly, “unless you make it one.”

A low voice echoed from deeper in the room. Thorne’s.

“Let him in.”

The guard hesitated, then stepped aside.

I walked past him, slow and steady. My staff tapping with each step. The floor may have belonged to Thorne, but the air bent for me.

“Don’t tell me you still fear me after all these years,” Thorne said, his voice smooth, his smirk sharper than any blade.

He poured red wine into two crystal glasses, like we were old friends catching up, not two men with graves between them.

I didn’t smile. “I’d be a coward to fear you. And a fool not to be scared of you. I don’t intend to be either.”

He chuckled low, turned his back as he swirled the wine, then handed me a glass. The room was quiet. We were alone.

“When I spared your life back then… left your daughter breathing and told you to disappear,” he said, voice colder now, “I thought you had a long life ahead of you. For me not to kill you… I figured death wasn’t part of your fate.”

I accepted the glass, our fingers not touching. “So, what? Has my fate changed now?”

He sipped. Eyes on mine. Calm. Calculating.

“That depends,” he said. “Why did you come back, Reid?”

I didn’t drink. I just looked at him over the rim of my glass.

“To find what was stolen.”

Thorne’s eyes darkened just a shade. The quiet stretched.

“I thought long and hard about why you came back,” Thorne said, setting his glass down with a soft clink. “And the only logical conclusion is that we’re hunting the same ghost, Agent Zoey. The difference is, I want her dead. You…”

He eyed me with something between curiosity and suspicion. “You want her for something else.”

I smiled, slow and deliberate. “You think I’d team up with Zoey to take you down? That I’d stoop to alliances now?” I leaned in slightly, watching his still face. “Are you scared?”

His laugh was a dry, amused breath. “You’re smarter than that, Reid. You know better than to think you or Zoey could bring me down. Not even together. Not even on your best day.”

He picked up his glass again but didn’t sip. “So I’ll ask you again. Why do you want Zoey?”

I didn’t blink. “That’s confidential.”

His laugh this time was louder, sharp, jagged. “Of course it is. Everything about you has always been sealed behind riddles and locked doors. But eventually, Reid, all secrets bleed out. One way or another.”

I finished my wine in one swallow, setting the glass down with purpose.

“And some bleed louder than others.”

“Whether you like it or not,” Thorne said, voice low, controlled, deadly, “I’ll have my men trail you. And when you find Zoey, if your reason for hunting her differs from mine, I’ll kill you both.”

“Don’t say it like it’s that easy,” I snapped, stepping forward, my grip tightening around my cane.

He cocked his head, a slow, mocking grin spreading. “What were you doing when I killed thirty-one of the thirty-two people you cared about most? Hiding. Watching. Paralyzed by fear. And Zoey? She’s been running all these years not because she’s smart, but because she’s terrified.”

He took a step closer, his voice turning into venom. “And that same fear? It’s still in you, Reid. I can smell it. But I’ll make it simple, anyone found protecting Zoey dies before the earth swallows her whole.”

“I used to think I was the devil,” I hissed, raising my cane, its hidden mechanism beginning to hum.

“But then you realized,” Thorne whispered, leaning into the air between us, “you’re just a lost leopard in my tiger’s arena. You can’t stand my wrath, Reid. None of you can.”

Then Thorne reached into his pocket and tossed something on the table between us.

A photo.

Fresh.

Recent.

Zoey.

Bound. Barely conscious. Eyes wide with terror.

I froze. My blood turned to ice.

"Still want to play devil, leopard?" Thorne asked, grinning like he'd already won. "Because your little savior fantasy just got a hell lot more complicated."

"You have Zoey in your custody?" I asked, still shocked at the picture. So the video I watched earlier was true.

"Do you want to see it for yourself?" he asked, politely, asking me indirectly to visit his house.