Chapter 58. The Ghost at the Table

The "old place" was a back room of a nameless café tucked in Geneva's gritty Paquis district, a world away from the opulent silence of Le Repos de l'Ombre. The air was thick with the smell of stale coffee, grilled meat, and the faint, metallic tang of the nearby train station. It was a place for transactions, not conversations.

Sabatine sat with his back to the wall, a habit so ingrained it was physiology. He watched the door, his senses hyper-alert, every nerve ending tuned to the rhythm of the street outside. The ghost of Anton’s proximity, the raw confession in the hotel suite, was a persistent hum beneath his focus. It’s everything. He had meant it. And that was the problem.

Rico Nadir was ten minutes late. It was a power play, a reminder of who was doing whom a favor. When he finally slid into the booth opposite Sabe, he brought the cold with him. He hadn’t changed much in the years since Bakhmar. A little greyer at the temples, a few more lines carved around his hard eyes, but the same predatory stillness.

“Sabe.” Rico’s voice was a low rumble. He didn’t offer a hand.

“Rico. You said you had something.”

“Always straight to business.” A flicker of a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Some things never change.” He slid a slim, sealed envelope across the sticky table. “Villa du Lac. Blueprints, shift changes for the private security, alarm schematics. The works.”

Sabe didn’t touch it. “And the price?”

“The satisfaction of watching a bunch of arrogant fucks in suits get their comeuppance.” Rico’s gaze was unblinking. “Evelyn Voss is dealing with the Zorya Collective. Do you remember them? Nasty pieces of work from the old Eastern Bloc. They make our former employers look like choirboys. She’s offering the Aethelred prototype in exchange for a controlling stake in their global data-mining operation. She doesn’t just want to be rich; she wants to be a god.”

Sabe absorbed the information. The Zorya Collective. It tracked. They had the reach, the ruthlessness, and the absolute lack of morality for such a play. “What about Marcus?”

“The brother?” Rico snorted, signaling the waiter for two coffees he had no intention of drinking. “He's patsy. The angry, entitled little boy throwing a tantrum. Evelyn promised him the CEO title, a figurehead while she pulls the strings from the shadows. He thinks he’s playing her. He’s about as deep as a puddle.”

This was the intel they needed. The pieces were falling into place. But Sabe could feel the ‘but’ coming. It hung in the air between them, as palpable as the envelope on the table.

“This is good,” Sabe said, finally picking up the envelope and tucking it inside his jacket. “Thank you.”

Rico leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that grated on Sabe’s nerves. “Don’t thank me yet. That’s the easy part. Here’s the part you’re not going to like.”

He paused, letting the tension build. “You’re not the only ghost chasing Marcus.”

Sabe went very still. “Explain.”

“There’s a contract. A professional. Not one of the Zorya’s usual blunt instruments. This one is… elegant. A specialist in making problems disappear without a trace. Suicides, accidents, sudden, tragic illnesses.” Rico’s eyes were hard. “The contract isn’t for Marcus. It’s for your billionaire.”

The coffee arrived. Rico ignored it. Sabe’s hand, resting on the table, curled into a fist so tight his knuckles turned white.

“Who?” The word was a blade.

“The trail is muddy. Paid for out of a hidden Rogers corporate slush fund Evelyn controls, but the order didn’t come from her terminal. It was routed, bounced, encrypted to hell and back.” Rico’s gaze was relentless, pinning Sabe to his seat. “Someone else inside Rogers wants Anton Rogers gone. Not disgraced. Not ruined. Permanently. And they wanted it to happen after the prototype exchange, when the chaos would provide perfect cover.”

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. It wasn't just Evelyn. It wasn't just a greedy, vengeful brother. There was a third player, a deeper, darker shadow in his own company, someone who wanted him erased from the earth. The betrayal was a bottomless pit.

“Why are you telling me this?” Sabe asked, his voice dangerously calm.

“Because you’re walking into a nest of vipers thinking you only have to watch for two of them.” Rico leaned back, a gesture of false nonchalance. “And because I owe you. From Bakhmar.” He said the name of the city like a curse. “But my debt only extends so far. This… attachment you’re forming… it’s a liability, Sabe. You’re not his bodyguard anymore. You’re his shield. And a shield can’t watch its own back.”

Liability. The same word Anton had seen on the phone. Hearing it from Rico’s mouth felt like a confirmation of his deepest fear.

“He’s not a liability,” Sabe said, the defensiveness in his tone betraying him.

“Isn’t he?” Rico’s smile was thin and cruel. “Look at you. You’re compromised. You’re thinking with your heart, not your head. That’s how principals die. That’s how you die. And it’s how you get the people around you killed. Or have you forgotten the taste of that particular failure?”

The mention of Bakhmar was a low blow, a deliberate twist of the knife in a wound that had never healed. The faces of the civilians, the smoke, the screaming—it all rushed back in a nauseating wave. The guilt was a living thing, coiling in his gut.

“This is different,” Sabe ground out.

“It’s never different.” Rico pushed his untouched coffee away and stood up. “Intelligence is a gift. The warning is a debt paid. Don’t come to me again, Sabe. You’re on your own.”

He dropped a few francs on the table and walked out, melting into the foot traffic on the street without a backward glance.

Sabe sat alone in the booth for a long time, the envelope of intel feeling like a lead weight against his chest. Rico’s words echoed in the hollow space left behind. Someone else inside Rogers… permanently… a liability…

He had come here for a key to the villa. He’d left with the knowledge that the prison he was trying to break Anton out of had an extra, hidden layer, with an executioner already waiting in the wings. The mission had just become exponentially more dangerous.

But more terrifying than the unknown assassin was the seed of doubt Rico had planted. Was he compromised? Was the fierce, protective fury he felt for Anton a product of professional duty, or was it the very thing that would get them both killed? Was his desire to keep Anton safe the one thing that would ultimately ensure his destruction?

He thought of Anton in the hotel suite, brave and broken, offering his heart. He thought of the way his own resolve had crumbled in the face of that honesty. It’s everything.

And now, he had to go back to that man, the man who was his everything, and tell him that the circle of betrayal was wider and deadlier than they could have ever imagined. He had to look into those grey eyes and confirm that his world was not just falling apart, but that there was a ghost at the table, waiting for the right moment to make him disappear forever.

Sabe left the café, the ghost of his past and the specter of Anton’s future walking shoulder-to-shoulder with him into the Geneva night. The battle for the prototype was one thing. The war for Anton’s life, and for his own scarred soul, had just begun.

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