Chapter 6: Liora's Ghost

HENDRIX

Night in the glass room was when the ghosts came.

I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, while the estate settled into its nocturnal rhythms. Distant footsteps, the hum of climate control, and in the silence between the sounds, I heard her.

"Hendrix, stop being dramatic. It's just a scraped knee."

Liora's voice, bright with laughter, from a memory fifteen years old. I'd fallen off my bike, crying more from embarrassment than pain, and she'd cleaned the wound with gentle hands while mocking my tears.

"You're going to do harder things than this, little brother. You need to be tougher."

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the memories, but they came anyway-a flood of images I'd kept locked away because remembering hurt worse than forgetting.

Liora teaching me to pick locks when I was twelve, her fingers nimble and patient. "Knowledge is survival, Hendrix. Never forget that."

Liora holding me when our mother died, her own grief buried beneath the need to keep me safe. "We only have each other now, that means we protect each other, no matter what."

Liora's face the last time I saw her, three years and four months ago, smiling as she left for what she'd called "a simple information job, I'll be back by dinner. Don't eat all the bread."

She never came back.

I sat up, breathing hard, the grief was a physical weight on my chest. The glass walls felt like they were closing in.

I moved to the small desk and pulled out the paper and pen they'd provided. My hands shook as I began to write-not words, but numbers. Dates and timeline.

Three years, four months and six days ago: Liora disappeared.

Two years, eight months ago: Vera approached me with an offer- training, resources, and a way inside the Veyra organization to find my sister.

Two years of preparation: Learning languages, combat, infiltration, how to lie with my face while my mind stayed sharp.

Six weeks later: Her body found in the warehouse district, cause of death listed as "trauma and exposure."

Five weeks ago: I found the security footage showing a man with the Veyra crest near the warehouse.

Two days ago: Purchased by Erdem Veyra.

Now: Locked in a glass cage, twenty meters from his office, with no clear path to the truth.

I stared at the timeline, then carefully tore it into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet. Written information could always be found.

But I couldn't flush away the memories.

I returned to the bed and reached under the thin mattress, pulling out the small thread I'd hidden there, a piece of red embroidery thread I'd pulled from the hem of my shirt. It was all I had left of the clothes I'd worn when I entered this place.

Red thread. Liora's favorite color.

I wrapped it around my finger. "Promise me something, Hendrix." Her voice from a memory years before she died, sitting on the roof of our shitty apartment, watching the city lights. "If something happens to me, don't let it destroy you. Don't become the kind of person who lives only for revenge."

"Nothing's going to happen to you," I'd say.

"But if it does, promise me."

I'd promised and I'd broken that promise the moment they'd shown me her body.

I'm sorry, Liora. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I've become exactly what you didn't want me to be.

A sound in the corridor made me freeze, footsteps slow and deliberate, stopped outside my room.

I quickly hid the thread back under the mattress and lay down, forcing my breathing into sleep patterns.

The glass cleared-becoming transparent from the outside.

Through barely-open eyes, I saw Erdem standing in the corridor, watching me. I kept my breathing steady, my face relaxed, praying he couldn't see through the performance.

The glass darkened again.

I released a shaky breath and stared at the ceiling, my heart pounding. I closed my eyes and forced myself to think tactically, pushing emotions aside.

What I know:

Erdem keeps sealed archives in his office system. The security is biometric-palm scanners, retinal verification. Silas is jealous and potentially useful as a distraction. Mara suspects me but hasn't acted yet. Erdem doesn't trust anyone, which means everyone is vulnerable.

What I need:

Access to the sealed archives time alone in the office or security center. A way to bypass biometric locks. An exit strategy for when the truth comes out.

What I have:

Erdem's attention (dangerous but useful). Proven skills (keeps me alive and close). Silas's interest (potentially exploitable). Nothing else.

The math was brutal. I was one person, unarmed, under constant surveillance, in a fortress filled with trained killers, trying to uncover secrets that powerful people had buried.

Liora would tell me I'm being stupid, that revenge isn't worth dying for.

But to me, living without answers, living without justice, wasn't really living at all.

ERDEM

I stood in my private quarters, staring out at the ocean, unable to sleep.

The boy haunted me and I didn't understand why.

I'd owned people before-informants, assets and prisoners. Some I'd used and discarded, some I'd broken for information, some I'd killed when they became liabilities.

None of them had kept me awake at three in the morning, walking corridors to watch them sleep.

What is it about you, Hendrix?

I'd reviewed the Kozlov records again-his file was thin, generic, the kind of documentation that could be fabricated by someone with moderate resources and intelligence connections.

Vera Vale's organization, perhaps. Or one of the other intelligence brokers who traded in human assets.

But why prepare for my house?

I should kill him. It was the smart play-eliminate the unknown variable before it became a problem.

But I didn't want to.

That was the disturbing part, not that I suspected him, but that I wanted to keep him anyway. Wanted to unwrap the mystery, wanted to see what he looked like when the mask finally cracked.

My phone buzzed. Damir.

Sir, we've traced the payment for the ambush, it went through a shell company registered to someone in your household.

I wasn't even surprised.

Who?

Still working on it, the company has three authorized signatories. I'll have names by morning.

I stared at my phone, fury building beneath the surface.

Silas. It has to be Silas.

But I needed proof before I could act, accusing your brother openly without evidence was bad for business, even in our world.

I looked toward the corridor that led to the glass room, where Hendrix slept with secrets behind his eyes.

Tomorrow, I'd push harder and if he was part of the conspiracy to kill me, I'd make his death slow enough to send a message to whoever had sent him.

But if he's not...

I didn't finish the thought.

Instead, I poured another whiskey and watched the ocean turn gray with approaching dawn.

HENDRIX

Morning came too quickly.

The lights flooded the glass room at exactly seven AM, and I woke with Liora's name on my lips, the dream already fading.

She'd been alive in the dream, smiling.

"You're going to get yourself killed, little brother. And for what? I'm already gone."

I pushed the dream away and prepared for another day of performance.

The guard came at seven-thirty with breakfast-plain bread, cheese and tea. I ate, fueling the body I'd need to keep sharp.

At exactly eight AM, the door unlocked.

"Mr Veyra is waiting," The guard said.

I followed him through the corridors, but as I entered Erdem's office and saw the old fury in his eyes, I realized something had changed overnight.

He looked at me like I was already dead.

And I understood with sudden, terrible clarity that my time was running out faster than I'd planned.

"Sit down, Hendrix," Erdem said softly. "We need to have a conversation about loyalty, betrayal and exactly everything about you and your past."

My blood turned to ice.

Does he know?