RiverI’d just finished reviewing the last of Silas reports when my phone vibrated on the desk. A message from Amir.Sage is leaving the house. Dressed casually. Alone.I leaned back in my chair, phone still in hand, gaze narrowing as I read the message again. A part of me tensed instinctively. Sage wasn’t the type to wander aimlessly, especially not at night. But he was young. Still nursing the wound Kaiden had left behind. Perhaps he just needed to breathe, to shake off the weight pressing against his ribs.I rubbed a hand over my jaw, then replied:Keep a healthy distance. Let him enjoy himself. But don’t lose him.There was no response. I didn’t need one. Amir knew what silence from me meant.Later, I left the office and returned home.I poured myself a drink, but I didn’t finish it. My mind was still tracing Sage’s path, playing every possibility like a film I couldn’t pause. By the time I went to bed, the ice in the glass had melted.Sleep never came easily, but that night, it
RiverMy fingers trailed absently over the polished mahogany of my desk as I reviewed the paper in front of me. A list. Ten names. Each scrawled in barely legible cursive, the ink smudged in a few places. Richard had handed it over with a split lip and three broken ribs. That much pain ought to inspire honesty but liars were persistent, even under duress.I didn’t trust the list. I leaned back in my chair and glanced up at Silas who stood at attention near the bookshelf, arms crossed, silent but attentive.“Verify every single name,” I said coolly. “If one of these people turns out to be a dead end, I’ll make sure the client loses the other leg.”He nodded once. “How deep should I dig?”“As deep as you need to. I want addresses, employment, family ties, everything you can find.. And if any of them lead us closer to the distributor... don’t act yet. Just mark them.”He gave a grim smile. “Understood.”As he turned to leave, my phone buzzed once, silently, on the desk. I picked it up
SageI shook my head at first then tilted my chin, “no, I have nothing to say.”He chuckled again, the sound coming off as bitter. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Amir shifting uncomfortably.Yeah, I would be uncomfortable if I was witnessing a lover’s spat. Our eyes met and I hoped he could read the apology in my eyes for putting him in this position. “What the fuck are you looking at him for?” The professor barked.I turned my head sharply to meet his gaze, he was fucking livid.“N…nothing.”He stepped closer to me, his body language that of a recoiled snake, “nothing? You call that nothing?”“No, I was just thinking how uncomfortable it was for him to stand there and watch us.”“Oh you think so? Isn’t that what I paid him to do? Have you been buddying it up with the hired help?”My eyes widened a little, “no, I haven’t..”“Then why the hell do you care about what he thinks, Sage? You know you are pissing me the fuck off.”My eyes widened in horror when he started undoing his bel
SageThe sun had barely dipped below the horizon by the time I trudged up the steps of my apartment building. The strap of my backpack bit into my shoulder, and I exhaled hard, bone-tired after a long day of classes. My head ached. My limbs felt like lead. I just wanted a shower, a meal, and to just relax. When I pushed the door open, Amir followed me in, quiet as always.That, more than anything, surprised me.Sometimes I forgot he existed and that he was still guarding me.I hadn’t expected him to still be here. With everything that had happened, the argument with the professor, Kaiden disappearing, the sharp tension that now lived between all of us. I thought for sure the professor would’ve pulled him out and cut ties. It was his style: cold, efficient detachment. I’d figured Amir was just another pawn on his chessboard.But here he was, locking the door behind us like this was still his assigned place.I dropped my bag by the couch and turned toward him. “You’re still here,” I sa
RiverThe office was cold.The air condition was not on and I haven’t touched the thermostat in days but somehow, the office was colder than any freezing machine could produce.Silence sat heavy in the room, coiled like a serpent in the corners, wrapping around my shoulders. The absence of Kaiden’s voice, his laughter, his endless stubbornness, it pressed against my chest like a stone.I hadn’t slept properly in days.Sleep was a luxury afforded to men without guilt and I had a lot of it. I was so fucking guilty right now.I paced behind my desk, fingers trailing absently across the spine of a leather-bound book I hadn’t opened in years. My thoughts were far from literature. They were dark. Tied in chains and dragged to the pit of one unbearable truth, I didn’t know where he was.And worse… I didn’t know if he was still alive.It didn’t help that Sage was choosing now to practice apathy. All the things he said were right but he didn’t need to do that right now. Kaiden could be in dang
KaidenThe first thing I noticed was the cold. It was so freezing that it not only made me shiver, it seeped inside my bones, pried it open and lived there.I was so numb to my feet? I was momentarily disoriented. My skin prickled against the damp air, and my wrists ached from the rope that cut into them. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Could barely think over the pounding in my skull.Where the fuck am I?The basement was dimly lit, but even in the low light, I saw machines, tall, humming monstrosities with pipes, valves, and containers, all reeking of chemicals. I didn’t need to be told what this place was. I’d seen enough of this world to know. A lab. A drug operation. But why was I here?I was naked. Tied to a chair. Exposed and humiliated.Fear didn’t come in a wave. It oozed in slowly, like smoke curling under a locked door.Footsteps echoed.I lifted my head, as much as I could, my neck stiff and sore. Desmond walked in like he owned the room, he actually did.I must have be
SageThe words the professor had spoken stayed with me like the aftertaste of something bitter I couldn’t spit out. He wanted to involve the police. He wanted to bring Raines into this. It was as if he didn’t hear a single thing I said, that he couldn’t accept what was right in front of him. Kaiden had left.Again.We stood in the middle of his living room, the air thick with the kind of tension that always came before something broke.I still felt like I needed to say something to him. He had spent the entire car ride grumbling.He didn’t say anything out loud but it was pretty obvious with the way he was clenching his hands on the steering wheel.The second we got home, I cornered him.“You should take it,” I said finally, crossing my arms.He stared at me, baffled. “Take what?”“The truth. Take it. Accept that he’s gone. That this isn’t some elaborate kidnapping or some villain from a noir film dragging him off. Kaiden left. He chose to. You seem to be mad at me for voicing out the
Sage The car ride was dead silent. The only sound was the quiet hum of the engine and the occasional click of the blinker as the professor followed Kaiden’s manager through the streets. I sat in the passenger seat, my legs bouncing, nerves coiling tighter with every turn the black car ahead of us made. The professor’s knuckles were white against the steering wheel. He hadn’t spoken since we pulled out of the parking lot, and I didn’t try to break the silence. It was thick with tension, too thick to cut through with words that didn’t feel entirely useless right now. And I didn’t know what to say to him. Finally, the black car pulled into the driveway of a large, modern townhouse on the outskirts of the city. The place was all sharp edges and sterile lighting. A place for people who wanted to look rich, not feel anything. I knew Kaiden was making money for his manager but I didn’t think it was to this extent. Wow. The professor parked across the street, cut the engine, a
SageI woke up with a tight knot sitting right in the middle of my chest. The apartment was quiet. No sign of Kaiden, and the sun had already climbed halfway through the sky.The sheets beside me were cold. He hadn’t come home last night.Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I wandered out into the living room, expecting maybe a note, maybe Kaiden sitting on the couch eating cereal out of the box like he did when he was too tired to pretend to be put together. But it wasn’t Kaiden I found.The professor sat there, hunched on the edge of the couch, elbows resting on his knees, fingers loosely interlocked. He didn’t even glance at me when I entered.“You’re up early,” I said cautiously, voice still raspy with sleep.His eyes lifted to me. They looked tired, more than tired. Hollow. “Did Kaiden come home last night?”I shook my head. “No. I thought he went to see you. He got your message, didn’t he?”His lips pressed into a line. “I went to his condo. He wasn’t there. I waited. His car was gone.