Two
915 Words
For a long moment, he stood in silence after she left. No glance over her shoulder, no thank you. Just cold dismissal and the echo of her high heels as she walked away.
Justin let out a slow breath and turned toward the window. The first light of dawn was starting to show over New Avalon’s skyline. The hotel suite—lavish, immaculate, suddenly felt sterile. The perfume she left in the air hadn’t faded, but it no longer clung.
He adjusted his cuffs, then left without looking back.
The elevator moved quietly down sixty floors. When the doors opened, the hotel lobby was bathed in soft morning light. New Avalon was always alive, but at this hour there was a rare calm—bellboys arranging fresh flowers and a few guests arriving after long nights.
He stepped out.
Immediately, a man broke from the shadows. “Master Sallow.”
Justin paused.
The voice belonged to a tall, broad-shouldered man in a sharp obsidian suit with no tie. His eyes stayed calm. Behind him, five other agents in tailored uniforms stepped forward. Small earpieces and matching silver pins on their lapels marked them. Together, they bowed in perfect unison.
“Tafari,” Justin said, surprised but not alarmed.
Tafari Oxx stepped forward and gave a deeper nod this time. “You wanted discretion. I did what I could, but in this city, whispers move faster than silence.”
With a flick of his wrist, the agents quietly walked off in different directions across the hotel.
“I arrived with only a few,” Tafari continued. “The rest await outside.”
“I don’t need a parade,” Justin murmured.
“Understood. Still,” Tafari said, gesturing, “the elites insisted.”
Two hotel staff rolled a cart up to Justin and stopped. On top was a shiny platinum card inside a fancy case, resting on a black velvet tray. Beside it was a stylish key fob, sealed in a clear crystal envelope with a strange symbol carved into it.
“From the New Avalon Consortium,” Tafari explained. “The card is limitless. Fully untraceable. The key fob was for a Tempest VX—a custom-made, super-powerful car with six hundred horsepower, a private model not yet in circulation.
He tapped another envelope. “This is the deed to a house on the cliffs in Virellé Heights. It already has security set up, a trusted staff, and amazing views”.
Justin stared at the display for a while, his face showing nothing.
“I don’t want the car,” he said at last. “And they can keep the mansion. I don’t need charity dressed as reverence.”
Tafari gave a faint smile. “You were never comfortable with gratitude. But the world remembers, Justin. The Gellimore Peace Accords, the Manhattan Uprising, the tech purge in Stockholm—you brought peace when their empires were falling apart. They haven't forgotten.”
“I didn’t do it for memory,” Justin said. He took the card, pocketed it, and gestured for the rest to be taken away.
Tafari nodded, signaling the porters to leave.
The two men walked side by side out into the rising sun. A shiny black car was parked by the curb, elegant. Justin walked up to it but didn’t get in.
“She’s worse than I expected,” he said quietly.
Tafari didn’t ask who.
“She sees the world as a chessboard, but she never checks for blood on the pieces,” Justin added. “Everything is a strategy with her. No soul. Just fire and calculation.”
“Analia Fernsby built her empire by setting her heart aside,” Tafari said. “You knew that when you approached her.”
“I didn’t approach her,” Justin said.
Tafari arched an eyebrow.
“She stumbled into my night,” Justin went on. “Drugged by someone at the gala. I let her sleep. I could’ve left her on the floor and walked away.”
“And instead she left you,” Tafari finished.
Justin didn’t reply, i need something,” he said.
“Name it.”
“Aslan Twelvetrees.”
Tafari blinked. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in ten years.”
“He saved me once. Before Stockholm. Back when everything was fire and ruin. I owe him.”
Tafari bowed his head. “Any idea where to begin?”
“He just vanished after the Volstein incident. No one knows where he is, and there’s no digital trace of him. But if anyone can find him…”
“I can,” Tafari said.
Justin turned, finally meeting his eyes. “Discreetly.”
“Always.”
He nodded once. “I’ll be at the observatory estate, the old one, not the cliffside bribe. You’ll send updates?”
“Daily.”
“And Tafari—”
“Yes?”
“No press. If anyone prints my name next to Fernsby’s, I want the fallout buried before she even hears the whisper.”
A flicker of a grin passed Tafari’s lips. “It’s already buried.”
Justin opened the door and slid into the car. As the door shut and the engine purred to life, Tafari stayed where he was, watching the car disappear into the brightening city.
Only once it vanished did he reach for his earpiece.
“Start Phase One, find Twelvetrees. Don’t cause any trouble. Don’t wake any old problems.”
Then he disappeared, too.
- Writer
