COLD

Chapter 10

11:34 AM.

They arrived back at the facility under a bruising sky heavy with fresh snow. Waiting in the courtyard like a final judgment was a black, sleek SUV, its engine idling with a low, menacing purr.

It was not there for Stephan.

The rear door clicked open, and Hallfred stepped out into the freezing air. His arms were clasped rigidly behind his back, his stare cold and calculated. Hildegard moved toward him, her steps slowing as her crystalline blue eyes glimmered with hesitant questions. Had her father finally reconsidered? Was this true freedom, or simply a transfer to another cage?

Without a word, Hallfred gestured toward the open door—a silent, absolute command. She obeyed, her shoulders sinking into melancholy as the heavy weight of uncertainty pressed against her chest.

Before closing the door, Hallfred turned his frigid gaze to Stephan. “Your presence is no longer needed, Mr. Hellinghammer,” he said, his voice entirely unshaken by the younger man’s flat, piercing stare. “Expect the remaining balance of your payment wired by morning. Consider this the last time we will ever see your face.”

Stephan stood motionless, the biting wind whipping at his exposed skin. Every ounce of his professional protocol demanded absolute acceptance. The contract was fulfilled. The money was waiting. The job was done.

Yet something inside him—small, restless, and burning like a hidden furnace—refused to stay silent.

He had seen Hildegard under a real sky for the very first time. He had watched the fierce, vibrant light in her eyes when she smiled at the northern lights, breaking through her isolated shell. Releasing her back into that sterile captivity felt like extinguishing the only genuine warmth he had encountered since waking up in this engineered body.

Hallfred’s expression remained entirely void of humanity. He looked past Stephan, addressing the girl. “Miss Linchsteyn. We return to Whalsburger. Your sentence has been dropped.”

Hildegard paused halfway into the vehicle. Defying the heavy silence, she turned back. Her light blue eyes locked onto Stephan’s steel-grey ones. For a fragile moment, the engineered cold inside the handler cracked even further.

“Don’t you see, Mr. Ahdelsen?” she protested softly, stepping back out into the swirling snow. “He protected me. He gave me those hours of life.”

“I see it clearly,” Hallfred replied, his tone composed, clinical, and final. “It is rather unfortunate that he chose compassion over the contract. But that emotional burden is his to carry now.”

With a heavy thud, Hallfred closed the door, sealing her away. The SUV’s powerful engine hummed to life, kicking up a cloud of white exhaust.

Stephan remained rooted in the deepening snow as the vehicle pulled away. For one final, agonizing second, Hildegard’s pale face was visible through the tinted glass—a tragic mix of profound gratitude and quiet sorrow.

The oppressive winter cold settled back over him, heavier and sharper than before. He had released her from the immediate cage of the facility, but in doing so, he had stepped entirely outside the psychological cage built for him.

He returned inside the empty facility, the silence now deafening. The documents Rheinhard had given him felt impossibly heavy in his hands. He spread them out across the metallic desk. Those photographs—the ageless mother, the mysterious man who bore absolutely no resemblance to Rheinhard, and the colossal pyramid swallowed by primordial ice—burned directly into his mind. The terrifying questions about Hildegard’s mother and the engineered uniformity of this entire world refused to stay buried. The furnace in his chest flickered, low, restless, and hungry for truth.

Suddenly, a rhythmic vibration hummed through the floorboards.

His instincts sharpened instantly. Stephan glanced up at the security monitors. Cutting through the blinding whiteout with mechanical precision, a convoy of several black, sleek SUVs was rapidly approaching the facility.

Stephan’s grey eyes narrowed into slits. He didn't hide. Instead, he tucked the documents into his tactical coat and stepped back outside into the freezing courtyard to meet them.

The vehicles screeched to a halt, forming a menacing semi-circle. From the lead SUV, a man stepped out and removed his dark shades. He was younger than the others, perhaps in his late twenties, sporting low-cropped hair and a face that wore a mask of perfect, synthetic composure.

“Vyncent Evardsen,” the young leader introduced himself, his voice dripping with icy arrogance. “Mr. Linchsteyn informed us that someone has been crossing his lines.”

Stephan calmly scanned the men deploying around him. Every single one was hidden behind dark shades, their hands gripping military-grade assault rifles. Though he was not taller than most of them, he stood completely unfazed by their lethal profile. Yet beneath his broad frame, the familiar, haunting dissonance stirred once more—the nagging conviction that he did not truly belong to this world.

“I was contracted to protect the girl,” Stephan replied, his voice terrifyingly flat and measured. “Nothing more. I did my job.”

Vyncent smirked, a cruel, precise curl of his lips. “You were reported for breaching the agreement. Asking forbidden questions. Digging where you should not have been digging.”

Stephan’s right fist clenched slowly at his side, his knuckles turning white. The weight of the hidden documents pressed against his ribs. “I asked only what was necessary to fulfill the safety of the contract.”

In a fraction of a second, Vyncent snapped his hand down, drawing his pistol.

Stephan moved faster.

He closed the distance in a blur of terrifying, engineered precision. Before Vyncent could even register the movement, Stephan snatched the weapon directly from his grip, twisting his wrist and driving a brutal, controlled strike into his forearm. The sharp crack of bone echoed through the courtyard.

The remaining guards instantly raised their rifles, but Stephan was already moving among them like a ghost in the snow. He weaponized their own momentum, disarming them with ruthless efficiency. He systematically broke arms, shattered spines, and snapped legs with clinical, terrifying force. He did not kill a single one of them. Instead, he left them completely neutralized—paralyzed, bleeding, and alive. It was a calculated message, not a mindless m******e.

Spinning on his heel, Stephan pressed the recovered pistol firmly against Vyncent’s throbbing temple. His grey eyes were dead, cold, and entirely unyielding.

“Who reported me?” he demanded, his voice dropping to a low, lethal whisper.

Vyncent, his face pale and gasping through the agony of his broken arm, looked up into the eyes of a predator. His composure completely shattered. “Xander!” he choked out. “Xander informed Rheinhard about your questions regarding Hildegard’s mother. The patriarch did not appreciate your curiosity. We were only sent to frighten you away from the search! Nothing more, I swear!”

Stephan’s grip on the pistol tightened for a fraction of a second. The furnace inside him burned hotter—not with reckless rage, but with a cold, clarifying anger. Xander—the very man who had rebuilt his broken body and given him a second life—had betrayed him to Rheinhard.

Slowly, Stephan lowered the pistol.

“Watch your back,” Stephan warned, his voice low, steady, and vibrating with an unspoken promise.

He grabbed his tactical backpack, turned his back on the groaning men, and climbed into the driver's seat of one of their idling SUVs. Slamming the vehicle into gear, he sped out of the courtyard, disappearing directly into the raging whiteout.

In the rearview mirror, the snow quickly swallowed the facility, making the world of rigid contracts and engineered perfection grow smaller and smaller. The path ahead was completely blind, but the questions remained.

And the furnace in his chest, for the very first time, absolutely refused to be extinguished.