Chapter 10 Briar #2
I can hear the smile in his voice. Landon glances at me, then at the phone, his brow furrowed.
“Did you call to gloat, or are you running a side hustle now?” I ask, my own voice dead flat.
“Neither. You know the game. You’re burned. Your only shot is to run west until you find water, then pray you’re better at hiding than at staying in The Silent’s good graces.”
He’s not wrong, but he never is.
I wait for the hook.
“I have a jet waiting,” Brooks says, “Private airstrip, forty minutes. No questions asked. Get on board. I have a property in the Alps. Completely off-grid, as long as you don’t mind the cold and the dog.”
Landon mouths “what?” but I ignore him, keeping my voice calm.
“And in return?”
Brooks laughs, long and low. “Just a favor. Someday.”
“No such thing as someday with you. Spell it out.”
He sobers. “When I ask, you answer. No matter where, no matter what. One favor, no limit. And you get to keep your life and your little toy. Agreed?”
My mouth tastes like copper. But the alternative is worse.
“Send the coordinates,” I say, then end the call before he can crow.
Landon’s staring at me, eyes wild. “You’re taking a deal from Bentley Brooks? He’s fucking psycho. Even I know that! His father is the only person in history who ever managed to pull off the level of treason he did without losing his head for it!”
I shake my head. “That’s the price of power. I don’t like it either, but he’s the only one who doesn’t lose if we stay alive. We go back to childhood. He’s insane, but he’s solid.”
I sigh and head out into the forest, towards where my off-road Jeep is hiding under a specially made camouflage. I pull it off and start the car, throwing the bags in the bag before getting in.
The map lights up, an impossible route through old logging roads and a switchback highway. I watch the woods as we drive, every shadow a threat, every light a promise of violence.
As we pull out onto the main road, I look back at the house. In the rearview, it’s just a shape in the darkness. Gone, like everything else I ever cared about.
But Landon’s next to me, alive, stubborn, scared, and not giving up.
That’s new.
That’s worth running for.
We drive into the black, headlights slicing the trees, the whole world falling away behind us.
I think of Brooks, of the favor he’ll call in, and I don’t let the fear reach my face.
The only way to survive now is to keep moving.
I floor the gas, and we vanish into the night.
We make the airstrip with five minutes to spare, pushing the Jeep until the engine screams. No one follows, not at first, but the sense of being watched clings to my neck like a brand.
Brooks' people are waiting: two men in tailored black, hands empty, faces forgettable.
The jet is a sleek, low-slung bullet of matte silver, already fueling.
I walk Landon up the steps, keeping the duffel slung over my good arm.
Inside, it's all minimalist luxury: white leather, champagne on ice, screens tucked into every surface.
We don't sit; we move straight to the rear, to a cubicle set up as an office, shades pulled.
I lock the door, drop the bag, and check the clock. We have ten minutes before wheels up.
I press my hand flat to the panel above the workspace. The false back drops open with a whir, and there's the secure terminal: retro keyboard, no mouse, screen in dead black. I flick it on, my password a sequence of violence—numbers and symbols, a history written in blood.
The blue light paints the room, catching the sweat on my skin and the haunted, exhausted look on Landon's face as he sits across from me. He doesn't ask what I'm doing, not at first. He just watches, arms crossed, his eyes never blinking.
I know the path through the system by heart. Layers of security—biometrics, codes that rewrite themselves if you hesitate. I don't hesitate. I'm the one who designed half of this, and the other half is a joke for people who think rules will save them.
The Silent's mainframe is a living organism, always adapting, always hungry for new data. I slice through the walls, reach the core: Personnel. Every name, every title, every asset and liability. Most people never know they're in the database until they're dead or worse. Some don't know even then.
I exhale, fingers over the keys, then open the next shell: House Ownership. It's an old tool, used for the trade in people more than the trade in things. A single change here, and you can reroute the entire apparatus of surveillance, of violence, of death.
"What are you doing?" Landon asks. Not soft. Not scared. Just curious, like always.
I don't look up. "Last ditch attempt to stop this madness."
He leans in, eyes sharp in the blue light. "Is this about me, or about you?"
I smile, tight, as the cursor blinks. "Does it matter?"
He considers, then shakes his head. "No."
I enter the code. Asset Transfer. The screen blinks twice, then loads a confirmation window. I key in my own ID, the bloodline override, and reroute every threat attached to Landon's name straight to my own.
Asset Status: HARRINGTON.
There it is. In black and white, and in every network from here to the bottom of hell: Landon Thompson, property of House Harrington, under exclusive protection and jurisdiction.
The change will propagate in under ten minutes.
Maybe five. The Director will see it, and will know what I've done.
It won't stop the hunt, but it means The Silent need to be much more cautious in their pursuit of us. Dispatching us will go against the very thing the entire operation is founded on. Power of the Custodians working together. Having each other’s backs.
Killing him is no longer just tidying up.
It's a war crime, a slap in the face of centuries of politics.
It's the most reckless thing I've ever done.
I stare at the screen, letting it sink in. The air in the cubicle is thin, the light harsh. Landon watches, then looks at me, like he's seeing past my skin for the first time.
"Why?" he asks.
I close the terminal, locking it with a palm print. "Because I want you alive."
He shakes his head, almost laughing, like he doesn't know what to do with the answer. "You realize this makes you the most wanted man in the city, right? You transferred my blood debt to yourself."
I nod. "I was already. Now it's just official."
There's a silence. Not awkward, not charged. Just silence.
He leans back in the chair, stretching, the Glock still tucked in his waistband. The color is coming back to his face, and the dark under his eyes is less about fear now than about exhaustion.
"You're insane," he says, but not with malice.
I don't answer. I get up, move to the compartment, and drag out a first aid kit. My own wounds are starting to seep through the gauze, and the stitches burn as I twist. I peel the bandage, clean the edges, and watch Landon as he sits there, waiting, not fidgeting, not running.
It's the first time in years I've done something just because I wanted to. Not because it was the best move, or the right play, or what the House required.
I protected someone that I wanted to save. A foreign feeling, but the truest I’ve ever had.
I finish the wrap, toss the bloody gauze, and sit down across from him again. The terminal glows in the background, a heartbeat in the dark.
"We'll land in Geneva," I say. "From there, we have to get to the chalet. Brooks will send coordinates of his house, and try throw them off our track. He can’t collect on a favor if I’m dead."
He nods, absorbing. "What happens if he fails?"
I look at my hands. They shake, just a little. "That's when the real teams come."
He smiles, slow. "What are the odds?"
I grin, for real this time. "One in a thousand."
He cocks his head. "That good?"
I laugh, the sound raw in my throat. "I've made worse bets."
He stands, comes around the desk, and for a second I think he's going to hug me or hit me or both. Instead, he leans in, close enough I can feel his breath on my jaw.
"Next time you do something stupid, like switch places with me on some shady ass corporations hit list," he murmurs, "warn me first."
I nod. "Deal."
He backs away, sits on the edge of the desk, and closes his eyes. The exhaustion hits him all at once, and he's asleep in under a minute, arms folded across his chest, feet propped on the file cabinet.
I watch him for a while. The way his breathing evens out, the way his lips part just a little. The urge to reach out and touch him, just to prove he's real, is almost unbearable.
But I don't.
Instead, I pull up the terminal again, check the status.
Asset Status: HARRINGTON. Confirmed. The system is already rewriting protocols, flagging every message with a high-priority alert. They know what I've done, and there's no going back.
For the first time in my life, I've done something I can't undo. Not for the House, not for the cause, but for myself.
For him.
The jet shudders as it takes off. I look out the window, watch the world fall away beneath us.
This isn't strategy anymore.
It's something else.
Something I can't name for fear that naming it will break the illusion that he’s mine.
And it scares me more than The Silent ever could.