Chapter Seven #3
Until it was just—
Keanu. Rangi. And the steady, quiet sound of Alexios breathing in the back room.
Rangi looked across the bus to where Keanu stood leaning against the counter opposite him. “You left. Six years ago, you just up and left.”
Keanu nodded. “I did, but not by choice.”
Rangi tilted his head to the side. “Yeah, I figured that much, but you never came back.”
Keanu exhaled. “You had each other.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Rangi stilled. Turned.
Keanu met his gaze.
“He’s solid,” Keanu said, quieter now. “You work well together.”
“He is, and we do, but I am not sure what you are trying to say.”
Something tightened in Keanu’s chest. “I wasn’t going to get in the way of that.”
“In the way of what?”
Keanu held his gaze. “You and Alexios.”
Understanding hit. “That’s why you never came back?”
Keanu didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
Rangi exhaled slowly, something shifting in his expression—frustration giving way to something sharper. Clearer.
“You’re attracted to him,” he said.
Keanu went still. That was all the confirmation needed.
Rangi huffed a quiet, incredulous sound. “You thought he wouldn’t want you there?”
“No.”
Rangi stepped closer.
Close enough that the space between them disappeared.
“You really don’t understand him at all,” he said softly.
Keanu frowned. “Understand what?”
Rangi held his gaze. “You’d be surprised what Alexios wants.”
The words settled deep.
Then—
Rangi moved.
Caught the front of Keanu’s shirt. Pulled him in.
And kissed him.
Not tentative. Not hesitant. Certain.
Keanu froze—just for a heartbeat—then responded.
And everything shifted. The air. The space. The rules he’d been living by. Gone. Burned out in the space between them.
When Rangi pulled back, his gaze steady, voice low—
“I had to make sure you wanted me, too,” he said, “And next time you get these fucking ridiculous thoughts, you don’t decide that for us.”
No anger. Just truth. And something far more dangerous.
Expectation.
****
The room was silent in the way only expensive places could be.
Sound didn’t disappear here—it was absorbed. Contained. Managed.
Floor-to-ceiling glass stretched along one wall, overlooking the black sweep of ocean far below. The waves moved in slow, deliberate patterns, silvered by moonlight, endless and indifferent. It should have been calming.
It wasn’t.
Not here.
Not with them.
Three men sat around the table. No names were spoken. They didn’t need them. Power didn’t announce itself. It simply existed.
“They survived,” the first man said.
His voice was smooth, measured, carrying no hint of surprise—only mild irritation, like a variable that had refused to behave as expected.
The second man leaned back slightly, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “Not all of them,” he corrected. “But enough to be inconvenient.”
“Inconvenient,” the third repeated, softer. Thoughtful.
His gaze rested on the tablet in front of him, where grainy surveillance stills flickered across the screen.
Drivers.
Cars.
Moments captured just before disappearance. And now—something new. He tapped the screen once.
The image froze.
A car bursting through a structure. Black. Low. Flames along the base.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
The first man’s attention sharpened. “You know him?”
“No,” the third replied calmly. “But I know what he represents.”
“Which is?”
The third man smiled faintly. “A disruption.”
The word settled into the room like something dangerous.
The second man exhaled slowly. “We accounted for interference.”
“Not like this,” the third said.
He swiped the screen. New images appeared. Data overlays. Movement patterns. Timing.
Efficiency.
“He didn’t just extract them,” the third continued. “He dismantled the site. Precision strikes. Controlled destruction. Minimal exposure.”
A beat.
Then—“Military.” The first man’s expression hardened slightly. “Or trained by someone who is.”
“Either way,” the second added, “he’s a problem.”
The third man tilted his head, considering. “Not yet.”
That drew both of their attention.
“Not yet?” the first repeated.
“No,” the third said, almost idly. “Because we don’t know if he’s reacting... or if he’s already part of something larger.”
Silence followed that.
The kind of silence where decisions began forming.
The second man leaned forward slightly. “The drivers are still viable?”
The third’s gaze flicked back to the screen, to the images of those who had been taken.
“Some,” he said. “The rest...”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. They all knew what happened to the rest.
“Acceleration phase?” the first asked.
The third considered that.
Then nodded once.
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No doubt. Only inevitability.
“Then we move forward,” the second said quietly. “Faster.”
“Agreed.”
The third man tapped the screen again. The image of the car filled the display. Black. Flames. Unmistakable.
“Find him,” he said. “Before he finds us.”
Outside, the ocean continued its endless rhythm.
Unaware.
Unmoved.
But inside that room—
Something had shifted.
And whatever came next...
Would burn.