Chapter 22 – Cyril
I stare at the map like it’s mocking me. Digital blueprints glow across the screen, lines and red blinking dots marking every entrance, every exit, every goddamn trap. It’s a fucking fortress, just one that happens to have my son locked inside.
Aldo stands to my left, hunched and jittery. His fingers tap commands into the keyboard like his life depends on it.
“Laser-triggered sensors,” he mutters, pointing at the red nodes. “Modified with silent relay signals. If we break any threshold, it pings a signal, straight to a burner phone we can’t trace.”
Alvise mutters a curse under his breath and slams a fist into the side of the van. “So, we storm in, we get a bullet in Kai’s head.”
My baby boy.
I clench my jaw until it aches, staring at the screen. I can see him. Ren. Somewhere in that cold, steel-lined hellhole. Terrified. Alone. Wondering where his father is. Wondering why I haven’t come for him yet.
Gael, pacing near the back door of the van, crosses his arms. “There’s no way around it. If we want in, someone has to give us the code.”
I feel like I’m going to suffocate if I have to spend another minute in this surveillance van, knowing my son is at the mercy of a psychopath.
Aldo curses under his breath. He doesn’t look at me when he says it.
“There is one person. The original owner. The one who installed the system before it was ever sold off. Daiki Tsukasa.”
The world slips from under my feet.
Of course.
Outside, the wind howls down Roosevelt Avenue like a warning.
I step out of the van. The wind hits me in the chest, but I welcome it. I need to feel something other than the guilt that is eating me alive.
I pull out the burner phone I keep for ghosts and mistakes. The one I swore I’d never use again. But right now, I don’t care. I dial the number.
It rings. Once. Twice. Three times.
“You have some nerve.”
Daiki’s voice is still full of acid and legacy. The sound of old scars.
“I don’t have time for pride,” I snap.
“You lost that when you lost my daughter.”
“And you’re about to lose your grandson.”
Silence. I hear the wind shift on his end. A long inhale. The crackle of fire, maybe. Or old bones turning in a chair.
“They took Ren, Daiki.”
Another beat.
Then the wind howls like a scream between us.
“Where?”
“Roosevelt Avenue. One of your old lockdown buildings. The Fiores are using it.”
He pauses, his eyes communicating what his mouth is struggling to.
“I built those fail-safes for enemies. Not my grandson.”
I look up at the building across the street. The place where my son waits.
“Then help me prove we’re still family.”
Daiki’s penthouse smells like money and ghosts. Polished mahogany, expensive scotch, and the kind of old regret that seeps into the carpet after enough years of pretending you’re above the pain. The elevator doors open directly into the suite, with no ding or warning; it’s just the quiet and the strain of the war I’ve put on hold.
The ride up felt like a fucking eternity. I sat with Enya beside me, her fingers tangled in mine, silent the whole time. I didn’t say a word either. What was there to say? That I’m scared? That I feel like my ribcage is collapsing every second we waste not getting Ren back? That I’m barely holding it together because the image of him crying in some obscured corner while those Fiore pricks breathe near him is slowly killing me?
No. There’s no space for weakness now.
This is my fight. My war. Alvise floated the idea of calling in the cops, maybe putting some pressure on the Fiores through the legal system, getting a warrant, some snipers, whatever the hell. But the second that badge flashes, the second the sirens sound, they’ll know. They’ll panic. And panicked men with guns and a hostage? That ends one way. Ren’s too small, too soft, too goddamn good for that kind of gamble.
No. This is on me.
Daiki’s standing at the far end of the room when we step inside. For a second, I can’t fucking believe it’s him. The man looks like he’s aged ten years in four. His frame’s still straight, still dressed in that tailored dark suit like he owns the goddamn world, but the sharp edge is dulled. The silver in his hair has spread like wildfire, and his shoulders are no longer straight with power. They’re slumped with loneliness. Maybe even regret. The kind that sinks in deep when you choose to bury yourself with your grief.
He chose this. The isolation. The ghost house dressed in mahogany and scotch.
But even now, after everything, his eyes are still like frostbite, cold enough to stop your blood, sharp enough to cut through anything soft that tries to survive around him.
He doesn’t say a word as we approach. Just stares.
At me. Like I’m a rotting scar that keeps opening back up.
“You think I’ve forgotten?” His voice is rough. Soft, but edged like a blade. “The blood on the floor? My daughter in a box?”
“You think I haven’t paid for that every goddamn day?”
His eyes flick to Enya. She’s pale, silent, clutching the locket she always wears like it’s the only thing keeping her together. I feel her hand tighten in mine.
“And you,” Daiki says. “Are you the new one? The nanny who fell for the killer?”
Of course, he knows about her. I’m not even surprised. Daiki’s always had eyes in every corner, even now, even after all these years playing dead to the world. Especially when it concerns Ren. He’s never met the kid, never asked to. But I’d bet my last breath he’s kept tabs on him from a distance. Because even if he hated me, even if he buried Sora and swore to bury me with her, Ren’s still blood. And Daiki never ignores blood.
I step forward before Enya can say anything. My fists clench. “Enough.”
There’s a pause. A heartbeat where the room stands still.
Then, Daiki turns away, walks toward a carved wooden desk with the gravity of a man who’s lived too long.
“You want the codes?” he says without looking back. “I’ll give them. But this debt isn’t paid.”
He opens a drawer and pulls out an old leather-bound book, worn and cracked along the spine. It’s ancient, like the secrets you bury in a tomb. He lays it open on the desk and flips to a page near the center.
“Five digits. A signature pattern sequence. You’ll need my voiceprint to activate them. It won’t open otherwise.”
He pulls a thin black flash drive from a hidden compartment in the desk and hands it over. I take it wordlessly.
“Bring him home, Cyril,” Daiki murmurs, eyes suddenly hollow. “Bring my grandson home.”
As we exit, I don’t look back or say goodbye.
This isn’t the time for pleasantries.
The elevator is taking too fucking long. Enya doesn’t let go of my hand the entire way down, which is the only thing keeping me together.
As the elevator doors open, the team’s moving like a goddamn machine. We make our way back to the building in silence. Alvise barks orders, Gael’s loading weapons, and Aldo’s already jacked into the uplink panel, fingers flying like he’s playing a piano made of wire and voltage. The flash drive plugs into the port with a soft click, and the screen lights up with a dozen red bars.
Red. Red. Red.
Then, slowly, one by one, green.
Aldo lets out a breath like he’s been holding it for years. “We’re in. No alarms triggered. They don’t know we’re coming.”
I nod, already reaching for my vest. Enya steps toward me. I turn to her.
“You stay here….”
“No.”
Her voice is strong. Clear. Not a trace of the girl who showed up at my estate months ago, unsure and trembling. She’s different now. Hardened. Scorched by the fire of everything we’ve been through. And fuck if that doesn’t scare me more than anything else.
“I’m going in. Ren needs me. You know that.”
I don’t argue because there’s a part of me that’s grateful for her presence.
I reach for her wrist, grip it tight.
“Stay by my side. No matter what happens. You do not leave my shadow.”
She nods. “I won’t.”
The doors open. Freezing rain greets us like a curse, but I don’t feel it because my blood is boiling.
We cross the street like phantoms. Black vests, weapons drawn, boots silent on wet pavement. The building looms ahead, almost oppressive with blank windows, the kind of place built to keep things in.
My son is in there.
And I am coming for him.
The building feels like a sealed tomb. Thanks to the ancient ventilation system, every breath is laborious.
The hallways stretch ahead, narrow and lit by dull emergency lights. Wires thrum beneath the walls. Somewhere, someone’s watching cameras that just went blind.
I raise my gun.
My heart isn’t pounding with fear.
It’s fucking rage.
I am coming for my son.
And I will not leave without him.
Behind me, Enya breathes in once and steps inside with me.