Chapter 20
Twenty
The air went still, like the calm before a major storm. Nikos had felt this type of stillness numerous times before—right before a battle.
He stood in the center of the long gravel driveway, his boots planted wide, the rifle in his hands held low but ready. The black SUV approached with the slow, controlled crawl.
He tracked it with his eyes, narrowing them when the two men sitting in front came into view.
Intel poured through him. The driver: Average height. Mid-30s. European heritage. Buzz cut. White-knuckling the wheel like he didn’t want to be here.
Passenger: Older male, late 50s, early 60s. Caucasian. Calm. Formidable. Surveying the situation.
It wasn’t the driver that set Nikos’s instincts screaming. It was the man riding shotgun—the one sitting composed, like a spider who already knew where every thread of the web was spun.
“Got eyes on the SUV,” Nikos murmured into the comm. “Two men. The passenger’s triggering every warning bell I’ve got.”
RITA’s smooth, husky voice flowed through the earpiece like silk over steel.
“Passenger is Benoit Jeffries. Former military research scientist. Discharged—honorably, though barely—after an incident involving classified tech at a DARPA-affiliated black site in Nevada. He disappeared into the private sector under the name GenTech Solutions, a biotech think tank with too much funding and no oversight. They tried to recruit Cosmos. He declined. Strongly.”
Nikos’s eyes flicked back to the SUV as it rolled closer, gravel crunching beneath the tires like bones under pressure.
“When Cosmos attempted to expose and shut them down,” RITA continued, “Benoit erased everything—facilities, staff records, personnel, data trails. He went dark. Very dark. I’ve only just breached their firewall. My husband is retrieving information as we speak.”
Nikos muttered under his breath, “Would’ve been nice to know this a little earlier.”
“Their encryption rivals CRI’s. Until now, even I couldn’t crack it.”
That gave him pause.
If RITA couldn’t get in… until now… then they were facing someone who didn’t just play dirty, but played smart.
“Be careful, Nikos,” she added, her voice lower. “Benoit is dangerous. Brilliant. Obsessive. He believes what he’s doing is right—and that makes him lethal.”
Nikos didn’t need the warning.
He could already feel it.
The SUV rolled to a stop ten feet away.
For one second, it felt like the world held its breath.
Then, the passenger door opened.
A single polished boot hit the ground.
The man who emerged was dressed in black from head to toe—tailored coat, slacks, gloves, even his shirt collar was pressed with military precision. The outfit was sleek, expensive, and polished… not designed for camouflage. It was designed to send a message.
He wanted to be seen.
He wanted them to know he wasn’t afraid.
Benoit shut the door with a quiet click and began walking forward. The measured, controlled steps of a predator.
Nikos studied him in silence.
Lean. Fit. With power radiating from him in waves. Hair cut close to the skull, steel-gray at the temples. A face like a blade—clean-shaven, sharp-jawed, unreadable.
But it was the eyes that set Nikos on edge.
Cold. Calculating. Determined. There was not a flicker of hesitation in them.
Benoit’s lips curved into a sardonic smile, like they were old friends about to share a drink instead of opponents on the verge of war.
Nikos lifted his chin and called out, “You’ve moved close enough.”
Benoit stopped without missing a beat. He raised an eyebrow, like he had expected the command and only paused to be polite. He held his black-gloved hands out to his side and bowed his head in acknowledgement.
Nikos’s gaze slid toward the driver still seated behind the wheel.
“If he so much as twitches,” Nikos warned in an icy voice, raising the rifle slightly, “you’ll both be corpses before you hit the ground.”
Benoit’s eyes didn’t flicker. Didn’t waver.
Instead, they passed over Nikos’s shoulder… to the cabin behind him.
To her.
“Kiki,” he murmured, almost reverently.
A shiver of something unnatural passed through the air. The temperature didn’t change. The wind didn’t shift.
But Nikos felt it, like pressure building behind glass. He swore he could feel the crackle of ozone before a lightning strike.
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. But Benoit knew. The bastard’s gaze sharpened.
That slight tilt of the head, that flicker of a smile. He’d sensed the reaction. Nikos’s pulse thudded once in warning.
There was an unnatural look in the man’s eyes. His expression darkened, just a fraction.
Possessive.
Triumphant.
As if her name wasn’t just a memory on his tongue—but a claim. A command for her to come to him.
Nikos’s jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed. Slowly, deliberately, he raised the rifle—this time directly at Benoit’s chest.
“Say her name again,” he growled, his voice like gravel over stone, “and I will put a bullet between your eyes.”
The smile Benoit offered now was a fraction too wide. A fraction too confident. As if he’d already played the first move in a game the others didn’t know had started.
Kiki felt when the air shifted.
It was barely perceptible, a breath sucked from the room before a scream. That breath felt like it was hers.
A cold thread coiled down her spine… not physical, but psychic. Sharp. Familiar. Poisonous.
Her hands braced against the wall of the safe room. Her breath caught in her throat as the ripple passed through her.
Benoit.
The moment he spoke her name, it tore through her like a blade made of memory.
Pain bloomed behind her eyes.
There was physical pain, but it was minor compared to the mental intrusion. A floodgate of memories hit hard. Memories of needles and restraints, of rooms with no corners, of voices behind glass saying her name like it was an equation, not a person.
Kiki, you mustn’t fight. It will only hurt if you do.
Kiki, try harder. If you don’t, others will be hurt.
You must never resist, Kiki. You are the future of humanity, and I am your creator. You must never turn on your creator. You understand that, don’t you, Kiki?
The echo of Benoit’s voice back then—smooth, assured, laced with smug authority, a compulsion that she didn’t know how to fight as he overwhelmed her senses.
A tsunami of emotion sank into her thoughts like oil in water.
Slick. Pervasive. Designed to crawl under her skin and unravel her from the inside out.
Her knees buckled. She twisted and slid down the wall to the floor. The cement under her was surprisingly warm. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes as she forced herself to breathe.
No, I will not allow him to enter!
She slammed the door shut on the memories. Never again. She shoved back with cool precision, forcing him out of her head like expelling rot from a wound.
“He’s trying to get inside my head,” she murmured, her voice hoarse.
Cosmos’s voice came from the other side of the room, urgent and clipped. “RITA, keep the guys updated while I help Kiki.”
A moment later, Kiki felt Cosmos’s warm hands running up and down along her arms. His voice was low, urgent. She forced her eyes open.
“Can you fight him?” Cosmos asked, continuing the soothing motion.
“Yes,” she answered with a curt nod.
“We have multiple heat signatures,” RITA replied coolly. “Twenty-two confirmed. Approaching from north, west, and southeast. They are moving through the forest. I’ve disabled three surveillance drones. They are spreading out.”
Kiki barely heard them as she turned her focus to Nikos.
Normally, she would have closed herself off to protect herself. She did the opposite this time.
She opened her senses, spreading them outward.
Her mind reached for Nikos, not with words, not with power, but with the calm, comforting connection she got when she was with him.
A tether of golden warmth sparked in her chest and extended outward like a thread through the dark.
The mere thought of him being in danger unleashed a torrent of untamed, intense, and volatile emotions within her.
Tension vibrated down the bond between them.
She sensed the tension in his muscles, his intense stare, and the clear understanding that he was facing an enemy who wasn't there to compromise, but to triumph.
She could feel Benoit’s presence too. He was probing. Testing Nikos’s mental defenses the way he’d always tested hers.
Trying to see if there was a way in.
Her lips curled back in a snarl.
Not him. You don’t get him.
“Kiki?” Cosmos murmured, his gaze turning wary.
“He’ll never hurt anyone I love again,” she hissed, her eyes darkening like storm clouds gathering.
She twisted onto one knee, her palms pressed flat to the padded floor, and focused harder. Her breath came in tight, controlled bursts.
“I see what you’re doing,” she whispered to the void, to the man who had tormented her. “But you’ve already lost.” She looked back at Cosmos. “He wants to spread us out. There are twenty-eight, plus ten armored quadcopters.”
RITA’s voice cut in again, sharp and urgent now. “The heat signatures to the west are moving at a rapid speed. Two more have broken off in a circle maneuver. Frontline group is approaching the perimeter of the property. It looks like they are sending in a group via the lake. We’re surrounded.”
Cosmos swore. “Benoit’s using some kind of psychic pressure. They want to split her attention.”
Kiki’s hands trembled.
That’s exactly what he wanted.
To overwhelm her.
To fracture her focus.
Because he knew she couldn’t shield Nikos, defend the others, and fight a psychic assault from multiple fronts at the same time.
He’d always understood the math of her—how far he could push before she cracked.
But Benoit didn’t understand an important, vital element.
She wasn’t that little girl in the white room anymore.
She wasn’t a weapon waiting to be fired.
She was a woman who loved.
And that changed everything.