Chapter 38
Lucien’s Favorite Weapon
Mira
Summit didn’t look like a command center. It looked like something out of hell.
Old shipping cranes angled rusted shapes over the harbor waters while spotlight bars sliced angles of white light into the rain just outside of the thick windows that lined the building’s upper floors.
Below, amid waves of containers stationed around the perimeter, the loading bays had been repurposed as staging areas, bustling with personnel and gear, with personnel shuffling endlessly through the downpour.
It reeked of war.
Lucien stalked through it like he owned the place.
I remained quiet in another holding cell facing a portion of the docks. Lucien positioned himself near the windows behind me, hands tucked lazily behind his back as sheets of rain slapped up against the glass, vicious enough to tremble gently against the metal sills.
“You know what Sanctuary never realized?” he said smoothly.
I remained silent.
Lucien didn’t care if I answered most days. These chats weren’t interviews or negotiations like Syndicate wanted me to believe. They were lectures on philosophy adorned with subtle threats and manipulation.
“The world doesn’t create men like Aiden Vega,” he continued as if reading my response. “They’re forged through pain. Loneliness. Brutality. Instinct.” His gaze lingered on me for a moment. “I just happened to notice what everyone else overlooked in a wounded child.”
My insides churned violently at the thought, no matter how hard I fought against it. Young Aiden, angry and alone enough to outlive anything because being alive was the only option he had left.
He smirked softly at my reaction, as if he could read my neuroferences. “He was special from day one,” Lucien murmured. “Quick study. Detached emotionally. Scarred enough to do what weaker minds wouldn’t dare.”
“That doesn’t sound admirable.”
“It kept him surviving.”
His words cut through immediately.
Lucien paced forward slowly, coming to a stop beside the small table near where I was shackled in place beneath the humming overhead lights.
“People like to romanticize what’s moral because they’ve never known what it feels like to be utterly broken,” he whispered. “Aiden knew who he was at a young age.”
I forced my eyes to meet his despite wanting to look away from the chill that settled into his gaze. “Aiden isn’t who you raised him to be anymore.”
A hint of what could’ve been amusement danced across Lucien’s expression.
“No?” he prompted quietly.
The single syllable cut deeper than it should have.
If the ceiling sparked and said something was wrong, like I was waiting for, then I knew parts of Lucien lived on inside of Ghost, whether he liked it or not.
Pieces of him survived just as hard as Aiden did, stitched together through blood and punishing brutality.
Violent minds like Lucien weren’t easy to forget. The ghost of them stayed with you.
Lucien pressed a hand against the table slowly, his tone dropping an octave.
“Sanctuary loves to think they redeemed him,” he said.
“Elijah gave Aiden ambition. Maddox gave him loyalty. You gave him an attachment.” His eyes darkened fractionally.
“But none of that will change what he truly was beneath it all.”
Anger seared through my fatigue instantly. “You mean a monster?”
Lucien’s expression faded entirely at that. “No,” he replied gently. “I mean lethal.”
Silence stretched between us then, heavy as Lucien leaned forward in his chair with predatory calmness.
Unlike Silas, Lucien wasn’t playing mind games with me through Aiden anymore. What he said actually mattered. He truly believed Aiden belonged in chaos; that everything Sanctuary built with him from there on out was temporary lessons pressed upon him to make him seem ‘fixable’.
Lucien leaned forward again, tranquil and horrifying at the same time. “Aiden was made for violence,” he breathed. “Where he fights, he’s unbeatable. That’s where he doesn’t pretend to be someone you can save.”
Lightning struck through the windows behind him across the skyline of the harbor while distant alarms sounded somewhere within the bowels of Summit.
I frowned somewhere beneath exhaustion as I sat cuffed to that chair with war stirring outside of these doors.
Lucien didn’t want Aiden. Not really.
He wanted to know that no matter what Sanctuary thought they could do for Aiden, no one could save him from the person he became when Lucien molded him into something…well, lethal.
Lucien stayed near the window after that, watching the storm tear across the harbor while the Summit compound buzzed with movement below us.
Floodlights swept across stacked shipping containers and armed patrols moving through the rain, the entire structure tightening itself for the war Havoc was bringing straight toward it.
Then, almost casually, Lucien said, “Do you know how I found him?”
My pulse slowed instinctively. I stayed silent, but Lucien continued anyway.
“He was sixteen the first time I saw him fight.” A faint smile touched his mouth, distant and unsettling. “Skinny. Half-starved. Broke another boy’s jaw with his bare hands because somebody tried stealing food from him.”
My chest tightened painfully.
Jesus Christ.
Lucien finally turned away from the glass, calm eyes settling back onto me. “People like to pretend monsters appear fully formed,” he said quietly. “Truth is that the world builds them first.”
He crossed the room slowly while speaking. “Abandoned boys. Abused boys. Angry boys nobody bothers saving until they’re already dangerous enough to fear.”
He wasn’t only talking about Aiden.
I could practically see the pattern now with horrifying clarity.
Elijah was raised by a violent father who taught brutality before love.
Maddox survived chaos and instability until aggression became instinct.
Aiden learned survival through blood and abandonment before he was even old enough to understand what safety was supposed to feel like.
Lucien found broken boys and then sharpened them into weapons.
“You recruited children,” I said flatly.
“I recruited survivors.”
“No,” I snapped, exhaustion and fury finally burning together hot enough to crack through my restraint. “You exploited them.”
Lucien didn’t even flinch. “That distinction matters more to outsiders than it does to the boys themselves.”
I hated how calmly he said it. Like he genuinely believed what he did was necessary.
Lucien stopped directly in front of me again, voice quieter now. “Aiden adapted faster than any of them.” His eyes sharpened slightly with something dangerously close to admiration. “Pain never slowed him down. It focused him.”
My stomach turned. Not because I couldn’t believe it, but because I could. I’d seen what Aiden became when pushed far enough.
Lucien folded his hands loosely behind his back again. “Elijah always resisted structure,” he continued. “Too much conscience buried underneath the rage.” Another faint smile. “Maddox was easier. Violence came naturally to him once someone permitted him to stop pretending otherwise.”
The descriptions sounded horrifyingly intimate.
Possessive.
Like Lucien still mentally categorized them as his creations even after all these years.
“But Aiden?” Lucien murmured. “He understood me.”
Cold settled heavily in my chest.
There it was. The obsession underneath all of this. Lucien’s resentment wasn’t only about Sanctuary opposing Syndicate. It was personal.
“Elijah and Maddox took him from you,” I realized quietly.
For the first time since this started, real emotion flickered visibly across Lucien’s face. Not rage … bitterness.
“They diluted him,” he said calmly, though the tightness underneath the words gave him away. “Aiden was extraordinary before Sanctuary convinced him that attachment mattered more than efficiency.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You mean before he became human again?”
Lucien’s eyes hardened instantly. “No,” he replied softly. “Before they convinced him weakness was virtue.”
Outside the room, another distant explosion echoed somewhere across the harbor—closer this time.
And suddenly I understood something terrifying.
Lucien didn’t hate Sanctuary because it challenged Syndicate. He hated Sanctuary because Elijah and Maddox proved that Aiden could become something Lucien could not control.
Lucien’s expression hardened at my defiance, the mask of philosophical calm slipped to reveal something colder beneath. “Humanity is a liability,” he stated, his voice losing its smooth quality. “And liabilities get people killed.”
The door opened without a knock. Silas entered with that predatory grace that made my skin crawl. He carried a metal case and set it on the table with a deliberate thud that echoed through the room. The sound alone made my muscles tense against the restraints.
“Proving your point?” I asked, my voice rougher than I intended.
Lucien smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Just exploring what makes Aiden’s little attachment so... resilient.”
Silas opened the case. Inside lay an array of instruments that gleamed under the harsh overhead lights—none of them designed for healing. He selected a thin silver rod with a bulbous end and connected it to a small power source that hummed to life with an ominous whine.
“Sanctuary taught him weakness,” Lucien continued conversationally as Silas approached. “They taught him to care about things that can be broken.”
The first touch of the rod against my forearm sent electricity through me, sharp and blinding. My body arched against the restraints, teeth grinding together to swallow the scream building in my throat. Rain lashed against the windows like nature itself was trying to break through to reach us.
“Interesting,” Lucien observed, tilting his head. “Most people beg by now.”
“Go to hell,” I managed through clenched teeth, sweat already beading on my forehead.
Silas pressed the rod against my shoulder, holding it there as the current seared through muscle and nerve. The room swam in and out of focus, my vision blurring at the edges. I focused on the sound of rain, on the distant alarms, on anything except the pain.
“Aiden chose his attachment well,” Lucien noted, almost approvingly. “There’s a fire in you he recognized.”
The electricity stopped abruptly, leaving me gasping for breath. Silas moved to my other side, selecting something different from his case—a curved blade that caught the light as he turned it over in his hands.
“Tell me about Aiden,” Lucien demanded, his tone shifting. “What does he dream about now? What fears keep him awake at night?”
I laughed, though it came out as a pained cough. “He dreams about killing you.”
The blade traced patterns on my skin without breaking it—yet. A cold promise of what was to come. “He’s always been predictable in that way,” Lucien mused. “But the rest? The parts Sanctuary rewired? That’s what interests me.”
Silas finally pressed the blade’s point against my collarbone, drawing a thin line of blood that welled up and trickled down my chest. I didn’t flinch. Wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Lucien leaned closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “What did you do to him? How did you make him choose you over everything he was taught to be?”
I met his gaze directly, despite the exhaustion weighing me down, despite the pain still radiating through my body. “I didn’t make him do anything. I just loved the parts of him you tried to destroy.”
The raw honesty in my answer caught Lucien off guard. For a moment, something flickered in his eyes—surprise, perhaps even grudging respect.
Outside, another explosion rocked the building, closer this time. The lights flickered.
Lucien straightened up slowly, his gaze never leaving mine. “Continue,” he said to Silas, but his attention was elsewhere now. “I want to understand what makes someone worth risking everything for.”
As Silas worked, Lucien watched me with increasing fascination, as if I were a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.
Each time I refused to scream, each time I defied them with words instead of whimpers, his interest grew.
He wasn’t just torturing me anymore—he was studying me, trying to understand what about a broken girl from the ruins could captivate his perfect weapon.
And in his eyes, I saw the terrifying truth: Lucien wasn’t just trying to break me. He was trying to understand why Aiden wouldn’t.
They left me alone, likely thinking exhaustion would keep me compliant. Instead, I listened. I overheard two guards arguing about movement schedules as alarms pulsed beneath us.
“Summit locks down in under two hours.”
“Then Ghost is already too close.”
My blood ran cold. Two hours. The explosions outside suddenly made sense; Havoc was charging straight into a kill zone where Lucien and Silas waited.
Panic clawed at my throat. Aiden was coming, and I needed to warn him before Havoc fell into Lucien’s trap.