Chapter 12 Mariuss Warning
Leonidas Volkov's main office, the official “den” at the heart of the Bastion, was a world apart from the penthouse.
No natural light reached this place. The walls were polished concrete and brushed steel, soundproof and bombproof.
This was the throne room, and Leonidas sat at its center, analyzing shipping reports on his terminal.
It was ten o'clock at night. He hadn't gone upstairs.
He was lingering in the office, turning over the events of the previous night. The rebellion in the library.
Amara's act of reorganizing his sanctuary had been a bold violation. A direct challenge to his authority. He had restored order, piece by piece, erasing her presence. But the irritation remained.
She was testing him. And the most irritating part was that a part of him—the part he kept chained—had found her defiance… interesting.
The sound of his private door opening pulled him from his rumination.
Marius entered. As always, silent as smoke, exactly on schedule. He held a slim tablet.
“Sir,” Marius greeted, stopping at a respectful distance from the obsidian desk.
“Marius.” Leonidas inclined his head, shifting back into King mode. “The report.”
Marius activated the tablet. “The matter of the brother. Rafael.”
Leonidas felt a twinge of irritation. The boy. The root cause of his current domestic disorder. “Proceed.”
“Our teams confirmed the theft from the Lux,” Marius said, his voice a professional monotone. “He wasn't a complete amateur. He exploited a low-level system flaw that has since been patched.”
“What did he take?”
“Not money. Data. Specifically, the front ledgers for two of our art import companies.”
Leonidas processed this. The art companies. The same companies that Amara, the curator, would understand. The irony was thick. “How damaging?”
“Almost nothing,” Marius replied, anticipating the question. “They were cover ledgers, designed to be found in a surface audit. No real network information. But the act itself is the concern. He stole, and then he disappeared.”
“Who did he steal for?” Leonidas asked.
“That's what we're investigating. He didn't act alone. He had a buyer. And the moment the transfer was made, he became a loose end. Our contacts indicate he left the city, likely afraid of both the buyer and us.”
Leonidas weighed the information. The “Accord” he'd made with Amara required him to find the boy. “Alive,” he ordered.
“Understood. We're tracking his digital movements. He's careless. We'll find him.”
Marius paused deliberately. The business report was concluded. The consigliere was about to speak.
“Was there something else, Marius?” Leonidas asked, already knowing the answer.
Marius's grey gaze met his. “About the other matter. The girl.”
The air in the room grew colder. Leonidas's irritation, which had been simmering beneath the surface since the previous night, returned in full force. “What about her?”
“She's been in the penthouse for eleven days,” Marius stated, as if reading from a balance sheet. “Protocol was broken the moment you decided to keep her.”
“I'm aware of protocol,” Leonidas said sharply.
“She's not a passive prisoner,” Marius continued, impassive.
His loyalty was to the empire, and that required him to speak truth to the King, even when the King didn't want to hear it.
“Surveillance indicates she confronted you about the brother.
She coerced you into an 'accord.' And last night,” Marius's gaze became almost accusatory, “she attempted to reorder your private library.”
Leonidas leaned back in his chair. The fact that Marius knew the details of his library infuriated him. He knew there were cameras, of course, but hearing his personal disturbance summarized in a security report felt like a violation.
“She's not a prisoner,” Marius declared. “She's a distraction.”
“I'm controlling the situation,” Leonidas shot back, his voice a low growl.
“With all due respect, sir, the situation is controlling you. Your routine has changed. You're lingering longer before going upstairs. You're engaged in… domestic power struggles. You're breaking your own protocol, and that's a risk.”
“She's an anomaly I'm observing,” Leonidas repeated his own words, but they sounded hollow now.
“She's an 'innocent,'” Marius argued, stepping forward. “And that's why she's dangerous. Civilians are passive. When confronted with our world, they cry, they beg, or they break. They're predictable.”
He paused, his silence an accusation.
“This one,” he continued, “didn't break. She negotiates. She challenges. She studies you. A civilian who behaves like a player is a variable we can't calculate.”
Leonidas remained silent. Every word from Marius was a sharp truth.
“You warned me about the Reapers last week,” Marius said, shifting tactics, his voice dropping. “They're quiet. Too quiet. They're looking for an advantage, a lever.”
He looked directly at Leonidas. “An inexplicable 'innocent' living in your personal penthouse isn't a mystery to them, sir. Won't be, once they find out. It's an obvious vulnerability. It's a target.”
The word hung in the air. Vulnerability.
It was the same thought Leonidas had had, but hearing it from Marius made it real, tactical.
“She's a weak point you created willingly,” Marius concluded. “She needs to be removed.”
The primitive protective instinct Leonidas had felt in the library—the cold anger at the thought of someone “dealing” with her—surged.
Leonidas stood. The movement was abrupt, violent in its restraint. The chair made no sound, but the shift in power was instant. The King was on his throne.
“I decide,” Leonidas said, his voice dropping to the level of absolute command, the level that made lieutenants go pale. “What is a vulnerability.”
He walked around the desk, stopping in front of Marius, invading his advisor's space. Marius didn't back down, but the tension was palpable.
“I decide who stays and who goes. You're forgetting your place, consigliere.”
“I'm remembering mine, sir,” Marius replied calmly, unfazed. “My place is to protect the throne. Even from whims.”
Leonidas stared at him, cold fury rolling off him in waves. He could destroy Marius for that insolence. But Marius was the only person in his empire he allowed such a thing. Because he was right.
“Continue your search for Rafael,” Leonidas ordered, ending the conversation coldly. “And double security on the Bastion's outer perimeter. If the Reapers so much as breathe near my gates, I want to know.”
He turned his back on Marius. A dismissal. “That's all.”
Leonidas heard Marius's soft footsteps retreating. The door hissed and closed.
He was alone in the silent, soundproof room. The anger didn't dissipate. It wasn't for Marius.
It was for Amara.
He hated that Marius was right. The girl was a distraction. The fact that he'd gotten so irritated by Marius's analysis proved it. Her presence was creating cracks in his impeccable logic.
Vulnerability.
The word echoed. He thought of her, up there. Alone. Defiant. Trapped in her glass cage.
The possessiveness mixed with the anger. If the Reapers…
The idea of them reaching her, of them putting their hands on what was his, transformed his irritation into something far darker.
He would protect his vulnerability. He would turn her into a fortress. But damn it, he hated that Marius was right. The girl was the first thing in a decade he couldn't fully control. And that was the greatest danger of all.