Kairo woke to silence.
Not the kind filled with echoes or alarms but the deliberate, padded quiet of a place designed to absorb sound. His head throbbed dully. A faint chemical taste clung to his tongue.
Sedated.
He tested his wrists.
Restrained.
Steel cuffs, magnet-locked, secured to a chair bolted into the floor. His ankles were free but that meant nothing. The room was windowless, concrete, lit by a single overhead panel that hummed softly.
A cage.
Not for his body.
For his mind.
The door opened without ceremony.
Three men entered. None of them looked like soldiers. No uniforms. No visible weapons. Tailored suits, clean shoes, calm eyes.
That was worse.
"Mr. Blackwell," the tallest one said, smiling pleasantly. "Welcome back."
Kairo didn't answer.
"Relax," the man continued. "If we wanted you dead, this room wouldn't exist."
"Then you're wasting your time," Kairo replied flatly.
The man chuckled. "On the contrary. We're protecting an investment."
Another man circled him slowly. "You see, your bodyguard complicated things. She pulled military attention. That's messy."
Kairo's jaw tightened. "You won't touch her."
"Oh, we already have," the first man said mildly. "Just not the way you think."
They tapped a tablet. Footage appeared—Naya moving through streets, disappearing into shadows.
"She's being watched," the man said. "By people far more dangerous than us."
Kairo strained against the cuffs.
"This isn't about her," the man went on. "It's about you. Your image. Your power. Your money."
The truth slid into place like a blade.
"You want control," Kairo said.
"We want partnership," the man corrected. "A public scandal right now would ruin you. A quiet alliance would make you untouchable."
"And if I refuse?"
The man shrugged. "Then you stay here. Comfortable. Alive. Forgotten."
Kairo leaned back despite the restraints, eyes dark, steady.
"You picked the wrong man," he said. "I grew up trapped. This just reminds me what I'm good at breaking."
The men exchanged amused glances.
"We'll see," the leader said. "Time has a way of changing minds."
They left.The door sealed. Kairo exhaled slowly.
He wasn't afraid.
He was furious.
And beneath that fury regret.
He'd let pride separate him from the one person who could have stopped this.
Somewhere out there, Naya was hunting ghosts.
She didn't know yet.
That he wasn't being tortured.
That he wasn't broken.
That he was being saved for something worse.
A decision.
And the men watching the cameras knew one thing with certainty:
Sooner or later, Naya Cross would come for him.
And when she did,
Every shadow in this war would step into the light.