The words on the burner phone’s small screen burned into Soraya’s vision: ‘If you come back, you’ll go straight to a black-site prison.’ The maglev doors completed their closure with a final, air-tight hiss, plunging the cargo hold into a preternatural quiet, broken only by the low thrum of the engine beginning to spool. Odalys. Always a step ahead. Always watching. Soraya crushed the phone in her palm, the plastic casing groaning under the pressure. The black-site threat wasn’t an empty one. Her family’s reach extended beyond the law in Galtier. This wasn't Vangkhon, where chaos was a shield. This was home, and home was a cage. She closed her eyes, picturing Idris's face, the genuine concern etched into his usually unreadable features. She'd called it a beautiful lie, but it had been the most real thing she’d felt in years. Now, that memory was a bitter ache, a reminder of what she’d sacrificed to confront the truth. The journey back dragged across hours of frozen ballast and switchyards. The capital welcomed her not with neon and street markets, but with the sterile, grey concrete of the perimeter rail station, smelling of ozone and old ambition. The air was sharp, carrying the metallic tang of an approaching storm, a stark contrast to Vangkhon’s humid embrace. She slipped out through a service entrance, her movements practiced and silent, a ghost in her own city. The safehouse, a nondescript low-rise apartment building in the neglected district of Atherton, was meant to be a forgotten bolt-hole, a relic from her late parent's youthful rebellions. A place no one in the Belrose inner circle would ever consider her using. But as she approached apartment 4B, the door sat ajar, a dark maw in the dim hallway. A jagged splinter marked where the lock had been forced. Her gut clenched. Odalys hadn’t just known she was coming back; she’d known where she was going. The air inside was still and cold, heavy with the scent of dust and something acrid – a faint, chemical tang. Every drawer in the kitchenette hung open, their contents spilled across the worn linoleum. The small living area was a battlefield of overturned furniture and scattered papers. Brittle notebooks filled with reformist manifestos lay trampled underfoot. Nothing of value seemed to have been taken, only destroyed. It was a message: *I was here. I own this too.* Soraya moved through the wreckage, a slow, methodical sweep. The bedroom was worse. The mattress had been slashed, stuffing spewing onto the floor. But then, under a loose floorboard near the ancient radiator, a small, polished wooden box remained untouched. An untouched emergency stash. Inside, nestled amongst some old, untraceable currency chips, was a discreet data-chip. Family distrust was an inherited survival trait. This was her legacy of caution. She found a working data-slate in a discarded technician’s bag in the hall. It was slow, outdated, but it connected. The chip contained a complex web of encrypted files. Soraya worked, her fingers flying over the holographic keyboard, ignoring the chill seeping into her bones. Layers of dummy accounts, shell corporations with names like ‘Crimson Aegis Holdings’ and ‘Silvergate Ventures,’ all registered offshore in obscure sovereign zones. Then, the signatures. Her own name, painstakingly replicated, appended to documents authorizing multi-billion credit transfers. Not just one or two, but dozens, dating back months. Frost seemed to settle in her marrow, starker than the capital's winter air. This wasn't just framing. This was systematic, audacious theft, designed to bleed the Belrose capital dry, and pin every drop on her. “Found something interesting, cousin?” A voice, low and gravelly, sliced through the silence. Soraya froze, her hand hovering over the data-slate. She hadn't heard him. A figure emerged from the shadowed archway leading to the kitchen, a hulking shape against the faint light from the corridor. He was dressed in the dark, utilitarian fatigues of a Belrose private enforcer, a name patch reading ‘KAI’ stitched above his breast pocket. His face was a brutal landscape of old scars, his eyes flat and devoid of warmth. He held a stun-baton, its tip humming with barely contained energy. “Kai,” Soraya managed, her voice steadier than she felt. He was one of Odalys’s personal guards, notoriously loyal, notoriously brutal. “Looking for me?” “Odalys wants a word. A long word. In a very private place.” He took a step, then another, closing the distance. The stun-baton rose slightly. Soraya glanced around the ransacked room, calculating angles, escape routes. There were none. The window was too high, the door blocked. “I’m busy,” she retorted, a flicker of her usual defiance. “And I don’t take orders from her.” Kai chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “You will.” He lunged, faster than his size suggested. Soraya reacted on instinct, dropping the data-slate and seizing a bottle of industrial-strength cleaning spray from the overturned kitchen cart. She squeezed the trigger as he reached her, aiming for his face. A blinding white stream of caustic chemicals erupted, catching him full in the eyes. He roared, a guttural sound of pain and rage, dropping the baton as his hands flew to his face. He stumbled backward, clawing at his burning eyes. Soraya didn’t hesitate. She scrambled past him, her heart thundering against her ribs, flung open the splintered door, and burst into the hallway. She didn't look back. She didn't stop until she was out of the building, the biting northern wind whipping her hair across her face, rain beginning to fall in cold, heavy drops. The streetlights cast a sickly yellow glow on the wet pavement. She was out, but where to go? No one would help her. Odalys had ensured that. Every door was closed, every safe haven compromised. The Belrose family’s shadow was long, inescapable. She huddled deeper into her thin jacket, the chill reaching into her very bones. The rain plastered her hair to her face, mingling with what felt like tears she refused to shed. This was it. Alone. Framed. Hunted. Defeated. A heavy knock, sharp and deliberate, rattled the door of the ransacked apartment. Soraya, having returned to retrieve the data-slate, flinched, her body tensing. She had wedged an upended bookshelf beneath the knob, a flimsy defense at best. Another knock, louder this time, insistent. Her hand found the forgotten stun-baton Kai had dropped, its hilt cold and heavy. Her ribs tightened as a voice, rich and familiar, cut through the wood. “Soraya. Open the damn door.” Idris. He shouldn't be here. He *couldn't* be here. She stumbled to the door, fumbling with the makeshift barricade, her fingers numb. When the door finally swung inward, he stood there, his dark hair plastered to his forehead by the rain, a storm cloud of fury in his eyes. His expensive coat was soaked, clinging to his broad shoulders. He looked utterly out of place in the dreary Atherton corridor, yet more commanding than any Belrose enforcer. He stepped inside, his gaze sweeping over the wreckage, then settling on her, an unreadable intensity in their depths. “You truly are a fool,” he said, his voice low, a controlled rumble of anger. “Running into a viper pit without so much as a plan.” He didn’t wait for a response, didn’t give her a chance to deflect. He strode to the tipped-over coffee table, his movements precise despite the anger simmering beneath his skin. With a decisive thud, he tossed a thick, unmarked dossier onto the wood. “If we’re going to take down your cousin, we’re going to need a hostile takeover.”

Ghosts of Galtier