Jevna Rosk slumped against the polished doorframe, a ragged breath tearing from her throat. Blood wept from a deep cut above her temple, tracking a dark path down her cheek. Her publicist’s jacket, usually immaculate, hung in tatters. The raw panic in her eyes was a stark contrast to the gleaming, sterile office.
“Drystan,” she rasped, pushing off the frame, swaying. “He sent men. Thugs. He’s silencing everyone.”
Nivara moved with an instinctual, almost clinical speed. She bypassed Bramen’s shocked stillness, pulling a sterile gauze pad and a small vial of sealant from a first-aid kit discreetly tucked into the console beneath Bramen’s desk. Jevna flinched as Nivara’s cool touch neared her face, but Nivara’s gaze was already dissecting the wound, calculating the damage.
“Sit,” Nivara commanded, her voice devoid of overt warmth, yet firm. Jevna collapsed onto the plush visitor’s chair, wincing as Nivara dabbed at the blood, the sealant hissing faintly as it closed the gash. It was a shallow cut, but the force behind it spoke of brutal intent.
Bramen, now recovering, leaned against his desk, arms crossed. “Purging everyone? Who is ‘everyone,’ Jevna?” His voice was a low, dangerous rumble, his eyes fixed on Nivara, not Jevna.
“The contacts. The ones who handled his ‘special’ accounts,” Jevna stammered, clutching her arm. “The ones you asked me to find. He knew. Someone tipped him off. He’s burning his network, fast.”
Nivara pressed the last of the sealant into place. A cold dread, sharp as a stiletto, pierced through her. Drystan, in her previous timeline, had been methodical, cautious. This rapid, brutal escalation was new. Her accelerated timeline, her direct assaults on his finances and reputation, were pushing him into a corner he hadn’t faced before. He wasn’t just cornered; he was rabid.
“He’s not just executing his contacts,” Nivara stated, a chill entering her voice. “He’s cutting down anyone who could possibly link him to Olyra’s funds. Which means he knows his accounts have been breached. Or, more accurately, drained.” Her gaze flicked to Olyra, who was pale, clutching her newly signed data-pad like a lifeline.
Olyra’s eyes, still wide with the shock of her financial loss and Jevna’s violent arrival, darted between them. “He—he wouldn’t… he can’t know it was *me*.” Her voice was barely a breath.
“He doesn’t need to know it was you directly, Olyra,” Bramen interjected, his gaze like shards of ice. “He knows someone used his financial conduit. And he’s cutting off every potential loose end. You are a very loose end, my dear. One he just saw sign away her leverage to me.” He gestured to the data-pad. “Which makes you even more dangerous, because now you have nothing left to lose.”
Jevna shivered, her eyes darting to Bramen. “He’s moving everything to the Obsidian Vaults. The fortified suites. No external route. Only physical scans.”
Nivara felt a sudden, searing pain blossom in her abdomen. It wasn’t the familiar dull ache; this was a white-hot spear, twisting, tearing. Nausea churned in her throat; her vision blurred at the edges. The world tilted. Her legs, for a horrifying second, simply ceased to exist. They buckled, and she pitched forward, a choked gasp escaping her lips.
Before she hit the floor, Bramen was there. He moved with a speed that belied his usual measured grace, his arms encircling her, scooping her up as if she weighed nothing. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her body suddenly cold, clammy. Air grated in her chest, each inhale a shallow, painful scrape.
“Nivara!” Bramen’s voice was raw, stripped of its usual composure. The cool, calculating lawyer was gone, replaced by a primal terror that was utterly unmasked. His grip on her was tight, possessive, his face etched with genuine fear as he looked down at her slack form. Seeing the raw panic break across his usually impassive features, Nivara registered something unexpected. A fierce, desperate desire to *live*. To not only tear down Drystan, but to survive, to experience whatever future this man was offering her.
She looked up at him, her eyes clouded, but focused. “The vault,” she managed, her voice a reedy tremor. “He keeps… experimental temporal stabilizers there. Prototypes. They were supposed to be for his own… longevity project.” Her words were fragmented, each one an effort.
Bramen froze, comprehension dawning on his face. He carried her to his desk, carefully lowering her into his own high-backed chair, pulling a blanket from a concealed compartment and draping it over her. His hands moved over her, checking her pulse, her temperature, a frantic energy in his movements. “Stabilizers? You mean… a cure?”
Nivara nodded weakly, her head throbbing. Her legs slowly, agonizingly, began to regain sensation, a pins-and-needles rush of returning blood. “It’s why he was so obsessed with the temporal tech black market. He didn’t just want to control the flow, he wanted to hoard the best for himself. To slow his own aging. They’re unstable, dangerous, but… they might buy me time.” Her gaze, though still hazy, hardened. “We don’t just take his empire. We take his cure.”
Jevna, recovering from her own ordeal, stared, her mouth slightly agape at the revelation. “A cure for… what is happening to you, Nivara?” she asked, her voice hushed.
Nivara ignored her, pushing through the lingering pain. “Jevna, Drystan’s internal network. Can you pull the layout for the deep vaults? Specifically, the sensors for his personal vault?”
Jevna, still reeling, blinked. “I… I could try. It’s highly encrypted. But he’s panicking. That means his firewalls might be… less robust than usual.” She pulled out a sleek data-slate, her fingers flying across the holographic keyboard, a blur of motion. Her eyes, usually scanning social feeds for the next scandal, now focused with an intense, almost frantic energy.
Minutes later, a complex web of architectural diagrams bloomed across the office’s central display. Jevna pointed to a specific, heavily reinforced chamber, a red marker flashing at its entrance. “There. Vault 7-C. That’s it. And… he *does* know. He’s already moved all his liquid assets, and even some of his rarer temporal artifacts into it. He’s battening down the hatches.” She paused, a strange expression crossing her face. “But… this is… odd.”
“What is it?” Nivara asked, leaning forward, her body still protesting, but her mind sharpening with predatory focus.
“The sensor lock. It’s not Drystan’s retinal scan. Or his vocal signature. It’s… a pulse pattern. A specific arterial rhythm, encoded into the entry protocol. And… the encryption key to unlock the pattern itself, it’s tied to an encrypted comms channel. One he only ever used for… for very sensitive, personal matters.” Jevna looked at Nivara, realization settling in her gaze. “This is his vault. The one he never, ever shared.”
“A pulse signature?” Bramen questioned, his brow furrowed, his attention entirely on Nivara. “Whose pulse would he calibrate it to?”
As if on cue, a low, almost imperceptible chime resonated from Nivara’s wrist-comm, a discreet signal only she could hear. It was Drystan’s private channel, the one he’d used for their most intimate, strategic discussions. The one she’d thought he’d decommissioned after her death.
Nivara raised her wrist, her eyes narrowing. She knew, with chilling certainty, whose heartbeat it was.
She activated the comm. Drystan’s voice, a silky, venomous purr, filled the silent room. “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize my own dead woman walking?”