Chapter Four: Safehouses and Sabotage

Paris – The Next Morning

Rayna sat in a nondescript flat tucked into the Montmartre district. The room smelled faintly of espresso and gunpowder. A thin beam of sunlight slipped through the heavy curtains, illuminating the map spread across the table in front of her.

Beside her, Lucien poured two cups of coffee. Strong. No sugar. Just like him.

“Your hands are shaking,” he said without looking at her.

“I just killed the man who orchestrated my mother’s execution,” she replied flatly. “Forgive me if I’m not feeling zen.”

“You didn’t kill him,” he said, placing a cup in front of her. “I did.”

Rayna met his gaze. “Don’t pretend that was mercy.”

“No,” Lucien admitted, “it was strategy.”

They stared at each other. The silence between them wasn’t comfortable, but it was honest.

Rayna leaned forward. “He had files. I need those files, Lucien. If he had access to my mother’s case, he had access to others too.”

Lucien nodded. “And I might know where they are.”

He pulled out a folded piece of paper. A hand-drawn floor plan. Rayna instantly recognized the layout.

“Geneva?”

“A vault beneath the old headquarters of the *Syndikat de L’Ordre*. It’s off-grid. No surveillance, no heat signatures. It’s where old secrets go to rot.”

Rayna traced a line on the map with her finger. “So we go in. Extract the data. And hope nobody tries to kill us.”

Lucien’s lip curled in a half-smile. “We hope very hard.”

**Later that Night – Paris Underground**

They moved like ghosts through the Paris Métro’s abandoned lines, past graffiti-covered walls and rusted tracks. Rayna carried a compact EMP charge; Lucien carried a suppressed pistol.

“I should hate you,” Rayna muttered as they crept toward a steel-reinforced hatch.

Lucien glanced at her. “But you don’t.”

Rayna’s eyes flicked up. “Not enough, anyway.”

The hatch creaked open. They slipped inside. Cold air and silence greeted them.

Down the stone steps, an ancient hallway stretched out, lined with metal doors.

Lucien stopped in front of one. “This is it.”

Rayna knelt, tapping into the biometric scanner. She’d cracked harder systems in her sleep—but this one felt different. Outdated tech, but brutal security.

She was halfway through the breach when Lucien froze.

“Someone’s here.”

Voices echoed from the stairwell above. Two. No—three sets of boots.

Rayna cursed. “Stall them.”

She stayed crouched over the lock as Lucien disappeared into the shadows.

Gunfire erupted seconds later—short, silenced bursts.

Rayna heard a grunt, a curse, then footsteps pounding her way.

The lock clicked open just as a shadow rounded the corner.

A masked man aimed straight at her chest.

Before he could fire, Lucien tackled him from behind—hard. They crashed to the floor. Rayna grabbed the man’s weapon, disarming him in one smooth move.

The intruder snarled, reaching for a blade.

Rayna didn’t hesitate. She knocked him unconscious with the butt of the rifle.

Lucien stood, blood dripping from a shallow cut on his temple.

“You’re bleeding.”

“You’re welcome.”

She pulled him into the vault before more came. Inside, they slammed the door and bolted it from within.

The room was bathed in soft blue light from rows of old mainframes and a glowing terminal at the center.

Rayna’s breath caught.

It was all here. Thousands of documents. Black files. Deep web transactions. Mission records. Her mother’s name... and dozens of others.

She looked at Lucien, heart pounding. “This... this is bigger than I thought.”

Lucien stepped closer, his eyes locked on hers. “I told you. You weren’t ready.”

“And now?”

Lucien leaned in slowly, his voice low. “Now you’re terrifying.”

Their lips met again—less frantic than before, but charged with tension. The heat between them had turned to something slow-burning and dangerously addictive.

Rayna pulled back. “This doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“I don’t want your trust,” Lucien whispered. “I want your fire.”

She pushed him back with a smirk. “Then you better keep up.”

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