-Devon.
He walked into the room at exactly 7:35 p.m. and he didn't walk back out until 12:13 a.m. I know the times by heart because I've been staring at the footage long enough to feel them carved into the inside of my skull. That's how long he stayed inside, and that's how long I sat here, watching this feed in silence. Armin has been asleep next to me since the summit wound down hours ago. His breathing is slow, his head tilted toward the back of the chair, the faint hum of the monitors washing over him like background noise.
We've been switching off for the past three days, taking turns in the comms room, one of us on the screens while the other is out mapping the estate. When I wasn't here, I was out tracking the choke points, the blind spots, the entryways. When I wasn't doing that, I was back in here staring at these monitors, watching the same cycles of nothing over and over again. I kept wishing for something—anything—to break the monotony, but all I got was a loop of posh, hollow performances. People dressed like they'd stepped out of a glossy spread, holding glasses of champagne so expensive it might as well have been poured over gold. Laughter that didn't touch their eyes. Tables heavy with food, hands heavy with jewellery. Watching it felt like witnessing the Seven Deadly Sins parade through a ballroom in real time.
It was revolting, but not half as revolting as the five hours Treasure spent inside Elias's room.
I had promised Armin I wouldn't watch this feed. This camera had been installed to face the front of Elias's bedroom—my idea, because I wanted a direct line if anything happened. We agreed it was for emergencies, nothing else. But the second Armin drifted off, my hand was already moving to switch to that angle. I told myself I just had a hunch. Truth was, I couldn't care less about what the rest of this estate was doing. Every other room could have burned to the ground and it wouldn't have pulled my eyes from that one door.
When the feed showed him walk in at 7:35, I thought nothing of it. He's Elias's personal guard, I told myself, he'll be back out soon. At 8:00, I was still telling myself that. At 9:00, I knew I was lying. There wasn't a power in the universe that could hear me and not answer—not if I was pleading as hard as I was in that moment. This wasn't divine indifference. This was cruelty, plain and simple.
We've been separated for four days now. Four days without him coming to find me, without him checking in. I couldn't check on him, not without blowing protocol, not with Elias always in view. I've seen Treasure on the cameras, weaving in and out of the crowd, but it's been like watching a reality show I didn't sign up for—a cruel one where the person I want is always on the screen, always moving, but never moving toward me.
Furious doesn't even begin to cover it. Annoyed, hurt—none of those words touch the truth of it. I've been sitting here feeling my jaw clench so hard it aches, my hands tightening on the armrests without me noticing. Every time the clock ticked forward, it felt like a small betrayal.
I looked over at Armin, sleeping like none of this mattered, and for a second I wanted to wake him up just so I could snap at him, dump all this useless rage somewhere. For no reason other than I needed someone to hold it for me. He's been good company, maybe the closest thing to a friend I've had in this whole assignment, but right now I'm so wound up I could break that without thinking. That's how far gone I am. That's how deep this is cutting.
The morning came too quickly, dragging the light across the estate like it had no concern for the hours I'd spent awake. I hadn't closed my eyes once. My head felt heavy, my body slower than it should be, but there was no time to sit in it. Orders came from Mark—wrap everything up, gather the footage, load it onto the hard drives. We were leaving.
I wiped the bleariness from my eyes and set to it. Each drive filled, labelled, and stacked in the bags. The footage from Elias's door stared back at me from the monitor, a weight in the pit of my stomach. I deleted it. Nobody needed to know how much time I'd spent staring at that screen, waiting. Nobody needed to know how far I'd let myself spiral. I wasn't going to air out Treasure's business like that, not to Mark, not to Armin, not to anyone. That was between him and me. And even if I wanted to justify keeping it, there was no guarantee that the people who worked in that house didn't already suspect something. The whole thing felt embarrassing, ugly in ways I didn't want to admit to myself.
Two backpacks—one for the hard drives, one for the rest of the equipment—and we were done. We loaded into the van, the weight of the past three days settling in my bones. I didn't try to fight it when my eyes shut. The road blurred into nothing, my mind sinking just far enough into the dark to give me a break from myself.
When I woke, the van was rolling to a stop in front of the mansion, that same grand façade that always felt like it was smirking at me. Mark was waiting, leaning on the steps like he'd been there for hours.
"Okay, troopers," he said, his voice brisk. "Go take showers, eat well, take the rest of the day off. If anything happens, I'll ping you. Just stay alert. Go on your ways."
That was it. We broke apart without another word, scattering through the corridors. My feet carried me back to the room with the bunk bed—the same narrow walls, the same dim light. I stripped down for the shower, letting the water hit me hard, scrubbing until my skin prickled. I brushed my teeth, trying to chase the stale taste of exhaustion out of my mouth.
When I came back into the room, the anger was still there, sitting just beneath my ribs. It wasn't the kind that burned hot enough to break you open. It was the steady kind, the kind that sat there and hummed, making your whole body feel tight. I didn't feel sad. I didn't even feel close to it. I just felt wrong—annoyed, restless, edged.
If I was being rational, I knew I didn't have the right to be angry. Treasure wasn't mine. He never had been. But that thought didn't put out the fire. It just made me feel more pathetic for letting it burn in the first place.
I climbed into bed, hoping I could force myself into sleep, but the second my head hit the pillow, I caught it—the smell. His cologne. That sharp, clean pine, with a warmth underneath like sun-soaked wood. It still clung to the sheets, faint but impossible to ignore. I hated it. I hated that it was still here, curling in the air like he was sitting right there beside me. He must have left after me. He always drowned himself in that cologne. The thought made my jaw tighten.
I got up, crossed to the small door that opened into the garden, and swung it wide. Cool air rushed in, carrying the damp smell of earth and leaves. I stood there for a while, letting it cut through the warmth of the room, until the scent of him was diluted enough to breathe.
I left the door open, went back to the bed, and let myself sink into the mattress. My eyes closed without much fight, and somewhere between the sound of the breeze and the fading trace of pine, I drifted off.
At first it was faint, like it was coming from the end of a long corridor, my name drifting through layers of half-sleep. Then it drew closer, clearer, until it felt as if the sound itself was leaning over me. I opened my eyes and his face was right there, close enough that I could see the faint shadow along his jaw and the brightness in his eyes. I'm fairly sure I didn't give away any reaction. I just stared at him, waiting.
"You're finally awake," Treasure said, his voice low but edged with relief. "I was worried sick."
I blinked hard, more to ground myself than anything.
"Is your eye dry? Do you need eyedrops?" he asked, the question so direct it was almost disarming.
"Yeah," I said, rubbing at my temple. "I haven't been getting enough sleep lately."
"I guess so," he replied. "I mean, I asked about you a couple of times and they told me I wasn't allowed in the comms room. They said personal guards aren't supposed to be in the operational area so we don't get confused or lost, or something like that. So I wasn't able to find you. I asked Mark, he wouldn't tell me. I asked Roan, and he said I wasn't allowed. And I didn't have a phone to text you."
I scratched the back of my head, letting the motion give me a moment before I answered. "Okay. That was the reason then."
"Reason for what?"
I pushed myself upright, careful not to smack my head against the underside of the top bunk. The space was tight enough that I had to angle myself just so. "I was wondering why you hadn't looked for me."
"No, I swear I looked for you," he said quickly. "I just wasn't able to find you."
I nodded once, slow.
"Why did you leave the garden door open? What if something happened?" he asked.
I let out a short, bitter laugh. "What could possibly happen in this mansion with this level of security? And even if something did, I could have handled it."
"You're so stubborn," he said with a small smile. "Okay, whatever."
"So," I said, leaning back a little, "how was the summit from your side? I'm sure you had a completely different view than mine."
"Oh, it was fucking boring," he said without hesitation. "I hated it. So boring, so annoying. I just had to escort Elias everywhere. And Cassandra's been micromanaging me, talking to me in this… bitchy tone. I don't know what's going on with her, but she's wacky. Honestly, they're all wacky here."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody here is normal, man."
"So… just boring. Nothing else happened?"
He looked right at me. "No. Nothing happened."
I nodded slowly.
"You were handling surveillance and the outside area, right?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, "surveillance." I let a small pause hang there before adding, "And the outside area."
"Oh, okay. Nothing much happened, right? Like, there wasn't any fuss or anything?"
"No," I said evenly. "Nothing on the outside happened."
"But you caught something on the inside?"
I let a slow smile curve at the corners of my mouth. "Well… time will tell if what I saw was correct."
His brow furrowed slightly. "Is it something security, like, major?"
My smile widened, almost too easily. "Oh, it could be major. But nothing serious, you know? Nothing I can't handle."
He tilted his head, watching me closely. "I kind of feel like something's off with you."
I kept the smile, but let my gaze go still. My eyes stayed on him, unblinking, and the expression held—wide, fixed, carrying nothing of what I was thinking. "No," I said. "Nope. Everything's fine."
Treasure climbed up to the top bunk with a groan, muttering, "Oh my god, my back hurts like a motherfucker."
I nodded automatically, even though I knew he couldn't see me from where he was. It didn't matter. I still did it. He probably didn't realize—or maybe he underestimated—how well I knew him. I knew the way he operated, the little tells that came when he was dodging something he didn't want to talk about. I could tell when his words were only there to fill space, not to answer the question.
Back when he was younger, he would have just said it. He was blunt to a fault. If something happened, I'd hear about it in the same hour, unfiltered and unedited. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Little by little, he started keeping things in. It wasn't sudden; it was gradual, like a door closing by inches until you realise you can't see through it anymore.
He'd never hidden anything from me before. When we were eighteen and had just moved to Valmont, there were no secrets. We lived in that cramped first apartment with a single bedroom, one bathroom we took turns rushing through in the morning, and a tiny table wedged by the window where we ate every meal. We worked the same jobs, came home smelling like the same kitchens and bars. He told me everything—wild stories from the café, stupid things that happened at the bar, details so ridiculous they didn't need to be told, but he told them anyway.
He even told me the darker things. The kind of memories people bury so deep they start pretending they never happened. He trusted me with those too. The ugliest corners of his childhood, the reckless things he did without thinking, the impulsive choices he regretted minutes later. I knew them all. And I never once repeated a word. Not to anyone.
Somewhere between the reckless teenager I knew and the man lying above me now, something shifted. I can't tell if it's because he's trying to be more guarded, to keep parts of himself separate now that he's older, or if it's something else entirely. But whatever it is, it's deliberate.
I'm sure of one thing: something happened. He's lying to my face about it. And I can't decide what's worse—that he doesn't want to tell me, or that he thinks he has to hide it. If it was to protect my feelings, he'd be wasting his effort. Treasure has never once been afraid of hurting my feelings. Not in all the years I've known him. This isn't about sparing me.
And it's not about the NDA we signed, either. I've kept every single thing he's ever trusted me with. Every shadow, every mistake, every secret. If he's keeping this from me, it's not because he's afraid I'll tell.
Which means it's something else. Something far worse.
He'd only slept for about two hours before someone came knocking for him, saying Elias wanted him. He didn't linger or offer an explanation, just muttered, "I'll see you later tonight," and was out the door before I could even think to ask anything else. The click of the latch felt louder than it should have.
I was left in the room again, the quiet too big, the walls holding nothing but the faint smell of his cologne. I sat there for a while, not really thinking about anything but feeling the weight of everything pressing down in that slow, steady way that made my shoulders ache. I didn't have a schedule today, no task in the rotation, nothing that could anchor me to the hours ahead. I thought about snooping around, maybe checking parts of the house I hadn't had the chance to, but the image of getting caught flashed through my mind—how that would look, how quickly it would spread. No, I didn't need another set of eyes turning my way.
I sighed, wishing I could just drop all of it right there on the floor. Let it clatter like something made of metal and glass so I could stomp on it until it was dust. But wishing doesn't do anything. I pushed myself up, changed into something for the gym, and headed down to the one they had here in the mansion.
Sandro was already there, spotting Felix as he worked a set. They glanced up when I walked in, both giving short nods before going back to what they were doing. I stepped onto the treadmill beside them, pressed the buttons to start, and let the belt pull under my feet in a slow rhythm. They went quiet, the kind of pause that feels like it's holding something.
Sandro broke it first. "It's okay. Devon's one of the good ones."
Felix chuckled. "I know. He was a breeze during the summit. Precise. Organized. Didn't make a fuss about anything."
"Yeah," Sandro said with a small grin. "Sounds just like Devon."
I kept my eyes forward but asked, "What were you talking about?"
"Nothing much," Felix replied quickly. He lowered his voice just enough that I had to lean into the rhythm of my steps to catch it. "Just this one time, during one of these big events… a guy who was working security with us got… well, let's say 'acquired' by an older lady. We never saw him back at the agency again. Word was he moved over to her agency. It was odd—he wasn't even one of the sharpest in the bunch."
Sandro smirked. "Then he must've been good-looking. I mean, back when I was in another outfit, I was assigned to this client—young woman, money to burn—who had this whole fantasy about falling for her bodyguard. She dropped hints like it was part of her job description. Only problem? No one on the team could stand her. Not one of us. So nobody 'claimed' her."
Felix laughed, shaking his head. "That's brutal."
They both found it funny. I didn't. I kept my eyes on the screen in front of me, the little digital track looping endlessly. My feet pressed harder into the belt, my steps quickening until I was running faster, breathing deeper, the sound of their conversation dropping into the background. I told myself it was just a workout, but I knew it was something else. I was chasing the illusion that if I moved fast enough, I might feel freer.
The belt whirred louder beneath me, my breath syncing with the thud of my shoes hitting the surface. Sandro and Felix had moved on to another machine, their voices a softer hum now, just enough for words to slip through when the noise of the gym dipped.
Felix said something about "lines getting blurred" in this job, how sometimes the assignment wasn't just about protecting the client but about fitting into whatever they thought they needed you to be. Sandro laughed under his breath, adding, "Some of them hire you for the security, some for the company. Some? They don't even know which they want more."
I caught the edge of that and pressed the speed higher again. The air felt hotter, the kind of heat that builds from inside your chest rather than from the room itself.
They started swapping stories. Sandro told one about a job overseas where a wealthy client had tried to buy out his contract mid-assignment, offering more money than his agency paid him in a year just so she could "have him on call." Felix followed with a story about a married politician's wife who used every excuse to pull her bodyguard away from the team, always with some errand or fabricated emergency. They both laughed like these things were just quirks of the profession.
I didn't laugh. I stared at the wall in front of me, watching my reflection in the glass—shoulders squared, jaw tight. Their voices started to fade again, but not because they'd quieted down. I just stopped letting the words land.
The treadmill's incline beeped as I tapped it higher. My legs burned, but it was better than sitting in the room upstairs with too much space for my thoughts. Better than thinking about the way five hours can sit in your head like a stone, dragging everything else down with it.
Felix came over at one point, leaning an elbow on the treadmill rail. "Man, you're gonna wear yourself out before lunch."
I kept my eyes on the numbers. "Good."
Sandro called over from the weight bench. "He's in his zone. Leave him."
Maybe I was. Or maybe I just didn't want to talk anymore. I kept running, letting the sound of my feet on the belt fill up every corner of my head until there wasn't room for anything else.
The kitchen smelled warm and rich the moment I stepped in, a blend of roasted meat, garlic, lemon, and something faintly sweet drifting in from the far counter. The long wooden table was already crowded—Sandro, Felix, Michael, and two others from the security team hunched over plates, forks clinking, voices low one second and loud the next. The counters were lined with trays and bowls: golden kibbeh still glistening from the fryer, piles of warm pita wrapped in cloth, hummus swirled into bowls with a drizzle of olive oil, fattoush sprinkled with sumac, and steaming lamb skewers sending curls of spice into the air.
I slid into the last empty chair, eyes scanning the spread. "This looks incredible," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, but a few heads turned with knowing grins.
Michael glanced toward the empty chair at the far end. "Treasure not coming?" he asked, stabbing his fork into a heap of tabbouleh.
The old lady who ruled this kitchen like a general in an apron answered before anyone else could. "No, he's escorting Mr. Maxwell." She said it as if it explained everything.
Sandro let out a low whistle. "The lucky one, then."
Her palm came down in a firm swat against his shoulder. "Behave," she chided, but the smile in her voice softened the blow. They all chuckled like boys caught talking out of turn. She had that effect—every man in here treated her like their mother, and she moved among us as if she had raised every single one herself.
I took a bite of pita, the warm bread soaking up the tang of the hummus, and asked, "Has he been eating there all this time?"
She hesitated, only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. "Well, you know… his job, his call. It's there now."
The way she said it, light and dismissive, didn't match the faint shift in her expression. Her eyes flicked away from mine, and I caught the flicker of something—awareness, maybe, or regret at letting more slip than she meant to.
Around me, the others glanced at each other in quick, unspoken exchanges, the kind of looks that said more than words would. No one commented, but I felt the current move through the room.
She seemed to notice it too, because she clapped her hands lightly and added, "Where else would he eat? Doesn't mean it's on the same table. It's just… where he is."
I knew she was smoothing it over, tucking the truth back into a place she thought I couldn't reach. But I'd seen enough to know better.
Then the moment dissolved. The men reached for skewers, tore bread, stole from each other's plates, the air filling with laughter and half-hearted protests. The kitchen turned into a loud, messy scuffle of voices and movement, the smell of charred meat and warm bread thick in the air, but the taste in my mouth had already gone sharp with something else entirely.
Sandro leaned back in his chair, chewing on a mouthful of lamb, and with a smirk asked, "So, Daniela, what inspired today's feast? Was it orders from above, or were you just getting creative?"
Daniela, standing by the counter with her hands on her hips, let out a warm laugh. "I don't know about inspired," she said, shaking her head. "Cassandra mentioned that Mr. Maxwell wanted a Lebanese spread for lunch, so here we are."
Felix raised his glass of water in mock salute. "Well, then we should all thank Mr. Maxwell for this excellent idea, and thank Daniela and her team for a well-crafted meal."
A wave of voices followed, a rolling murmur of "Thank you, Daniela," circling the table like a shared ritual. She waved us off, but I caught the faint flush of pride on her face before she turned to fuss with a tray of pita.
I speared a piece of grilled chicken, its edges charred and fragrant with spices, and let the flavors settle on my tongue—garlic, cumin, the faint tartness of lemon. The room was filled with easy chatter and the scrape of cutlery, but my mind was elsewhere, turning over the same thought like a stone in my palm.
When is the right time to leave?
Not just from the table, but from the weight of certain rooms, certain conversations, certain people. I've always believed endurance is a skill, the kind you sharpen in silence. Anyone can hold their ground for a moment; that's not endurance. True endurance is knowing exactly how long to remain, knowing when the waiting is the point, when staying put becomes its own form of power.
But endurance can rot too. Stay too long, and it stops being discipline—it becomes decay. A man can sit in a chair until the shape of him is worn into it, until he forgets what it feels like to stand. I've seen people confuse endurance with stubbornness, or worse, with fear.
I chewed slowly, watching the others bicker good-naturedly over the last of the fattoush, and thought about my own patience. How much of it was control, and how much of it was me refusing to move because I wanted to see what would happen if I didn't?
The food was good. The company was fine. But I could feel that familiar itch at the back of my neck, the quiet voice that always asked if I was wasting minutes I'd never get back.
The thing about me is that I've never been the one to walk away first. I wait until the scene breaks from around me, until the edges fray and the moment collapses under its own weight. I need a catalyst. Something—a word, a shift in the air, the sudden silence after laughter—that tells me the life has gone out of it. Only then do I move on to the next place, the next room, the next conversation.
It isn't passivity. It's calculation. I've learned that if you leave too soon, you lose the full shape of the scene, and if you leave too late, you end up carrying pieces of it with you like burrs stuck to your clothes. The right exit comes when the energy changes, when the hum in the air falters. That's when people say more than they mean to, or reveal something they would have hidden if you'd walked away sooner.
I sat there with the scent of warm bread weaving through the room, listening to the clatter of forks, the back-and-forth banter. My eyes weren't fixed on anyone in particular, but I was watching all of them—Sandro's easy grin, Felix's sharp glances, the two other guards talking with their mouths half-full. Waiting. Always waiting.
I didn't know yet what I was waiting for in this place, only that I wasn't going to move until I felt the shift. Until something cracked in the air around me.