Chapter 3 After the smoke

Chapter 3

After the Smoke

The velvet-lined flash drive case on the table was open like a wound as Elena stood in the middle of the room. Empty. She breathed in short, shallow bursts that didn't quite reach her lungs. She thought back to the night-Rodrick's touch, his silence, and his gaze that begged her to comprehend something he couldn't say. The bastard.

Or perhaps she was the liar. She checked the windows-no signs of forced entry. No disturbances on the alarm panel. He hadn't broken in. She had admitted him. The burner phone rang. You have run out of time, UNKNOWN SENDER. Victor.

She didn't say anything. That drive's intelligence covered more than just the Balkan shipment. It was labeled. Scorpion Operation The aftermath of Dubai. Her real name. Rodrick had taken it all-and disappeared.

Had everything been staged? The soft restraint in his touch. His hesitation when she mentioned Lagos. The ardor of his final kiss. Was that strategy or guilt? She sank into the worn armchair, her hands trembling from the weight of the upcoming decision: either she would track him down and retrieve the vehicle or she would simply vanish. The door shook. With the gun raised, Elena spun. The storm had soaked Sophia when she entered. The lieutenant of Victor. Blonde. Cold.

At forty-two, Rodrick Langston is the embodiment of polished menace. He commands every boardroom like a chess grandmaster who already knows how the game ends, his salt-and-pepper hair swept back with practiced nonchalance. He wears suits that are perfectly tailored. He eats with presidents, holds stakes in some of the world's most powerful financial institutions, and whispers to central banks. However, neither the partners he destroys nor the journalists who have attempted to dispel his myth truly know him. Rodrick was born in Zurich to a British diplomat and an enigmatic Algerian socialite who disappeared when he was six years old. His early life was shrouded in the same mist that now covers his past. He entered the financial industry through a covert hedge fund with ties to post-Soviet oligarchs after attending Oxford. It was there, in the shadows of collapsing regimes and underworld fortunes, that Rodrick's education truly began.

By the time he was thirty, he had helped clean up-launder, really-more than $2 billion in arms trade profits disguised as energy derivatives and shell corporation buyouts. He is rumored to have been involved in a massacre in Kinshasa, a missing arms broker in Belgrade, and a plane crash in Lebanon that conveniently wiped out evidence. He was never caught. All filed away in classified reports or buried in jurisdictions that favor the rich and the elusive.

He now resides in New York, operating Langston Capital-a private banking empire that seems squeaky clean. However, those who are aware of it believe it is constructed from multiple layers of offshore transactions, encrypted communications, and silence purchased in high-priced currencies. To the world, he's a symbol of capitalist success. He appears to be a ghost to the few who peek behind the curtain, dressed in a tailored coat and covered in blood. Rodrick lives by himself in a glass penthouse with a view of Central Park. It is a fortress of solitude with rare artwork but no family photos. Every night, he drinks a Bordeaux, doesn't use social media, and meets for dinner with people who talk in code. His charm is distant, intoxicating, and dangerous-women fall for him but leave without truly touching him.

And he would like it that way. Rodrick receives a black envelope without a stamp on a wet Wednesday afternoon. It is slipped under the heavy oak door of his private office-an area so secure, not even his personal assistant has clearance past the foyer. The envelope is sealed with a wax insignia: a falcon clutching a rose. In the past seventeen years, he has not seen that symbol. A single Polaroid image is contained within. It depicts a Tripoli warehouse that he believed had been destroyed by fire following a fatally flawed arms deal. A familiar face can be seen in the photo's background: Amir Jalal, who was thought to have died in 2009 after a drone strike. For the first time in years, Rodrick's fingers are slightly trembling as he looks at the image. It's not just that Amir is alive-it's that someone knows Rodrick was involved.

There's no message, no signature, just the unmistakable weight of exposure.

He doesn't drink his wine that night. Instead, he uses an encrypted terminal in his study that is hidden behind a fake wall, and he starts looking through intelligence channels that are connected to his previous network. He makes five calls-to Moscow, Casablanca, Cape Town, Paris, and one burner phone in D.C.-each only lasting thirty seconds, coded, urgent.

A fire breaks out at a data storage facility in Berlin that is connected to the defunct arm of his laundering operation by the time morning arrives. An old informant in Libya is found dead. Additionally, a car accident in Montenegro sends a retired NATO intelligence officer to the hospital. The moves are known to Rodrick. Clean the trail. Neutralize risk. However, the message is clear: a long game is being played by someone. And they've just made their first move.

His past, so carefully buried beneath banks, charities, and elite respectability, is resurfacing.

Furthermore, it is after him. Rodrick's public life begins to tremble beneath the surface of calm. He spots Lina Veskov, a mercenary turned former MI6 asset, in the crowd at a high-stakes banking summit in Geneva. She's dressed as an interpreter, but her eyes meet his with unmistakable knowledge. She vanishes before he can catch up to her. A discrepancy in one of their offshore reports confronts his CFO, Patrick Mears, three days later. Rodrick, I've flagged this three times. If we don't file corrections, we could be in breach of multiple sanctions," Patrick warns. Knowing full well that tampering now would only draw more attention, Rodrick waves him off. Later, his phone buzzes with an encrypted message:

"The rose has thorns. Cairo. Midnight. Be on your own." Rodrick experiences his first hesitation. He's used to threats, but not riddles. And certainly not ones tied to Cairo-a city where his past burned brightest and cruelest. A city where he buried a woman who loved him and betrayed him in the same breath.

He knows this isn't random. This is personal.

Rodrick Langston, who once considered himself untouchable, begins to realize he's now the hunted. The sleek machinery of his empire still runs smoothly-but the wheels are beginning to squeak, the gears grinding just faintly under pressure. And as Cairo beckons, he can no longer pretend he's left the shadows behind.

Someone is dragging him back in.