Chapter 4 The Weight of Silence

Chapter Four: The Weight of Silence

Zara didn't hear from Leo for two days.

Not a word. Not a glance. Not a whisper through his guards.

He moved like a ghost through the estate-silent, calculating, avoiding her as if physical distance could undo what was already said between them.

She couldn't blame him.

She had told him the truth. Or part of it.

Not that she was SIRS. Not that she had been assigned to dismantle everything he built. But enough.

Enough to make trust impossible.

She walked the halls like a soldier on borrowed time. The staff had grown quieter around her. The guards more watchful. Even Chika, who once smirked in her direction, now gave her stiff nods and avoided eye contact.

She had gone from confidante to question mark.

And she felt it.

In every step. Every silence.

On the third morning, a letter was slipped under her door.

No seal. No name.

Just four words written in Leo's clean, brutal handwriting:

"Come to the armory."

Zara stared at the note for a long time before folding it into her pocket.

The message didn't scare her.

The fact that she was relieved did.

The armory was buried beneath the estate, hidden behind a false wine cellar and biometric scanner. It smelled of oil, iron, and old wars. Rows of locked crates lined the walls. Guns. Knives. Explosives. All catalogued, all lethal.

Leo stood in the center of it.

Black shirt. No jacket. Hands wrapped in leather gloves. He looked like judgment.

He didn't speak when she entered.

Didn't smile.

Just nodded toward the table.

A pistol sat in the middle. Matte black. Safety on.

"Pick it up," he said.

Zara stepped closer, heart steady, fingers cool.

She lifted the weapon without hesitation.

"Good," Leo said. "You're not afraid of me yet."

She set it down again. "Why am I here?"

Leo walked around the table slowly, circling her.

"I used to think silence meant safety," he said. "That if you said nothing, no one could hurt you. But silence is just another kind of lie."

Zara held his gaze. "Then stop lying to me."

Leo paused.

Then said softly, "You were never just an asset to me."

Something cracked in her chest.

"Then why do I feel like I'm about to be executed?"

He moved in front of her, close enough for her to smell gunpowder and cedar on his skin.

"Because I haven't decided what to do with you yet."

Zara didn't flinch.

She held Leo's gaze, the pistol still between them like a question neither of them wanted to answer.

"I've let people lie to me before," Leo said. "You're not the first. You just did it better."

She took a breath. "And yet, I'm still here."

"That's the problem," he replied. "You shouldn't be."

He turned, walked a few paces away, then stopped near a wall lined with knives. "You think this was a game? Some dance between spy and kingpin? I saw the signs, Zara. The late-night walks. The encrypted messages. I saw the hesitation in your eyes every time I let you close."

She said nothing.

"Was it all an act?" he asked.

"No," she said firmly. "Not all."

He looked at her again, eyes colder now. "But enough of it was."

Zara swallowed hard. "Yes."

Silence fell between them again, but this time it was different. He wasn't circling her like a wolf anymore. He looked... tired.

"Do you know what I regret most?" Leo asked.

She shook her head.

"That I let myself believe it could be different with you." His voice dropped. "That I could stop watching my back."

Zara stepped forward. "You don't have to-"

"Yes, I do," he cut in sharply. "That's the difference between us. You were born in the shadows. Trained to betray. I had to become this."

He gestured around him. The armory. The empire. Himself.

"I built everything from blood and silence. You were just the latest chapter in the story."

Zara's heart ached, but her voice stayed steady. "Then write the ending, Leo. If you think I'm the enemy, end it."

He looked at her, jaw clenched.

Then-without warning-he slammed his fist into the wall beside her.

Not at her. Just near. A breath away from destruction.

His voice cracked.

"I don't want to kill you."

Zara's breath caught.

He stood there, hand bleeding from the impact, chest rising and falling fast.

Then he whispered, "But I don't know how to keep you either."

They stood in silence, the air thick with gun oil and ghosts.

Zara stepped forward slowly. Carefully. She reached out and took his bloodied hand in hers.

She wrapped a strip of cloth from her sleeve around his knuckles. Tight. Clean.

"I lied," she said. "But not about everything."

He didn't move.

"I never planned to care about you," she continued. "I thought I could do the job and walk away. But I see you now, Leo. I see what this life has made you. And it's not all monster."

Leo looked down at their hands.

Then he pulled away.

"You're good at words, Zara. But words won't stop what's coming."

She nodded.

"I know."

Later, back in her room, Zara stared at the walls.

She thought about the file with her name on it. The look in Leo's eyes. The fire at the warehouse.

Everything was unraveling.

She opened a secure line to SIRS.

Sparrow to Nest. Immediate request.

Mission compromised. Target aware. Standing by for extraction.

She hesitated.

Then typed:

Personal recommendation: delay full takedown.

Too many moving pieces.

Target is dangerous, but not unstable.

She paused again.

Then added one final line:

If you come for him, don't expect me to help.

She sent it.

Then sat in silence, listening to the storm begin again outside.

In the hallway, Leo stood just outside her door, listening.

Not to the words.

But to her silence.

And to the way it no longer felt like protection.

The next morning, the estate was unusually quiet.

Zara woke to the smell of smoke-not fire, but the soft scent of tobacco and gunpowder, clinging to the air like warning. She dressed quickly, instinct humming under her skin like electricity.

When she stepped out of her room, Chika was waiting.

"Boss wants you in the courtyard," she said curtly.

Zara nodded, but something in the woman's tone had changed. Cold. Controlled. Not the easy sarcasm Chika usually wielded like a blade.

Outside, Leo stood near the garden wall, a long table laid with maps, drones, and digital feeds. He looked up when she arrived but said nothing.

Three other men stood nearby-new faces. Not inner-circle. Not familiar.

Mercenaries, maybe. Or worse.

"You brought in outsiders," Zara said, stopping a few paces from the table.

"I needed eyes that don't lie to me," Leo replied without looking at her.

She bit the inside of her cheek.

"You think I'd sabotage you myself?"

"I think I don't know what you're capable of anymore."

He pointed to a satellite image on the table. "This is one of our secondary depots near Benin. It's been flagged. Movement, heat signatures. Someone's nesting there, waiting for us to move resources so they can hit it."

Zara studied the image. "That's a SIRS grid pattern."

Leo's gaze snapped to her. "How would you know that?"

Too late, she realized her mistake.

She swallowed. "Because I've seen it before. I've seen it used by private militaries who learned from us."

Leo said nothing. He turned back to the image.

But she knew he didn't believe her.

That night, Zara stood at her window, hands clenched at her sides. The city lights in the distance were blurry through the stormclouds, like the past week of her life-flickering, unclear.

Her phone buzzed.

Nest to Sparrow. Extraction window open. Rendezvous in 12 hours.

Clean pullout or leave confirmed. Decision required.

She stared at the message.

Twelve hours.

Twelve hours to walk away. Twelve hours to disappear. To save her life. To protect everything she'd worked for.

Twelve hours to betray the man who now lived behind her ribs like a secret.

Just before dawn, she found Leo on the roof again.

The roses had been trimmed back. A few petals were scattered across the tiles, dark and bruised from the weather.

"You used to say they were soldiers," she murmured.

Leo didn't turn. "Now they're corpses."

The city buzzed below, quiet from distance but roaring just beneath it.

"I got my extraction order," she said.

He still didn't turn.

"I'm supposed to be gone by noon."

Finally, he faced her.

"And will you be?"

Zara stared at him.

She saw the scar above his right eyebrow. The lines at the corners of his mouth. The grief in his silence.

"No," she said.

Something in his face broke-almost too fast to see. But it was there.

"I don't want your loyalty," he said. "Not if it's pity."

"It's not pity." She stepped forward. "It's the truth."

He reached for her hand, slow, unsure.

Their fingers met.

He let out a breath, and for the first time in days, his shoulders dropped.

"We're past the point of safety, Zara."

She nodded. "We were never safe."

And in that moment, neither of them knew if they were allies or traitors-or if it even mattered anymore.

They had chosen each other.

And the war was coming for both of them.