warnings: this chapter contains allusions to graphic violence. reader discretion is advised.
forty eight | forty nine | fifty
“I miss the real world,” she groaned, draping herself across the fainting couch like some tragic heroine in a Victorian painting. Of course this house had one—a velvet Victorian fainting couch, tucked in the corner like it had been waiting centuries for someone to actually faint on it. The lush cushions swallowed her whole, but she managed to throw one hand across her forehead for dramatic effect anyway.
“I miss coffee. Real coffee. Not this… bean water you people drink. I drink instant coffee, Logan, instant, and I still can’t figure out what you’re mixing into your water here. It’s actually disgusting. It can’t be healthy.”
Logan leaned against the doorframe, watching her theatrics with a raised brow. “You could just get a coffee machine.”
She sat up halfway, glaring. “Not the point, Logan! I’m saying I need to go back. I had a life, you know. I had a job, friends, classes—” She froze mid-rant, eyes widening, panic rolling over her face. “Oh my god, my classes! I must be so behind by now! I’ve probably missed essays and exams and—and—”
“Okay, woah, easy there.” He held up both hands like she was a wild animal about to bolt. “Breathe before you actually faint on your fainting couch, please.”
“S’not funny!” she snapped, pressing her hands to her temples.. “I need to get out of here. I have to go to school and explain everything. Maybe– Maybe they’ll excuse my absence, or grant me an extension, or— or what if they kick me out of the university?”
Her voice cracked on the last word, a little more panicked than she wanted it to sound. She caught Logan’s gaze lingering on her, too steady, too knowing.
“What?” she demanded. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You won’t like it.”
“Just spit it out,” she said flatly, her tone almost threatening. “Before I wither like a plant and die.”
“Please don’t.” He leaned back, smirking. “I feel like that would be kinda counterproductive.”
She got up, if only to swat his arm with the pillow she’d been leaning on.
“Ow!” He laughed, clutching his bicep in mock pain. “Someone’s getting violent.” Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he grinned at her, rubbing his shoulder like he was proud of her for it.
However, the glare she leveled at him wiped the grin clean off his face.
He raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Serious mode.”
A beat.
“I don’t think you actually want to leave.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? Are you insane? I—”
“No, really.” His gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t think you want to leave. Because if you did? You would’ve by now.”
Her laugh was sharp, incredulous. “What the hell are you talking about? Do you not remember the huge locked gates? Or maybe the fact this place is crawling with armed criminals?”
Logan gave her an exaggerated bow. “Flattered.”
“Or the fact that I have no idea where the fuck I am? Or how to get home? Or how he—” she jabbed her finger toward the vague direction of wherever Lando was hiding “—had a literal gun—”
“You know he wouldn’t hurt you,” Logan cut in, certain. No hesitation. “In fact, he’d give you anything you asked.”
Her mouth twisted, bitter. “He certainly didn’t let me go when I asked.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “You know why. You just don’t like to think about it. Because if you did, you’d have to admit that the big bad boss man isn’t as mean or scary as you want him to be. You’d have to admit he actually cares.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
“I’m serious!” He laughed, clearly entertained by her fury. “Tell you what—if you don’t believe me, try it. Ask him for anything you want. And if he doesn’t give it to you… I’ll walk you out of here myself.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Wait. Like… actually?”
“Scouts honor.” He raised two fingers with mock solemnity.
“…You were never a scout.”
“Well, yes. But I’m making a point!”
She rolled her eyes, sinking back against the fainting couch, but the thought lingered all the same.
“What if I want books?” she said finally, leaning back with a smug sort of challenge. “My textbooks. Not the– those books on fourteenth-century siege tactics you guys apparently hoard in your little murder library.”
Logan didn’t even flinch, only flicking nonexistent dirt from underneath his fingernail. “Easy.”
Her brows arched. “And I want a– an espresso thingy. Y’know, the little old-style kettle so you can make it on a stove? No more of that bean-water swill you’ve been subjecting me to.”
“Oh, consider it done.”
Suspicion narrowed her eyes. “And how do I know you’re not the one getting me stuff?”
“Because it’s so much more fun to prove I’m actually right,” he shot back without hesitation, already rising to his feet. He winked, smug as sin.
She let out a frustrated huff. “I hate you, you know that?”
But he was already turning down the hall, laughter echoing back at her, hands shoved in his pockets like he’d already won.
Smug bastard.
“You've got to be kidding me.”
“Nope,” Logan said, leaning against the doorframe casually.
“This is insane.”
“I’m aware.”
“Like actually, literally insane.”
“I told him the same thing.”
Y/N huffed as she lifted the stack of first-edition legal texts—first edition, for god’s sake—onto the desk in her guest room. The weight pulled at her stitches and left her slightly winded, but it didn’t matter. First editions, annotated analysis, everything she could possibly need and then some.
She had to pause halfway, chest rising with shallow breaths, but her eyes were alight for the first time in weeks. The joy cracked through despite herself, bright and sharp, like sunlight after rain. For the first time in weeks her eyes were lit from within with that once-familiar spark, her fingers reverent as she traced the spines. The pages smelled faintly of dust and ink, her world spilling back into her hands.
“Oh, and there’s something else,” Logan added, far too smug for his own good.
She narrowed her gaze. “What?”
“I can’t bring it here. You’ll have to see it for yourself.”
“Where—”
“Just follow me.” Logan didn’t wait for her protest, already striding ahead.
Reluctant, wary, she trailed after him, tugging the sleeves of her cardigan over her hands. The walk wasn’t long, but her chest still ached by the time they reached the kitchen.
And then she froze.
Her eyes landed first on the stovetop—sitting there like it belonged all along was a gleaming little espresso pot, old-style, still in its packaging, not even thrifted—brand new. Her chest went warm. She stepped forward to touch it, her thumb gliding over the smooth handle, the weight perfect in her grip.
But then her gaze slid past it, caught on the monstrous machine next to it. Stainless steel, state of the art, with more buttons and dials than she knew what to do with. Thousands of euros of precision engineering, every bell and whistle she’d shown Liam once, laughing, saying maybe she’d get it for the café someday when business was good.
The sight of it now punched the air from her lungs.
“Told you he’d listen,” Logan said, grin wolfish, but softer than usual.
She didn’t answer, her fingers ghosting over the machine’s surface, her pulse betraying her fury by racing with something else entirely.
It didn’t make sense. None of it did.
Every time she thought she had Lando figured out—mob boss, liar, killer—something else clawed its way in. Lando remembering a coffee machine she’d offhandedly mentioned months ago. Him slipping Logan a brand-new knife set after he’d lost some on an operation. Him quietly giving Fewtrell a day off when he came down with the flu, no questions asked.
And yet… the same man orchestrated violence, left trails of blood in alleyways, carried a gun like it was part of his hand.
What kind of cold-blooded killer did things like that? Which one was the lie—the monster or the man?
Y/N didn’t have an answer, but the question gnawed at her ribs until she thought she’d splinter. Her eyes burned from not sleeping, and when she saw the faint strip of light spilling out from under the heavy door at the end of the hall, she thought maybe it was her chance.
Maybe, just maybe, she’s find it there — a conversation, an explanation.
The truth.
She padded closer, her pulse hammering. Y/N made it all of two steps closer before a shadow shifted.
The headshake was immediate, sharp.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
She froze. Her head snapped to the side, startled.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me—”
“I assure you,” the voice said, low and dry, “I am not.”
Her eyes darted to the side, finding the figure who had seemingly materialized from the darkness.
Oscar.
The elusive one.
She hadn’t met him properly before, only in passing glimpses and echoing phrases here and there. But here, up close, he looked almost her age. There was something soft in his features that dulled the danger she’d built up in her mind, something that made him seem startlingly human.
He sure seemed to hang around here a lot.
“Sorry,” he said dryly, a smirk tugging at his mouth, “that party’s invite only.”
“I was just trying to—”
“Did he call you?” Oscar cut in, one brow lifting.
“Well, no, but—”
His look was pointed, knowing.
“I have to talk to him. It’s important—” she insisted.
“You can’t.”
The bluntness of it pricked her temper raw, frustrating her. “Why not?”
There was no answer, only silence that implied too much.
Lando’s hiding something.
He just looked at her with that same unnerving mix of softness and distance, like someone who’d already decided how this would play out.
And then, before she could argue more, he tilted his head toward the hallway. “Come on.”
He didn’t touch her, didn’t threaten. Just walked her back to her room with an almost old-fashioned courtesy, stopping at her door.
“Goodnight,” he said sincerely, voice low, before disappearing down the hallway like he’d never been there at all.
And just like that, she was left alone with the light still burning under Lando’s door—and more questions than ever before.
The more she thought about it, the more it ate at her.
Every room in the house was hers to roam. She could eat anything from the kitchen, wander the endless halls, curl up with any book in the library—even ones she knew had been marked priceless. Rooms unfolded like a labyrinth: glittering halls, cavernous bedrooms, libraries stacked to the ceiling. She could have anything she wanted. Even sunlight, in carefully measured doses. Logan had proved that much.
Anything, it seemed, except for him.
Lando didn’t talk to her. Didn’t look at her. He made himself scarce, as if timed down to the minute. If she was in the garden, he was away. If she wandered near the east wing, he was gone before she turned the corner. The only space he seemed to guard jealously was the office with its locked door, the strip of light beneath it taunting her like a secret she wasn’t meant to touch.
What could he possibly still be hiding?
What was left to conceal when she already knew about the lies, the violence, the blood?
The question grew like rot in her chest. Was it just paperwork, ledgers, plans for whatever violent empire he ran? Or was it something worse—some evidence that the softness he’d shown her, the tenderness she remembered, was nothing but a carefully rehearsed illusion?
Logan’s words only fed the itch. On one of their usual walks, he’d mentioned offhandedly, “I’ll be out tomorrow. Helping the others with something for Lando.” He didn’t explain, and she didn’t press, but the thought burrowed in.
The way he said it so offhand made her stomach twist. What something? What needed all of them, but none of her?
But if they’d all be gone, if Lando wasn’t coming back until morning…
That night she lay awake, her mind chewing itself raw. She turned over every angle: why he kept avoiding her, why he left kindness in his wake like breadcrumbs but never faced her.
Which was the truth? The man who bought her peonies, who remembered her coffee machine, who made sure she ate? Or the mob boss who orchestrated killings, who was capable of shoving her into this gilded cage?
The questions scratched at her ribs until she couldn’t breathe.
So when the house finally quieted, when she knew he was supposed to be away on business overnight, she slipped from her bed and padded barefoot through the hushed halls.
The house seemed quieter than ever, every creak of the wooden floors too loud beneath her bare feet. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she made her way down the corridor, past the windows with their iron latches, until she stood before the door.
The office door loomed at the end of the corridor, the one place she’d never been allowed, the one truth she wasn’t meant to see. The light wasn’t on this time. Just the heavy outline of the door, the brass handle catching the faintest glow.
Her fingers curled around the handle.
It should’ve been locked.
It wasn’t.
The lock gave way with a soft click, and for a long moment she just stood there, holding her breath, waiting for alarms or footsteps. Nothing. Just silence.
The office smelled faintly of leather and gun oil. Heavy curtains muted the night outside, throwing everything into a hush of shadow and lamplight.
She stepped in.
For a moment, she just stood there, taking it all in. It was—well, it was exactly what she might have expected and nothing like it all at once.
The room was sleek, expensive, curated: heavy mahogany desk gleaming with polish, leather chairs angled with the kind of precision that screamed control. On the desk, neat stacks of paper and contracts sat beside a fountain pen, documents scattered in some invisible order. A pair of ornate glass cabinets displayed weaponry like art—antique pistols, a dagger with an ivory handle, even a rifle mounted above the mantle like some people hung trophies.
A glass case on the wall with weaponry displayed like artwork—knives, pistols, something old and gleaming that looked like it belonged in a museum. She moved carefully, her fingers hovering near surfaces without quite touching.
Her gaze snagged on a photo frame tucked onto a shelf. Not a formal portrait, nothing staged. Just a group of them at the beach, laughing, sunburned, mid–beer can cheers. Lando younger, maybe even carefree. Max Fewtrell with a beer can lifted in salute. Logan half-buried in sand, Oscar standing proudly over his handiwork. Verstappen scowled at the camera like it had offended him. And there, tucked between them all, was a man with a tumble of curly hair and a grin that seemed impossible to extinguish.
It was Daniel — the same face she’d seen in photos “Liam” had once shown her with a soft, heavy voice, back when sorrow lived in the gaunt expression of his face.
But here, in this photo, they looked untouched by pain, by fear, by grief. If she didn’t know any better, it looked like the people in that photo had never known any darkness at all.
The picture looked painfully ordinary. It was disarming. Too… sentimental. Too human, so stupidly human it made her chest hurt.
She set it back carefully, fingers trembling, and moved along the shelves. Mostly décor—books that had probably never been cracked open, a bronze globe, an ornate clock ticking so softly she could hear it in her teeth. They felt like decoration, chosen for appearances. She tilted one absently, and something clicked.
A sharp sound, mechanical, like a lock disengaging.
Her stomach flipped. She froze, then nudged the shelf again.
This time, the wood shifted, revealing the edge of a hidden board sliding back.
Her pulse spiked, breath sharp in her chest.
What the hell was this?
Behind the false board was chaos.
It opened into something sprawling—maps layered with notes, photographs pinned with surgical precision, red string cutting across it all in jagged lines. A wall layered in snapshots and scribbles, string webbing one detail to the next. She leaned in, heart hammering.
Her eyes darted over details, trying to take it in. A blurred shot of a figure outside the café. Police reports, stamped and signed, from the night Margot was shot.
Some of it she recognized instantly. A grainy photo of Brews & Books’ storefront, taken after the stabbing—yellow tape strung across the entrance like a wound. An autopsy report with Margot’s name stamped at the top, black ink bleeding into clinical words that made her stomach churn.
But there were other pieces that she didn’t recognize — men she didn’t know, grainy faces caught mid-stride, names scribbled underneath, blurry shots of cars at night. A map of the city with circles in red ink.
Her gaze landed on a string that started with a place she did know.
A picture of the café again, but this one older. It led to the silhouette of a man leaning against the wall, blurred in motion.
Margot’s shooter.
The mugshot behind the CCTV capture gave her a name, though it sparked no recognition, only rage. He appeared tall, blonde, something sinister and empty behind those brightly colored eyes.
George Russell.
Y/N clenched her eyes shut, forcing herself to try to remember that, to see his face. But whoever he was, he must have been too fast, because all she could remember was the bloody aftermath. She wanted desperately to be able to say that she remembered him, that she’d known it was him, that she could recall the face of the man that took everything from her.
She should’ve been careful what she wished for.
There, at the end of the thread leading out from him—the thread wound straight to another picture, another name. One that was hauntingly familiar.
Alex Albon.
Her breath caught, sharp and loud in the stillness. Her heart stuttered.
No.
Alex?
It couldn’t be.
The same Alex she once sat across from at tiny student cafés, notebooks between them, laughter awkward but genuine? The same Alex who’d been gentle with her, who left her heart bruised but not broken?
Her hand hovered over the string like touching it would burn. The bones of her ribs tightened, threatening to squeeze the air from her lungs.
It was Alex? Alex who had Margot killed? And Lando—Lando had figured it out?
Her hand flew to her mouth. The board blurred as her mind scrambled, crashing between grief, rage, betrayal.
Why hadn’t he told her? Why had she been left to hate him for lies while the truth sat locked in here?
She staggered back a step, the sound of her own ragged breathing loud in her ears.
“—You shouldn’t be in here.”
Her whole body snapped taut at the sound of his voice.
That accent, low and unmistakably British, rolled through the dark like a warning.
She turned, pulse clawing at her throat.
There, Lando stood in the doorway, shadowed, his expression unreadable.
a/n: sorry for the short chapter. i kinda liked this one, but i know a lot of people were upset about the short chapter last time as well. minimally edited, but hopefully next chapter can make up for it.
Sawyer: All the fliers are still struggling with the altitude, and their gryphons are still sleeping half the day, according to Sliseag, so they're probably at their weakest.
Rhiannon: *whispers* We’re not actually considering this…
Ridoc: *glances* Are we???
Imogen: *shrugs* At least for a few seconds…
Violet: *a little too loudly* I am.
The entire Squad: …
Violet: …We can't REALLY kill her…
Rhiannon: Surely… not?
Imogen: …
Rhiannon: She is our squadmate.
Ridoc: *side-eyes* Right… right??
Violet: Wait, is that really the only ethical line there?
The entire Squad: *shrugs*
Sawyer: …You sure?
Ridoc: Just the word…
Imogen: And we'll *happily* bury a body.
Sawyer: … We do still have a couple of hours before we're due in Battle Brief…
