Unedited!!
Sayeera's Pov:
The room was silent, except for the faint hum of the late night outside .. crickets, a distant breeze brushing against the windows.
I turned on my side again, then the other. Sleep wouldn’t come.
My thoughts refused to stay still.
They kept circling back to him.
Ray.
That’s all I knew. That name ...Even that is... given by me.
I don’t know why it mattered so much, but it did. His eyes, his voice, the way he stood between me and danger without thinking twice.
Who does that for someone they barely know?
I pressed my face into the pillow, whispering to myself, “You’re being ridiculous, Sayeera. He’s just… being decent. That’s all.”
But then another voice inside me said, Is he?
He was always distant, careful ... yet his silence wasn’t cold. It carried something I couldn’t quite name. A quiet warmth, maybe. Or the kind of understanding that doesn’t need words.
I could still see the faint scratch on his arm when I’d applied the ointment earlier.
The way he’d looked at me ... not startled, not indifferent ... but like he hadn’t expected someone to care.
And that look… it stayed.
I ran a hand through my hair, sighing softly. “Why do I even care so much?”
I didn’t know him. Not really.
I didn’t even know what he did for a living ...only that people called him sir and followed his words like orders.
He carries weapons...and...i don't even know..."I should be scared of him"
And yet, every time he was near, it felt as if the air changed around him.
Like my heart forgot what calm meant.
“Maybe it’s just because he helped you,” I murmured again, trying to convince myself. “You’re just… grateful.”
But the more I said it, the less it sounded true.
There was something else ... something quieter, deeper.
Something I couldn’t put into words yet, but could feel in every glance, every pause, every moment I caught him looking away before I did.
I pulled the blanket closer, shutting my eyes tight.
“Stop it, Sayeera,” I whispered, almost pleading with myself. “He’s just Ray. That’s it. Nothing more.”
But deep down, I knew I was lying.
Because even as the night grew still, a small, stubborn part of me waited...
for a sound outside the door,
for his footsteps in the hall,
for the warmth of his presence that my heart, against all reason, had already begun to miss.
.
.
The first rays of morning filtered through the sheer curtains, brushing across the floor like hesitant fingers. I had barely slept ... the thoughts refused to still. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see his face again, the quiet intensity in his gaze, the steadiness that made the chaos in me falter.
I gave up trying to sleep and sat up. The house was silent ... that kind of heavy silence that hums faintly, like something breathing beneath it. I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and stepped out of the room. The corridor smelled faintly of cedar and metal, a scent that somehow reminded me of him.
I wandered toward the kitchen ...or maybe I just needed something to do with my hands, anything to stop thinking. The counters gleamed, everything in perfect order. For a moment, I hesitated. Would they mind? Would he mind? Then I shook the thought away. It was just tea, nothing more.
I started boiling water, quietly searching the shelves until I found the familiar things ... cardamom, a bit of ginger, tea leaves. It felt strange, almost comforting, to do something I used to do without thinking. The soft crackle of the stove filled the silence.
Then I felt it ... the faint shift of air behind me, a stillness that told me I wasn’t alone.
I turned, slowly.
He stood near the doorway, half-shadowed, still in his dark shirt, the sleeves rolled up, the faintest trace of sleeplessness under his eyes. His hair was slightly disheveled, as though he had run a hand through it too many times. The light from the window fell across his face, catching the edges of his features ... sharp, quiet, unreadable.
For a heartbeat, neither of us spoke.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked finally, voice calm, low ... the kind that carried warmth even when he tried to hide it.
I shook my head. “No. I thought to make tea.”
His eyes flicked toward the pot. “You didn’t have to. The staff could’ve done it.”
“I know,” I said, almost too quickly. “But I needed to… do something. I can’t just sit around.”
He nodded once, as if understanding more than he would say aloud.
I turned back to the pot, hiding the strange flutter in my chest. The silence stretched ... not heavy this time, but soft, as though the air between us had learned to breathe. When the tea was ready, I poured two cups. He didn’t refuse.
He took the cup from me carefully, his fingers brushing mine for the briefest second. The contact was accidental ... or maybe not ... but it left a faint warmth trailing through my skin.
We sat across from each other at the small table. He didn’t speak much, only sipped the tea quietly, his gaze drifting somewhere distant, as if he was already thinking ten steps ahead of whatever the world would throw at him next.
I wanted to ask him ... about his work, his world, the things he hid behind those unreadable eyes. But the words never came out. Instead, I asked softly, “Do you ever sleep...Ray?”
He glanced at me then ... really looked. “Sometimes,” he said after a pause. “When I remember how.”
Something in his tone caught me off guard ... the faint sadness wrapped inside calm. I looked away quickly, afraid that if I met his gaze too long, I’d forget how to breathe.
The conversation faded into silence again. But this time, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was something else ... a strange, fragile understanding that neither of us had words for.
When he left the table, I stayed behind, tracing my fingers around the rim of my cup. The faint warmth still lingered, and I caught myself smiling without meaning to.
Later that day, when I walked around the house ... its long corridors, quiet rooms, the faint hum of hidden systems ... I found myself noticing little things about him. The study door left slightly ajar, the faint scratch marks on his desk, the papers he always arranged perfectly, the jacket hanging over the back of a chair.
Each detail felt like a clue ... a tiny fragment of a man I didn’t understand but wanted to.
I stopped at the study door. His voice was inside, low, steady, talking to someone ... probably Kian or Laksh, only those ones are the people I know here besides him. I couldn’t hear the words, but the tone… calm, measured, careful. The kind of voice that knew how to command storms.
For a moment, I leaned against the wall, eyes closed, and whispered to myself,
“You’re just curious, that’s all. You just want to know who he is. That’s it.”
But deep down, I already knew ... it wasn’t just curiosity. It was something quieter, deeper… something that made my heart beat differently whenever he looked at me.
And I didn’t know whether to be afraid of it ... or to hold on.
I stood near the study door longer than I should have. His voice had gone quiet now, replaced by the soft sound of paper rustling and the occasional click of a pen. I told myself to move, to go back to my room, but my feet wouldn’t listen. Something inside me just… wanted to see.
The door was open just enough to glimpse the inside ... the neat lines of his desk, shelves lined with books, and a few devices whose purpose I couldn’t guess. It wasn’t like any office I had ever seen. Everything here felt precise, deliberate, as if each object had its place, and he had memorized the reason for every one.
I took a small step closer.
He wasn’t there anymore. The chair was turned slightly away, a faint warmth still clinging to the air, as if he had just left. I hesitated ... my heart beating louder than it should ... then quietly pushed the door a little wider.
The study smelled faintly of rain and paper, with something metallic beneath it. On the desk, a few files were spread open, pages covered in codes and markings I didn’t understand. My eyes caught on a small, old photograph tucked partly beneath a folder ... a boy and another man standing together, both younger, both in uniform. The boy’s smile was faint but real, the other man’s expression unreadable.
I didn’t have to guess who the boy was. Even years younger, those eyes — that same strange calm ...were unmistakable.
For some reason, the sight made my chest tighten. I traced the air just above the photo, not touching it, afraid that if I did, I’d be crossing some invisible line.
There was another object near it ... a small silver pendant, shaped like a falcon, its surface worn and scratched. It looked out of place among the clean lines of his desk. It wasn’t an ornament. It was something kept.
Before I could think more, a soft sound made me freeze ... footsteps in the hall.
My breath caught.
I straightened, stepped back quickly, pretending to look toward the shelves. The footsteps came closer, steady, unhurried, the sound of someone who already knew his house too well to ever rush.
The door opened quietly.
He stood there, one hand still on the handle, his expression unreadable. His gaze flicked from me to the desk, then back.
“You were looking for something?”
The words were simple, but they felt like they could see right through me.
I shook my head, too quickly. “No… I just... I was walking by and saw the books.”
He stepped in slowly, his presence filling the room in a way that made everything else fade. “You like reading?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “But these… they don’t look like novels.”
His lips curved slightly...not quite a smile, more like an amused thought he didn’t share. “No. They’re not.”
I nodded, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. “I should go. I didn’t mean to...”
“It’s alright,” he interrupted gently.
Something in his tone made me look up. His voice was calm, but his eyes… his eyes had softened, just slightly.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The silence between us stretched, carrying the faint sound of wind from outside, the ticking of a clock, the weight of unspoken things.
I finally nodded and turned toward the door, but before I stepped out, I glanced back once.
He was standing by the desk now, looking down at the photo I had noticed earlier. His fingers brushed it once, his expression quiet, almost haunted ... and in that moment, I realized that whatever he carried inside him, it wasn’t just mystery. It was memory.
When I reached my room again, I leaned against the door and exhaled slowly.
Who are you, Ray?
I whispered it into the silence, half afraid of what the answer might be.
.
Author’s POV
The Study — Late Evening
The study was dimly lit, the soft glow of a single desk lamp spilling across papers and electronic screens. Outside, the wind carried a low murmur through the tall trees surrounding the estate ... a sound that was easy to mistake for whispers if one listened too long.
Reyaksh sat behind the heavy desk, his elbows resting on its edge, fingers steepled in thought. The faint reflection of light caught the silver ring around his wrist ... the only ornament he ever wore, though few knew what it signified. His gaze was steady, fixed on the open file before him, but his mind wasn’t only on the data. It was retracing the last twenty-four hours in perfect, methodical sequence.
The ambush.
The gunfire in the woods.
The way the shots had been aimed ... precise, not random.
And the timing ... exactly when they had entered the dead zone of the signal grid.
It wasn’t coincidence. He never believed in coincidences.
He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing as he reviewed the security feed logs on his encrypted device. Every call, every update from Laksh, every response from teams end ... everything had followed protocol. No leaks. No signals intercepted. And yet, somehow, someone had known their route.
He exhaled slowly, fingers drumming once on the table’s surface.
There were only three possible explanations:
One, they had been tracked physically ... through some unnoticed tagging device, which Laksh’s team had already scanned and ruled out.
Two, there was a breach inside Codex itself ... unlikely, but not impossible.
Or three… someone outside had anticipated his move, predicting what he would do before he did it.
He shifted his gaze to the small silver falcon on the desk ... a keepsake from another life. Its edges caught the light faintly, gleaming in quiet defiance. It had belonged to a man who once taught him to trust patterns, not people. But even patterns could be manipulated ... if you knew them well enough.
“Merek…” he muttered under his breath, the name tasting like rust.
If the man was truly resurfacing, that would explain the precision. Merek had once trained under the same command, knew his methods, his silence, his restraint ... and how to break them. But what Reyaksh couldn’t yet piece together was why now. What had changed? And how did she fit into this?
His eyes flicked toward the closed door of the study ... beyond which lay the corridor that led to her room.
He hadn’t wanted her dragged into any of this. The night he found her had already complicated too much ... a moment that wasn’t supposed to exist in his world of control and calculation. And yet, here she was ... a living question mark, carrying fragments of a night that intersected his mission and his past.
He looked back at the map projected on the screen, zooming in on a cluster of red points. His voice was calm when he finally spoke into his commlink.
“Laksh, rerun every trace we found around the forest trail. Frequency disruption, thermal trails ... all of it. I want timing within a margin of two seconds.”
Static, then Laksh's voice crackled through. “Already on it, sir. No visible slip-ups so far. But whoever it was, they were good. Military pattern. Not freelance.”
Reyaksh’s eyes hardened.
“Good doesn’t interest me. Find me familiar.”
The line went quiet again, the faint hum of data transmission filling the silence.
He took off his wristwatch ... the customized Codex communicator ...and placed it on the desk. For a moment, he pressed his thumb against its glass surface, accessing the encrypted archive hidden within. Old files appeared ... reports, missions, dossiers ... fragments of a world built on precision and betrayal.
His gaze stopped on one name ... Miral.
The file was red-marked, restricted. He knew that name too well. Miral wasn’t just another criminal network ... it was the one he had spent years with. The one he thought was buried for good.
But now it was resurfacing… and not alone.
Merek’s name was tied to it, the both names once who had once stood beside him and then turned away. Somehow, after his defection, Merek had found his way back to Miral’s side. And tangled within that same web appeared another ... Arven Kale.
The mercenary Sayeera had recognized in the photograph.
That one moment ... her quiet recognition ... had changed everything.
He leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers against his temple. The lines were beginning to connect ... Miral, Merek, Arven, Sayeera. But the more they connected, the more uneasy he felt.
It was too neat.
Too perfect.
Like someone wanted him to see these links. Like someone was carefully laying the trail, piece by piece, until it led him exactly here.
He stood, walked toward the window, and looked out into the night. The forest beyond the house was still ... no movement, no sound except the wind. Yet his instincts wouldn’t quiet. Years of fieldwork had sharpened that sense ...the silent pull that warned him when something unseen watched back.
And tonight, it wouldn’t leave him.
He turned back toward the desk, eyes flicking to the faintly open file — the one with her name on it. Sparse data. Too clean. Orphanage records. Volunteer work. Everything legal, simple… too simple.
He had told himself she was innocent ... that she was just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But now, after the attack, after her sudden recognition, the unease had begun to settle deeper.
He didn’t doubt her ... not exactly. But he couldn’t afford to doubt himself either.
Reyaksh exhaled slowly and reached for the pendant again, closing his hand around the falcon. The metal was cold against his skin.
Whatever was coming, he knew one thing ... this wasn’t random. The pieces were moving. Someone was forcing his hand. And until he found out who, he couldn’t risk letting his guard down ... not even around her.
The clock on the wall ticked softly, marking another minute gone. Outside, the sky deepened into night, clouds gathering at the edges like an unspoken threat.
And in the stillness of his study, beneath the calm surface of his composure, Reyaksh Adric began to plan.
.
.
The faint hum of the computer was the only sound filling the study when Reyaksh’s phone buzzed. The screen flashed Laksh.
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Sir,” Laksh’s voice was lower than usual, edged with the kind of tension that meant he wasn’t calling for routine updates. “I think you’ll want to hear this in person.”
Reyaksh straightened slightly in his chair. “Talk.”
“No, not over the line,” Laksh interrupted quickly. “Just… wait. I’m on my way.”
The call ended, leaving a thin trail of unease in its wake.
Reyaksh set the phone down, his jaw tightening as he stared at the silent black screen. Laksh wasn’t one to overstate things. If he said something was crucial, it was.
Minutes later, the sound of an approaching car echoed through the drive.
Laksh entered without formalities ... his steps brisk, his face shadowed by something that looked halfway between disbelief and concern.
Reyaksh turned toward him. “What did you find?”
Laksh exhaled. “A signal.”
That word alone made Reyaksh’s eyes narrow.
“We rerun and checked the signals from yesterday near the woods ... the same route from yesterday. Checked every transmission, every static fragment.” Laksh paused, “We almost missed it. Whoever planted it buried it deep ... beyond ordinary trace levels. Hidden under what looked like background environmental data.”
Reyaksh’s silence pressed him to go on.
“It wasn’t just a tracker,” Laksh continued. “It was something more advanced ... a layered signal, split across multiple frequency bands. Someone engineered it specifically for us ... or rather, for you. It wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone else.”
For a moment, the air seemed heavier. Reyaksh’s gaze lowered to the table, fingers brushing the surface absently as his thoughts realigned.
“So,” he said quietly, “they were following us through that signal"
Laksh nodded grimly. “Exactly. It’s not external tracking ... it’s embedded reflection. The kind of signal that can bypass standard jammers because it mirrors our own encryption signatures. It reads as Codex.”
Reyaksh’s eyes hardened. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, whoever built it had access .. or knowledge” Laksh said. “And they used it to trace us back without triggering any alerts. We only caught it after we ran an internal sweep through the secondary relay lines.”
For a long moment, neither spoke.
The study felt colder somehow, the soft glow of the monitor reflecting faintly in Reyaksh’s eyes as he processed every word.
Someone was too intelligent to do that.
“Retrieve the origin,” he said finally, his voice quiet but sharp. “I want coordinates, signature breakdown, everything.”
Laksh nodded. “Already working on it. But it’ll take time ... this signal’s not just hidden, it’s… intelligent. Adaptive.”
Reyaksh leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing with thought. “Then we’ll be smarter.”
Laksh hesitated at the doorway. “There’s something else,” he added. “That pattern...it matches one of the old Miral encryption traces. Not exact, but close enough to be deliberate.”
The room fell into silence again.
Reyaksh looked up slowly, his expression unreadable. “Miral,” he repeated under his breath, as if testing the name against the air.
Outside, the evening wind stirred against the windows, carrying the faint echo of a storm about to break.
.
.
Reyaksh didn’t move for a long moment after Laksh left.
The sound of the rain outside had turned steady ... soft, but constant ... tapping against the window glass in an uneven rhythm. It was the only sound that filled the pause between thoughts.
When Laksh returned a few minutes later, his team followed behind him ... two analysts carrying small portable terminals, their faces dimly lit by the flicker of multiple screens.
Reyaksh stood near the desk, eyes fixed on the interface as the data began to pour in ... lines of code, waveforms, encrypted timestamps, all moving too fast for an untrained eye to read.
He didn’t need words to command them; one glance was enough.
Reyaksh's attention fixed on the cluster of monitors while Laksh and members of the tech unit worked in silence. Streams of data moved down the screens ... lines of code, coordinates, and faint frequency patterns, all tracing the signal that had appeared out of nowhere the night before.
The pattern was irregular, skipping like a heartbeat out of rhythm. But it was there ... living, breathing through static.
“Start from the night of the incident,” he said, his voice low, calm ... too calm.
Laksh nodded. “The night you found that wom..."
Reyaksh’s jaw tightened and he interrupted. “Yes. Start there.”
Laksh keyed in the date, cross-referencing it with the communication grids from that sector. Within seconds, a faint pulse appeared on-screen ... a single thread of light buried under hundreds of noise layers.
The team began layering data frames ... one from the night of the ambush, another from the days before and after. Static noise filled the speakers for a few seconds before clearing into a dull, rhythmic pulse.
“There,” Laksh said. “Same signature that pinged last night. It’s still running.” he paused and then added “That faint distortion… that’s not weather interference.”
“Magnify it,” Reyaksh said.
Reyaksh’s eyes narrowed. “That signal started that night… and it never stopped.”
“Exactly,” one of the analysts added, fingers flying across the keys. “We isolated it by cutting through false signal reflections .. mirror loops designed to hide its true origin. It’s encrypted in a pattern not from any public source ... built by someone who knew how to mask an origin completely.”
Static whispered through the speakers ... faint but persistent.
The analyst typed rapidly, fingers flying over the keyboard. “It’s moving in cycles ... every thirty hours. Self-adjusting. Whoever set this up knew how to hide in plain sight.”
The air in the study thickened with a kind of silent urgency. The monitors flickered; codes scrolled faster; numbers split into coordinates that refused to settle.
“Lock the source,” Reyaksh ordered.
“We’re trying,” the analyst replied, his tone clipped. “But it’s bouncing off layered mirrors ... a ghost path. Every time we pin one point, it reconfigures itself and shifts.”
For every trace they followed, another path folded in, leading them nowhere.
“Sir, it’s… adapting,” the analyst muttered. “Every time we narrow the trail, it shifts frequency. Like it’s learning from us.”
Reyaksh moved closer, watching the dance of the code. His eyes followed the rhythm ... cold, calculating. Every flicker of data reflected in his pupils like moving light.
“Don’t follow the noise,” Reyaksh said quietly. “Follow the gaps between.”
They obeyed. One of the monitors cleared, revealing a single strand of data. The pulse steadied, beating slowly, rhythmically ... almost like a living thing.
Laksh’s voice broke the silence. “It’s not external… this pattern doesn’t look like a broadcast signal.”
Bit by bit, the waveform began to form a pattern. A steady signal, faint, but intentional.
“There,” Laksh said, pointing. “See that? That’s the original root trace.”
Reyaksh leaned closer. “Trace it.”
The analyst hesitated, running another diagnostic. “It’s being emitted from within a closed system. A device that’s nearby.”
A long pause. The only sound was the faint tick of the clock.
Reyaksh's fist tightening every moment.
The keys clacked faster, the signal tightening. The waveform stabilized into a sharp point. The map grid zoomed in ... lines of coordinates drawing closer and closer together until the edges of the city came into view.
Then the feed stopped. The cursor blinked.
Laksh leaned forward, confusion flickering across his face. “Sir… this can’t be right.”
Reyaksh’s tone turned low, cold. “What does it show?”
The analyst swallowed, his eyes darting to the screen again ... then to Reyaksh. “It’s here.”
Reyaksh stilled. “Define here.”
The analyst turned the monitor slightly toward him.
The coordinates glowed pale blue ... a single point pulsing inside the perimeter of his own estate.
Inside the house.
Laksh stepped closer, disbelief breaking through his professionalism. “You mean… the signal we’ve been chasing all this time is inside these walls?”
The team ran the trace again, cross-verifying with secondary tools. The result didn’t change. The signal wasn’t outside. It wasn’t in the city. It was inside. It is... inside.
Reyaksh felt the air shift around him, quiet and heavy ... the kind of silence that hummed right before something broke.
“Can you locate the exact source?” he asked.
“Trying,” the analyst said, voice tight. “It’s faint but stable. It’s moving...” he stopped, eyes widening slightly “...no, not moving. Stationary. Very close to the east wing.”
Reyaksh’s gaze lifted toward the corridor that led that way ... toward the hall, the staircase, and beyond it, the rooms where the guests stayed.
A slow breath left his lips. “Shut down all external channels. No comms, no network. Everything runs offline until I say otherwise.”
Laksh nodded immediately, signaling the team.
The monitors dimmed, the systems switching into isolation mode. The faint pulse on the map blinked once… twice… and then steadied again, faint but alive ... still transmitting, still watching.
Reyaksh’s expression didn’t waver, but a shadow flickered behind his eyes .. realization, quiet and dangerous.
Whatever had begun that night had never left.
And it was already inside his house.
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