Whispers With The Devil.
Zyrah’s Point Of View.
“Thank you for the information, it’s good to know that you are aware of Leo.” I said to Darius.
I didn’t move for a moment after the silence settled between Darius and me. The conversation about Leo had shaken something deep, not fear but awareness,a cold kind, the kind that coils behind your ribs and waits.
“I need to call him,” I finally said, my voice calm but clipped.
Darius watched me like a loaded gun waiting for a trigger.
He nodded and did not stop me, his silence meant “Do it but don’t fuckk this up.”
I didn’t use my encrypted line this time, it was too obvious and easy to track. Instead, I walked over to the far wall of Darius’s office where our legacy console sat behind a hidden panel, locked behind a steel latch. One of the original analog systems built into the Aeternum infrastructure long before digital security became fashionable.
I slid the panel aside, punched in the twelve-digit cipher code, then pulled the old rotary handset from the hook. The green light blinked on, authorization granted.
The receiver was cold against my ear.
I inhaled and waited as the other line began to ring. Within seconds, I heard a click, the line bloomed to life with a slow, dragging voice that filled the space like smoke curling under a locked door.
“Well,” came the voice, smooth, and unhurried, but deep enough to feel like it had claws. “Didn’t expect to hear from
you so soon.”
Even without seeing him, I could feel the grin behind the words, not joyful, just in control.
“You called me,” I said flatly. “Now I’m answering.”
“A woman of conviction,” Leo Vincenzo purred. “You’re full of surprises, Ms. Callisto.”
I didn’t correct him, not with my full name, he already knew too much.
“Your voice,” he continued, “carries like smoke through glass, quiet, clean, but you leave ash behind.”
I didn’t reply to the compliment masked as a threat.
“I want us to meet,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
There was a pause, a deliberate silence like he was deciding whether to humor me or not.
Darius, seated nearby, leaned forward slightly, his eyes like sharpened steel.
0.0 %
16:18
“Tomorrow you say?,” Leo repeated, slowly. “Well, that Impatient, and very interesting.”
“I’ll send the location tonight, we will meet at a private but neutral ground.”
He chuckled, a low and velvet-slick.
“My dear, I don’t believe in neutral ground, there’s always one predator at the top of the food chain. But,” he added, “I do appreciate theater.”
His tone shifted, just slightly but darker now.
“Just so you know, when I step into a room, I don’t come to talk, I come to listen, to decide, and if necessary, erase every obstruction.”
I felt that in my spine, cold but laced with truth.
“Then listen closely,” I said. “You wanted to meet, now, I am offering it, but I set the rules.”
He exhaled softly like someone enjoying the scent of danger.
“You want to play at control,” he said, “but control is only an illusion, sweetheart. I’ve killed men with bigger em- pires than yours for less than a raised voice.”
I watched as Darius stood now, tense, with his fists at his sides.
But I held my ground.
“I’m not interested in playing, Leo. I’m interested in the results. You said you want to see Ronan fall, and I want the same. If you’re truly committed, then show up.”
There was another pause at the other end.
Then his voice curled again, low and dry like dust slipping between teeth.
“I’ll come without a guard or my gunmen, just me, but make no mistake, I am the danger in the room.”
I didn’t blink.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“And Zyrah,” he added, voice now a purr. “Wear something sharp, something that tells me I’m standing in the pres- ence of someone worth dying for.”
At once, he hung up, the line died as silence flooded the room again.
“Fucking prick!” I cursed at his last statement with disbelief.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” I spat in
anger.
I set the phone down slowly, eyes locked on the blinking light until it fade to black.
47.8%
16:18
Darius stepped beside me.
“He’s worse than I imagined,” he muttered.
I nodded once, quiet. “But he’s coming.”
Darius scoffed. “Which means we don’t walk into a meeting, we walk into a f**king trap.”
“Then we go armed,” I said.
He looked at me, his gaze softer now. “Are you sure about this?”
“No,” I whispered. “But it’s the only path forward.”
Leo Vincenzo wasn’t a man, he was a storm given skin, and tomorrow, I was walking into the eye
89.8 %
