2025-07-14 20:24:31•••
Back at the hotel, many thousand thoughts roamed his mind, he thought about Lena, and her meals, and how she'd sit at the dining table alone. How must that have felt? All because he wanted to protect her. He's always wanted to protect her, I mean, that's what men do, and in turn, she always loved it whenever he stood up for her. Lena met him at a bar, some years back, he went to have a drink within his lost period, and found her, he could clearly remember what she looked liked, and he regretted not being a poet, he would her write her into immortality, why wouldn't he? when the presence of a lady can bring light into his life, at least he told her that, and she smiled, and he got her a drink, and paid for hers, and got her another drink, and another, and the night was over. She moved in with him a year after their meeting, and since then, they've been together. He'd always say, Lena was one of a kind. But it became more dicey, as he thought about The Architect, and what he really wanted. He's had people hunt him before, but none of them hunted him down, none of them made him feel powerless. He realized The Architect's demands were more complex than just a single assassination. Someone would think it was just about that one shot, yunno? Killing Eleanor Vance, no, it was more, there was more. The Architect was smarter, and wanted something larger, Silas began to regret, he's screwed up accepting to even find Vance and end her, he's screwed up even agreeing to protect Lena by going away from her all this while, all this way to London. What if he had challenged The Architect? Like he did the other bad men. What if he stayed home? The Architect was not powerful enough to come out alone and find him. What had he done, really? He sat up on his bed, opened his laptop and logged in to NexusCore’s archive. He slowly started analyzing patterns, cross-referencing information from Vance's network with historical underworld activity. He uncovered evidence of other seemingly legitimate figures being systematically dismantled or absorbed. It was not looking good, and then the image of that man again. Jax. He stared at it for a minute or two, and decided to find him. ••• Silas walked back into the office like he never left, and started asking around for Jax. Jax Will. One person stopped at the question, read his badge, SECURITY CONSULTANT. "Level 5. Don't you know we are not supposed to communicate?" She said, "I'm a level 10" Things were really weird around NexusCore, and he needed time to understand how it worked around here. Time? That was the one thing he didn't have. Whatever he was doing he had to do it fast, get rid of Vance, get rid of The Architect, and go home. "I'm sorry," he read her name tag, "Ninth." The N thing with their names. And then he walked further, she stood there watching him for longer than he walked, and he kept turning back at intervals. He found Jax Will. He still smoked, and this time he had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and they got talking for a while now, happy he was recognized by someone from his past. But Jax's got a life now. “Since 2007,” Jax said, “that's all I'll tell you.” “C’mon Jax, you don't want to hide stuff from me.” “What would you do, kill me like you killed the Hollowman?” Jax looked him straight in the eye, everyone knew it was Silas Volkov. Everyone did. “Shhhh…” Silas shushed him, looking around, “you know about the Hollowman?” “Everyone knows about the Hollowman. Everyone knows it was Silas Volkov and his men.” Jax said, now if you please go away, I've got work to do. “Look, I know this can't be all of Vance. Tell me more of what she's got.” Silas urged. "We should not be talking, Silas, you are on Level 5!" Jax said, "Don't let us get caught." "That's what Vance told you?" "She instituted, you buffalo!" "Call me anything you want man, just tell me what I need to know." Silas said, calmly. Jax looked at him with an obvious "you not getting to hear any more thing from me" face. “She's my boss, Silas,” Jax explained, “and I can't betray her, I'm not telling you anything more. Besides, how did you get to work in Security?” “You are not from around here, Jax!” Silas pointed out, maybe to guilt trip him into choosing sides again. “Why do you want to kill her, Silas?” Jax asked. “It's a fuckin' long story man, just talk to me.” “This is about The Architect right?” Jax pointed out. “What? You know?” “Listen, I'm not ready to have this conversation with you, Silas. Do what you must. But know that if it truly is about The Architect, you are not winning.” Jax began walking away, but Silas stopped him, he forced a tense confrontation with Jax, and looked him in the eye. "What do you mean?" Silas asked. Under duress, Jax revealed that Vance has been buying up old underworld assets and information, including a network of deeply buried safe houses and intelligence caches belonging to The Architect's original regime, and these hinted at a power struggle far grander than Silas imagined. ••• Back at his room, the air was cold and he had himself wrapped up in his mattress, he was deeply worried, his life was literally dwindling, and without help, he'd be dead in a few days, because someone was going to kill him if he doesn't finish this job, it could be Kira, that one, he's been watching her, it could be The Architect himself, Lord knows this person was going to die soon, and in a very bad way, he stretched and picked his laptop again, and began tapping away. He needed to find it. Whatever it was. About 15 minutes later, he discovered a hidden encrypted message within Vance's network, security was getting easier to manage, and this message was planted by The Architect decades ago, and this was meant to activate upon Vance's father's demise. He squinted to read the small fonts of this coded document, the message said that Silas himself was unwittingly a pawn in a much larger game of corporate and criminal restructuring, and this would inevitably set the stage for The Architect's true endgame. Silas paused. What the fuck! He thought.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 14: Costa's World
Lena never let him out of her sight for too long, she wanted the best for him, reason why she always got to monitor his every move, his every deeds, just so he does the right thing and ends up well, not like his father. What was she supposed to say when she saw him earlier? No, she knew she wouldn't run into him for a hug, he didn't deserve it, he didn't even also deserved a smile. What she did was okay, she didn't know the man, and what do you do with people you don't know? You ignore them.Her and Costa had finished seeing a movie together, and Costa had gone to his room, leaving Lena alone in the sitting room, she had to clean up, and do the dishes. She took the plates to the kitchen and washed the oil off them, she placed them nicely back into the rack and called for Costa, but he didn't reply. He normally wouldn't leave her after a movie, sometimes he stayed back on the couch, and most times, he helped her with the dishes.“Love?”He didn't reply still, he usually responded to h
Chapter 13: The Ghost of Lena's Past
Now he couldn't bear not seeing Lena, it felt like all those years had become empty and heavy, and were piling up on his head. He couldn't bear it anymore, added with the thoughts of her, and of him. He packed a few clothes and fitted them into his backpack. He was going to leave everything behind and find her, and find his little boy. The day was growing old and dim, and the wind gently caressed the curtains, letting the warm air into his room. The room was not bright, grey walls, and smelled of burnt wire. The smell came from the roof, it hosted Manny burnt wires that had even previously gone bad and erupted in flames.Pam walked into the room with a question hanging on her lips, “And where are you going?” she asked, standing right close to the door.“It's not going to be a long trip, Pam, you'll see me in like three days.” he answered, rummaging through the drawers for needful stuff to carry along with him.“No, don't leave?” She cried.He turned to look at her, if only she knew.“
Part 12: The Nomad's Return
After years of traveling back and forth Moscow and London, Silas finally settled with spending the rest of his life in Moscow, it was where he was most familiar with, so he returned home, he's grown up here, the people, the food, the women, oh the women, the peace, and the solitude he's found since he left London and The Architect, and even Lena. Lena. He knew that one way or the other she was going to be okay with the boy, he would have been worried those earlier years when his leaving was still new, not now, Costa should be about fifteen years old, he could look after her, and himself. But what does his boy look like, he never got to see, he never got to know, he just knew that somehow, one way or the other, they were both going to be good.Now I don't think it's okay to wake to haunting memories like a past as bad as Silas', everyday, since he left London, he's been thinking a lot about Lena and Costa before he went to bed. Today, he had rubbed his eyes, and sat up in bed, he could
Part 11: The After
Part 11: The AfterEleanor Vance is imprisoned, she had never been to prison, she didn't even dream that in all her lifetime she'd serve a sentence, and watch NexusCore get dismantled. Her dream had vanished into thin air, like it had never existed before. She had argued, struggled with the cops, bit the ones she could, but they held on stronger to her arms pressing her against the cop car as the cold metal clicked against her wrist. One officer calmly placed his hand on her head and gently shoved her into the car.She could sit in her cage and remember when NexusCore was only a thought in her head, and then when it began taking shape, slowly, with every determination she built this thing up from scratch, and watched it go back to scratch again. The Architect's primary cell was brought to nothing, and their operations have now totally been disrupted by Silas Volkov, but the ancient sect—The Architect, the thought, remained a threat. What exactly are they? What have they become? What
Part 10: The Horizon's Edge
“What does that even mean?” Silas asked, adjusting his stands. He wasn't ready for this, whatever this was. “Your earliest days?” He said, “c’mom, it was how the Hollowman allowed himself to be killed by you.” Silas squinted in hate. Winced, and allowed it to sting again. “You thought you were the one who killed him? No man, no, nobody killed him. There's one other thing I know, that you think I don't.” Silas didn't respond, but he wanted to know what that was, so he kept his guns pointed at him. “That baby you killed would have been a good 25 year old man today, but you ended his life, had his dreams vanished, now he haunts you, and you hide from the pain, you hide from all the pain, like it doesn't hurt, you went as far as getting yourself a girl, so you can feel what love is, meanwhile you have stood by yourself and deprived the others of love, of family, of life.” Silas tried to hide that truth beneath a solid face, a stern face, but his shaky brows betrayed him. This confr
Part 9: The Final Strike
••• Detective Miller got home tired, it wasn't as cold as it was earlier, but he still couldn't sleep, he wouldn't dare sleep on this, even if he tried, he's been reminiscing about Silas's intel about NexusCore that he's armed with. Firstly, he had always known that there indeed was something fishy about Eleanor Vance and NexusCore, but the courage to get in and interrogate what it was, was what was missing, when he did finally find it, he summoned it up, and moved. That day, he didn't see Vance, but he saw a lot of fishy criminal work going on at NexusCore, things he wrote down in his note pad for further clarification. And he later, luckily, had a bullet swiftly pass by him while walking through the security hallway. It was Silas in a fight with Kira, he had passed that lady in the hallway, but was faced with Silas. He's known Silas, and all he could do, both the good and the bad, and yes he was a detective, he didn't want to get into trouble with a Mafia lord, retired now, but
