Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 133: – "Shadows and Old Names"

Chapter 133: – "Shadows and Old Names"

Lucas didn’t say a word until the footsteps had faded.

Then he turned to Ava, nodded once toward the west wing, and walked. Not fast. Not tense. Just quiet and deliberate, his steps echoing in the dim corridor light.

She followed without asking.

They entered their room—door sliding closed behind them with a soft hiss. It was quieter here. Insulated.

Lucas shrugged off his gloves and set them on the table by the window. His eyes weren’t on her. Not yet.

Ava crossed to the bed, sat on the edge, and watched him. "So why let him in now?"

Lucas looked at her.

"Because if he went to that much trouble to walk back into my life, something bigger is chasing him. And if that thing has my name in its teeth, I want Kai where I can see him when it snaps."

He didn’t wait for her to respond. Instead, he stepped closer and reached for the edge of her outer layer—her jacket, her hoodie and then tugging her into bed.

Ava raised an eyebrow. When Lucas shed of his armor layer and pulled her gently to him the bed.

The lights dimmed on cue.

He settled behind her, arm around her waist, pulling her into the deep curve of his chest. His body was solid heat and tension—not urgent, not predatory. Just there.

Steady.

Close.

Lucas didn’t speak until her breath matched his.

"Plan A," he murmured into the back of her shoulder, "I give him enough rope to build his own trap."

"B?"

"Use him to draw out whoever’s chasing him."

"C."

"Bleed him for intel. Then cut him loose."

Ava’s voice was softer now. "D?"

Lucas pressed his lips to the edge of her shoulder blade. "Use him as bait."

"E."

"Let him think he’s winning. Then flip the table."

She turned slightly, looking at him over her shoulder. "F?"

His eyes were sharp, golden even in the dark.

"Kill him before he gets the chance to choose."

Ava didn’t flinch.

She just reached back, took his hand, and laced her fingers with his.

They didn’t say anything else.

The room was quiet.

Not the kind of quiet that came with sleep. The kind that settled over a decision already made.

Ava lay still, her back against Lucas’s chest, his hand resting where hers had found it. Neither of them had moved.

But his voice came soft in the dark.

"I checked the system pings. The anomalies Kai’s been dragging behind him? The updates?"

Ava blinked. Barely breathed.

Lucas continued.

"It’s her. Angel. I had William scrub the data three times. Same flare signature. Same modified shard-tech I remember from the old vault burns."

Ava turned just enough to glance back at him. "She survived that."

"Barely," Lucas murmured. "She abandoned Zhoa bunker. Too many debts. Couldn’t stay in one place. So she latched onto the one thread that wouldn’t cut her out."

"Kai."

Lucas nodded against her shoulder. "She picked him because she knew he’d carry the weight. Knew he’d come running when things fell apart."

Ava’s voice was quiet. "So now we’re carrying both of them."

"No," Lucas said. "We’re watching. One step at a time. One trap at a time."

Silence again.

This time, heavier.

Then Ava whispered, "You still have feelings for her?"

"I have memories. But I don’t bleed for ghosts."

Ava was quiet, letting the weight of that settle. But she didn’t move.

Lucas’s voice came softer now, threaded with something more honest than pain. "With Angel, it wasn’t love. Not really. It felt like responsibility. Like I owed her."

He exhaled against the nape of her neck. "We made good plans. We made dangerous mistakes. She needed me to be someone stable, and I played the part."

Ava stayed still.

Lucas stretched an arm behind his head, the sheet pulled low over his waist, golden eyes gleaming faintly in the low light. He looked like someone entirely at ease—which Ava had come to recognize as the most dangerous version of him.

She gave him a sideways glance. "You’re enjoying this more than you should."

He didn’t deny it.

"It’s not about enjoyment," he said lightly, voice brushing warm against her ear. "It’s about precision. Anticipation. Strategy."

Ava propped herself on one elbow. "You sound like you’re narrating something."

"Good. Because this next act? We’ll see tears."

She rolled her eyes. He grinned.

"You see," Lucas began, adopting that mock-serious cadence he used when something was about to get wildly complicated, "Kai thinks he’s threading a needle. He walks in wounded, alone, trailing the scent of danger and a few half-truths like breadcrumbs. Classic misdirection. He wants us on edge, reactive."

"And you’re not?"

"Please," he said, giving her a look. "I’m already five conversations ahead. I’ve got William shadow-tracing every coded message he’s ever embedded in a trade report. I’ve got three of the manor’s security panels to alert me if he so much as sneezes near the east vault."

Ava blinked. "You’re spying on him while pretending not to care."

Lucas nodded. "Exactly. He thinks I’m indulging him. Letting him recover. Letting him settle. But I’m mapping his behavioral loops. Word patterns. How often he looks at the exits."

"You do this often, don’t you?"

Lucas smirked. "Only the ones worth remembering."

Ava arched an eyebrow. "That better not be a compliment."

"It’s an analysis," he said smoothly. Then, after a beat: "And yes. Definitely a compliment."

She nudged him with her foot beneath the sheet. He caught her ankle.

"Plan after this?" she asked.

Lucas grew thoughtful. Still casual, still sprawled, but his tone shifted.

"Once I know who Angel’s working with and what they really want... we move first. Hit their supply chain. Burn their fallback routes. And then, we bait them into showing us their endgame."

Ava studied him. "And Kai?"

Lucas smiled, slow and razor-sharp.

"He thinks he’s a player. But I’m rewriting the rules while he’s still choosing a piece."

Then, lighter: "Unless you’d prefer I play nice?"

"You?" Ava scoffed. "Please. You’re the devil with a data map. Just don’t pretend you’re doing this for anyone but yourself."

Then Lucas went to sleep.

Kai attempt came just before sunrise.

Subtle. Clean. Efficient.

Kai knew the manor layout well enough by now. He timed the patrols. Calculated the blind spots. Even anticipated William’s preference for off-hour sweeps.

What he didn’t account for was Lucas.

Lucas Bai, who had already disabled three of the decoy sensors in the hallway and rerouted his room’s bio-signature feed through a loop.

Lucas Bai, who’d swapped his sleep cycle and had been standing silently in the shadow of the wardrobe since 3:47 a.m.

He watched Kai enter without a sound, blade glinting faintly in one gloved hand—a thin, curved thing with a mono-molecular edge.

Not for a fight.

For a kill.

Lucas let him step close. Let him get just near enough to see the shape under the covers—a decoy heat signature calibrated to mimic his body.

Then he spoke.

"You blinked."

Kai froze mid-step.

Lucas stepped out of the dark like it belonged to him, dressed in black sleepwear and bare feet, but somehow still every inch the predator.

"I thought you’d wait longer," he said, voice almost casual. "But no. You always did like cutting ahead in line."

Kai turned fast, blade up.

Lucas was faster.

He ducked the slash with a twist, caught Kai’s wrist mid-swing, and slammed him into the nearest wall before the assassin could finish his pivot.

"Nice form," Lucas murmured near his ear. "But you were off-balance by half a foot. Were you nervous?"

Kai growled, tried to lunge.

Lucas let him twist, just enough to let Kai think he had space.

Then slammed his heel into the inside of Kai’s knee.

Kai dropped hard.

Lucas disarmed him with a flick and caught the blade as it clattered.

A second later, William stepped into the doorway, utterly silent, holding a stunner in one hand.

He didn’t need to use it.

Lucas tossed the blade onto the floor at Kai’s side.

"That," he said calmly, "was attempt number one."

Kai looked up, breathing hard. "You knew I would."

Lucas crouched beside him, gaze calm and calculating.

"I hoped you would. But just in case, I laid out six possible outcomes. Five involved me winning. One involved Ava waking up and killing you instead."

He smiled.

"This way was kinder."

Kai stared at him.

Lucas stood and dusted his hands.

"Tell me, Kai," he added, tone thoughtful. "Was it worth losing your piece on move three?"

William spoke for the first time. "Shall I remove him, Master Bai?"

Lucas nodded. "Gently. He’ll need his hands for tomorrow’s apology."

Kai struggled.

The kind of struggle that wasn’t meant to escape—but to prove he still had pride. Still had fire.

William had him by the arms now, guiding him down the hall with mechanical calm, like a parent dragging an unruly child out of a war room.

But Lucas followed.

Not because he had to.

Because he wanted Kai to know what came next wasn’t just consequence.

It was control.

"Still playing hero, huh?" Kai spat, eyes burning as they turned the corner.

Lucas tilted his head, unconcerned. "You keep mistaking me for someone who gives second chances."

"You let me walk in."

"I let you hang yourself. You just chose the rope."

Kai snarled, yanking against William’s grip. William didn’t flinch.

Lucas stopped them outside a secured chamber—a monitoring suite, hidden behind a false wall of the west wing. Cold steel. Soundproofed. Dimly lit.

He pressed his thumb to the lock. It hissed open.

"Put him in the chair," Lucas said.

William obliged.

Kai resisted again. Lucas raised one brow, and Kai stopped fighting halfway through the motion—like he realized this wasn’t posturing anymore. This was theater.

And Lucas had the script.

Straps clicked into place. Not painful. Not humiliating. Just precise.

Lucas moved to the wall panel and activated the embedded neural sync lines.

"What are you doing?"

"Downloading the memory gaps," Lucas said evenly. "You walked in here with a lie. I’m just adjusting the volume."

Kai tensed. "You can’t decode my system."

"You’re right. I can’t."

Lucas tapped a second line.

Ava’s signature lit green on the screen.

"But she can."

Kai froze.

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