Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 83: : Smoke and Choice

Chapter 83: : Smoke and Choice

She ran to keep up.

Lucas moved like someone owed him. Swift, silent, and with an edge that wasn’t there before—not anger, exactly. Something colder. Cleaner.

Satisfaction in the shape of destruction.

They dipped into another tunnel—one Ava didn’t recognize. It cut beneath Level One’s core, long and sloped and lined with outdated security nodes Lucas deactivated with nothing more than a flick of his wrist and a dry smirk.

"Where are we going?" she asked, already knowing he wouldn’t answer directly.

"To visit an old friend," Lucas said. "The kind you don’t miss. Just remember."

The tunnel ended at a lift sealed behind two thick slabs of black alloy, no markings. Ava’s system pinged off them with static errors—unlisted access point.

Lucas pressed his hand to the center panel. A retinal scan shimmered, then faded.

The doors hissed open. Ava stepped into a different world.

Glass walls. Soft floors. Velvet lounges. Mirror-finish tables with zero dust. Shelves full of sealed bottles and ancient tech pieces like they were decoration, not history.

Ava exhaled. "This..."

Lucas stepped past her, removing his gloves. "This was mine."

He walked to the center of the room. Everything about him felt different here. Sharper. Bigger. Like the silence was an old coat he wore again too easily.

"Angel used it after I left."

He paused beside a sleek black desk. Still untouched. Still polished. His fingertips brushed the edge.

"Locke never came here," he said, almost idly. "She wouldn’t let him."

Ava stayed silent.

Lucas turned to her, eyes colder now. "Looking at him back there? It reminded me what it feels like to pick the wrong thing. The wrong person."

Ava watched him carefully. Still quiet. Still measuring the weight in his voice.

Lucas exhaled slowly.

"But we’re not fixing anything. We’re erasing it."

He moved toward the fireplace—modern, digital, barely used. Reached into his coat and pulled out a small silver cylinder. He twisted it once. The tip began to glow red.

He walked calmly to the desk. Opened the drawers. Pulled out old files, paper records—things Angel had kept, probably things she thought he didn’t know about.

And he set them aflame.

One by one.

The fire caught slow. Then spread fast.

Curtains. The couch. The antique liquor shelf.

No panic. No rushing.

Just precision.

Ava stood by the glass wall, watching the reflection of the fire dance behind her in the mirror-like glass.

"This is bold," she said.

Lucas smiled—really smiled, for the first time since they’d entered.

"It’s satisfaction. That’s rarer than bold."

The heat licked the ceiling now. Lights cracked. Smoke began to pool above them in thick, slow ribbons.

Lucas turned to her.

"We do this," he said, voice steady, "and it’s going to be messy."

"Messy how?"

He moved toward the private exit on the far wall—a pressure lock leading to the vents no one monitored.

"Messy like people disappearing. Like rumors spreading. Like Angel finally realizing she’s not the only one who can erase things without leaving fingerprints."

He stopped at the door.

The flames behind them had taken on a rhythm—low crackles, punctuated by sudden pops, like the penthouse itself was exhaling after holding its breath for too long. Smoke curled through the ceiling vents, soft as silk, heavy with memory.

Lucas didn’t turn the handle.

Instead, he looked back at Ava.

Really looked.

No grin. No flicker of charm. No clever lines loaded beneath his breath. Just eyes like gold bruised in shadow.

"This is your turning point," he said, voice low and real in a way that cracked against the heat. "Last chance to step away."

Ava didn’t move.

He studied her for a long beat, then finally—finally—spoke the truth like it cost him something.

"I pick you, as a partner."

The words weren’t romantic. They were sharper. Heavier. Not a gesture. A declaration.

The fire behind him cast flickers across his face, making him look older. Tired. Real.

"From here on out, I’ll always be honest with you. Not clean. Not kind. But honest."

Ava said nothing, but her eyes didn’t leave his.

"I’ll keep secrets," Lucas admitted, "because I always do. I’ll play games and lie to enemies and shift the field under our feet—because that’s what I’m good at. But I will never lie to your face."

Ava’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t interrupt.

Lucas stepped back toward the firelight just enough that the red glow edged along his profile like a warning.

"Fifty-fifty, all the way. On power. On spoils. On plans." He paused, then added, "But when it comes to risk?"

He looked her dead in the eye.

"Eighty-twenty."

"I didn’t ask for that," Ava said quietly.

"Doesn’t matter," Lucas replied. "You’ve got vision, Beauty. And power. But you’re not built to be reckless for no reason. I am."

The flames curled higher now, licking the edge of the ceiling. Alarms were finally beginning to trigger—quiet, local ones, muted by tampering long ago.

They had seconds.

Lucas nodded toward the door.

"We walk through that, and this doesn’t end. Not until we decide it does. No more dipping toes in. No more testing loyalties."

His voice dropped, almost gentle.

"You stay now? It’s forever."

The words hung between them, heavy in the smoke-thick air.

The fire had spread fully behind them now—curling through velvet, kissing across glass, devouring everything Angel had tried to own. The penthouse was being swallowed whole, and neither of them looked back.

Ava met Lucas’s eyes. There was no fear in hers. Just clarity.

"I think we passed ’no return’ a few Chapters ago," she said quietly.

A beat. Then:

"You’ve been good to me, Lucas. Even when you didn’t have to be."

He blinked at that—just once.

Not out of surprise, but because for all his cleverness, all his calculation, he didn’t expect her to say it that plainly.

She took a step closer. Close enough to feel the heat, close enough to make the silence feel like a contract being signed.

"So I stay."

Lucas didn’t move. Didn’t smile. Not yet.

He just looked at her, smoke painting faint shadows across his face, and nodded once.

Like a promise had just been made in blood and flame.

They turned together.

And left the past to burn.