Chapter 23

“We might need to expand the cleanup team.”

“Dezeb, you’ve been saying that for six months now.”

The intruder on the floor—tragically still conscious—rolled his eyes at their casual banter.

Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion felt a strange, grim sense of kinship. Once upon a time, she’d been in the exact same position.

One misstep, she thought, and I would’ve gone through the standard pipeline—interrogation room, deep freeze, postmortem disposal, incinerator.

Not that her current situation was much better. Honestly... it might be worse. I’ve got ten backup slots. They wouldn’t even bother throwing me into the furnace—they’d just strip me down and repurpose me into a module.

The thick stench of blood made her nose twitch. Rubbing the bridge of it, she rebooted her laptop and brought up the morning’s file transfer.

There was enough backlog to fill two full-sized cargo haulers. Every last item was contraband, and the whole batch was still being offloaded at the port.

She had to inspect every entry and draft a complete transport manifest by tonight. Frankly, this section desperately needed a personnel boost.

The division was crawling with combat-oriented AT-types, but support license holders were practically extinct. Who in their right mind would take a job where you put your life on the line every day without a shred of legal protection?

It was the kind of work you only signed up for when you hit absolute rock bottom. Just like she had.

...It’s going to be a long night.

Erabelle knew it the second the file loaded. Yes, tonight was officially an overtime night.

With quiet resignation, she opened her second laptop to begin categorizing the inventory—only to accidentally lock eyes with Dezeb.

“Prep him for incineration and just shove him into storage for now. And figure out which bastard’s been sniffing around... Run the access logs.”

Her entire body stiffened on the spot, like a frog pinned under the gaze of a viper. It was an all-too-familiar reflex.

What... did I do wrong this time?

Out of sheer habit, she began mentally running through her recent actions.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Has to be the same guy. Probably got shut down again and ran off to Sanctuary to cry about it...”

Virgo Hag’s low muttering hummed in the background. Dezeb finally shifted his gaze, and Erabelle quietly let out a breath, reaching into her desk drawer for a pill bottle.

She hadn’t touched the sedatives while she and Dezeb were... involved. But with him out on field duty for the last four days and her workload piling up, the familiar mental noise had returned—and with it, the pills.

The last thing she needed was to black out and get dragged off to the medical bay. That would only double her backlog.

Swallowing the pill dry, she pulled up the transport manifest.

The system dragged. Encrypted under layers of heavy security protocols, it was agonizingly slow. While the bar loaded, she manually skimmed through the physical hard copies.

This shipment wasn't a problem of volume, but of sheer variety. Everything from a dozen graphite pencils to compact crates of psychoactive drugs—an absurd, chaotic mix.

If my luck holds true to form, I’ll be stuck working late tomorrow, too.

Once the transport process went live, Miro’s operational load would surge, driving her mental noise straight into the red zone. She had to clear this initial stage fast.

No matter what, I’m wrapping this up today...

Sensing a shadow fall across her desk, she cautiously looked up.

Dezeb was casually setting a cold bottle of water next to her keyboard.

The overhead strip lighting cast a long, sharp silhouette behind him. His face was perfectly calm, composed as ever. You’d never guess he had just turned a living man into a pile of mangled meat a few minutes ago.

“You’re popping those sedatives a little too often.”

She accepted the water without a word, giving him a small, polite nod. “I’m staying strictly within the prescribed limit.”

He leaned back against the edge of her desk, still wearing his blood-spattered black trousers and crisp white shirt.

“What are you working on?”

He leaned forward slightly, peering down at her screen.

“Sorting supplies?”

“Yes. A new shipment just landed at the dock. I’m running classification.”

Since when is he interested in inventory?

“Big haul?”

“Two full cargo haulers. Once I finish sorting, I’ll file the report. A few items are strictly prohibited, and some of the contractors are unregistered outsiders, so there might be security risks...”

It seemed as good a time as any to give a brief status report on the high-risk items. But as she spoke, she caught the slow, subtle curve of Dezeb’s lips.

A faint smile. Almost... amused.

“Erabelle.”

“Yes?”

The quiet, low cadence of his voice raised the fine hairs along her arms. Deep, smooth, and laced with an effortless pull, it brushed down her spine like a physical touch.

Seriously... did he really have to be gifted with a voice like that, too?

“I found a nice place for dinner. Want to eat out tonight?”

“Yes, understo—”

The answer slipped out on pure instinct—and she regretted it the second it left her mouth.

Wait. I have overtime tonight...

He caught her faltering expression instantly. His smile widened, a dark glimmer of mischief dancing in his eyes as he leaned down, his voice dropping to a murmur:

“Ditch the overtime. Come play with me tonight.”

That lazy smile of his was terrifying. Even soaked in fresh blood, he looked unfairly, obscenely attractive. That was the scariest part of all.

“Commander Dezeb, the interrogation room is cleared.”

Erabelle Vermilion watched his tall, lean frame vanish down the hall with nothing more than a casual “see you later.” Then she turned toward Virgo Hag, who was furiously gesturing at her from across the room.

Virgo flashed his fingers—a three, then a zero.

Thirty days.

...Are you serious?

Another pool? These psychotic bastards must have money rotting in their pockets.If I win the pot this time, I’m opening another savings account. Didn’t Willow Bank just bump up their interest rates? At this rate, I’m going to be rich... assuming I survive.

With a weary sigh, Erabelle turned back to her terminal.

***

Whether these lethal psychos wanted to gamble over human lives wasn’t something she could control. That sort of behavior fell into the same category as natural disasters—entirely beyond human intervention.

She didn’t have the energy to waste stressing over things she couldn't fix. While the cleanup team scrubbed down the blood-soaked sub-officer’s room, Erabelle finished her morning tasks and headed down to the depot.

“Two more cargo haulers are scheduled to drop tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” one of the logistics crew groaned.

“Yes. We need to clear out Bay C in advance. If we don't, it’s mandatory overtime. If we rush and do a sloppy job? Also overtime.”

The squad’s faces collectively collapsed. Erabelle figured it was time for her usual attempt at morale-boosting.

“Let’s stay sharp and efficient so we can all clock out on schedule. Don’t assume it’s impossible! If we really push it, we might actually pull it off!”

“Why do you always say the exact same thing?!”

Rallying her team with forced optimism, they threw themselves into the work. They needed to clear as much of the floor as humanly possible before the shift ended.

And at precisely 6:00 PM...

Dezeb scooped her up and dragged her completely out of the planet’s orbit.

...You’ve got to be kidding me, Erabelle thought numbly.

She had taken his offer of a “nice restaurant” at face value—she just hadn't imagined he meant leaving the planetary system entirely.

All this... just to get dinner? As someone originally from Earth—a world where people still argued over whether the moon landing was staged—the sheer scale of it felt utterly surreal.

“Have you been holding up okay?”

The restaurant’s astronomical prices were largely due to the massive neutrino shield enveloping the structure.

You could wipe out your entire life savings and still not have enough to cover a single glass of tap water here.

Commander Dezeb Avganis, however, casually ordered half the menu without batting an eye. The numbers on the bill were absurd—but he was far more absurd than the pricing.

Or more accurately, his looks were.

...Radiant.

The crimson sunset filtered through the energy barrier, casting a soft, warm glow across his porcelain-white skin.

Dark hair, dark eyes—completely devoid of the violent edge he carried on duty. His faint smile gave a soft, almost tender warmth to his flawless features.

He looked, for all the world, like the kind of strikingly handsome man you’d go out of your way to get to know.

There were two kinds of superiors in the Division: the ones who were pure nightmare fuel, and the rare few you didn't mind working under—if only for the chance to be in their orbit. He was unmistakably the latter.

Looking at him now, no one would ever guess this was the same man who had casually let an intruder bleed out on the floor just hours prior.

The slaughterhouse in the office felt like a distant nightmare. Sitting across from her now was simply an impossibly beautiful man—far more unbelievable than the numbers printed on the menu.

“Yes. I’ve been fine,” she replied politely.

Honestly, small talk felt a bit awkward after only four days apart.

“Did you get the laundry sorted out?”

Hardly the kind of conversation you’d expect at a hyper-exclusive orbital restaurant while sitting across from a terrifyingly gorgeous man... but laundry was a priority.

“Yes. Everything’s been dropped off. The uniforms will be ready tomorrow, and the heavy linens should be delivered the day after.”

“Good. Oh, on the way back tonight, do you want to swing by the market? I’m pretty sure the fridge is empty again.”

“Yes, alright.”

How on earth did my life turn into this...? Slowly chewing a tender piece of off-world meat, Erabelle found herself lost in thought.

Since she was practically living at his place these days, they never ran out of things to talk about.

Laundry, the empty fridge, water pressure in the shower, the humidifier, the sag in the sofa cushions—one mundane domestic detail after another.

Yet, listening to the steady hum of his voice, the knot of tension in her shoulders slowly began to uncoil.