Chapter 105: The Woman Behind the Blade

Chapter 105: Chapter 105: The Woman Behind the Blade

The heavy titanium door swung open, and Felix stepped into the vault, carrying a flat, dark case under one arm. The hatch sealed shut behind him with its usual dull, metallic thud.

Vesper sat on the edge of her cot, one leg crossed over the other. Her dark hair fell loosely around her face, the violet tips catching the pale white light overhead.

Her sharp eyes tracked him immediately, sweeping from his relaxed face down to the case in his grip.

A slow, familiar smirk spread across her lips. "Well, well. Look who survived another day. And you brought luggage."

Felix stopped, dragging the metal chair over with one hand.

SKRRR

And sat down three paces away. He placed the case flat across his lap.

"Disappointed I didn’t get eaten by a monster?" he asked with his usual easy grin.

"Deeply," she said, leaning back against the steel wall. "What’s in the box, Doctor? A new set of suppression cuffs, or did you finally bring those flowers?"

"Neither." Felix popped the latches.

Inside sat a thick, folding board and two velvet pouches. When he unfolded the board and set it across the flat metal stool between them, Vesper’s eyes narrowed with genuine curiosity.

It was a chessboard. But it wasn’t made of wood, and there wasn’t a speck of metal on it. The board was made of thick, dense, unyielding industrial plastic, weighted with ceramic composite.

The pieces were tall, smooth, and carved from the exact same non-conductive polymer, completely impervious to metal manipulation.

She couldn’t draw a sliver of wire from them, couldn’t sharpen an edge, and couldn’t turn a single pawn into a needle. It had clearly been custom-ordered just for her.

Her smirk softened into something intrigued. "A toy?"

"A game," Felix corrected, opening the pouches and lining up the pieces with practiced ease.

"Chess. Strategy, positioning, predicting your opponent’s next move. Felt like something right up your alley."

Vesper tilted her head, watching his hands move. "And you made sure not a single millimeter of it contains iron."

"I respect your talent," Felix said, looking up with a wink. "I just don’t feel like getting an earful from the warden if a pawn ends up stuck in my neck. Pick a side."

Without even blinking, Vesper reached out and tapped a black knight with her pale index finger. "Black. Always."

"Naturally," Felix chuckled, turning the board so the black army faced her bed. "White moves first. Let’s see if you can keep up."

He quickly explained the basics: how the pawns marched, the knights leaped, the bishops sliced along diagonals, and the queen commanded the board.

Vesper picked up the movement rules almost instantly, her mind was already wired for lines of sight, angles, and kill zones.

"The goal is the king," she murmured, eyeing Felix’s white pieces. "Trap him so he has nowhere left to run."

"Checkmate," Felix nodded, pushing his king’s pawn forward two squares. "Your turn."

Vesper reached out, mirroring him by shoving her own pawn forward. "You look awfully relaxed today, Felix. No graveyard on your shoulders like last time."

Felix brought out his knight, developing toward the center. "Had a good weekend. Got to clear my head."

"Doing what? Punching things?" She slid a black bishop out, targeting his center pawn aggressively.

Felix hardly looked at the board before sliding his bishop into place to counter it. He had played hundreds of games growing up with his brother Cassian back at the Valerius estate; they had practically identical win rates, trading brutal victories across the board for years.

Their sister, Liana, had stubbornly insisted on challenging them too, though she famously held a ninety percent loss rate against both of her brothers.

Against a complete beginner like Vesper, Felix didn’t even need to calculate. It was second nature.

"Babysitting, actually," Felix said casually, watching her study the squares. "One of my friend left his kid with me."

Vesper’s hand hovered over a pawn. Her head snapped up, violet eyes blinking in pure disbelief. "You? Taking care of a child?"

While she was still stuck on the mental image of the Mad Healer wiping baby food, Felix slid a pawn forward, opening a deadly diagonal toward her king’s side.

"Did you think about what we talked about?"

Felix asked, his voice dropping into a smoother, quieter tone. "About what you’d do if these doors ever opened?"

Vesper frowned at his move, suddenly realizing her bishop was completely trapped. She moved a knight to protect it, slightly rattled. "I thought about it."

"And?" Felix castled his king, tucking it behind a wall of pawns in total safety while activating his rook.

"And I realized I wouldn’t have a clue what to do," she answered, focused entirely on trying to untangle her pieces. "I’ve never had a life without a handler or a target. You ask me what I want to be, but all I know is how to clear a room."

"Honest answer," Felix murmured. He sacrificed a knight straight into her center.

Vesper’s assassin instincts flared. She saw the free piece, snapped it off the board with her bishop and walked directly into the trap.

Clack.

Felix slid his queen into the open diagonal.

"Check."

Her eyes went wide. She looked from the queen to her king, then to the pieces blocking her escape. Every single square she could step to was covered by white pieces.

"How did you—"

"You’re greedy on the board," Felix said, resting his chin on his palm, his eyes gleaming.

"You see a target, you jump at the throat, and you forget to check who’s standing behind you. That’s why you got caught in the first place."

Vesper gritted her teeth, moving her king to the only legal square available. "Don’t psychoanalyze me over a plastic board, Doctor."

"I don’t need to. You’re doing it yourself." Felix slid his bishop down the flank, cutting off her king’s retreat. "You act like you don’t care about anything, but the second someone gives you a reason to fight, you put everything into it."

"Shut up and play," she muttered, scanning the board frantically. But Felix was already three moves ahead.

"Tell me the truth, Vesper," Felix said softly, his voice cutting through her intense focus. "When you sat in those dark alleys waiting for targets... did you ever wish you were on the other side of the glass?"

She reached for a rook, hesitated, and pulled her hand back. Her mind was so overloaded trying to stop his queen from wrecking her back rank that her usual sarcastic defenses simply didn’t kick in.

"Every damn day," she muttered under her breath, eyes darting between squares.

"Watching regular people walk home with groceries, complaining about stupid, boring problems. I hated them for having it so easy. And I hated myself for wanting it."

Felix smiled faintly. He had his answer.

He reached out with two fingers, picked up his white rook, and slid it all the way down the open file, slamming it into her back rank with a clean, plastic snap.

CLACK.

"Checkmate," Felix said.

Vesper froze. She stared down at the board. Her king was completely suffocated, hemmed in by her own disorganized pawns, with Felix’s queen and rook locking down every single avenue of escape.

She had lost in under twenty moves.

Her jaw tightened until the muscles ticked. She stared at the plastic pieces like she wanted to melt them with her eyes. "You set that up from the third turn."

"Second turn, actually," Felix grinned, leaning back and stretching his arms over his head. "My brother Cassian used to pull that exact trap on me when we were kids. Works like a charm on aggressive players."

He pushed his chair back and stood up, dusting off his coat. But instead of packing away the set, he left the board and every scattered piece resting right on the metal stool.

Vesper glanced at the setup, then up at him, her brows furrowing. "You’re leaving it?"

"Consider it homework," Felix said, flashing an infuriatingly smug grin. "You’re sharp, Vesper, but right now you’re completely hopeless on the board. You let your tunnel vision get the better of you."

He took a step toward the exit, looking back over his shoulder.

"Practice up. Learn how to think three moves ahead. Maybe next time you’ll actually manage to entertain me instead of folding in minutes."

Vesper rose from the edge of her bed, her knuckles turning white as she glared at his smirking face. The lazy indifference was completely gone, replaced by a fierce, burning competitive fire.

She ground her teeth together, her puple eyes blazing with raw intent.

"Leave the pieces right there, Valerius," she hissed, pointing a sharp finger straight at his chest. "Next time you step into this cell, you’re leaving in tears. Mark my words."

Felix’s laugh echoed off the reinforced titanium walls as he swiped his keycard. "Looking forward to it, Silver Needle."

The vault hatch hissed shut between them.

Inside the quiet vault, Vesper didn’t lay back down.

She stood over the stool, grabbed her fallen black king, and slammed it back onto its starting square, her eyes locked onto the board as she began resetting the pieces to replay every single move.

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