Chapter Text
Monaco never sleeps.
It pretends to—draws velvet curtains over glass towers, dims the lights along the harbor, lets the yachts sway like they’re dreaming—but there’s always movement underneath. Always something slipping between shadows, quiet and expensive and untouchable.
Max hates it.
Too clean on the surface. Too controlled. Places like this don’t leave room for mistakes. Which means when something does go wrong, it’s either buried very well… or very deliberately ignored.
He leans against the railing for a second longer than necessary, eyes scanning the marina below. Reflections fracture across the water—gold, white, something blue that pulses faintly with music from a boat he can’t see.
“Enjoying the view?” Oscar’s voice comes from behind him, flat in the way that almost sounds like disinterest if you don’t know better.
Max doesn’t turn immediately. “It’s loud.”
“It’s Monaco.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Oscar hums, stepping beside him. He doesn’t look at the water. He looks at the buildings. Windows. Angles. Entry points.
Always observing.
“You’re thinking too much,” Oscar says.
Max snorts softly. “That’s literally my job.”
“No,” Oscar replies, calm, precise. “Your job is solving things. This—” he gestures vaguely toward the skyline, “—this is you deciding something’s wrong before you can prove it.”
Max finally glances at him. “You think it isn’t?”
Oscar considers that. Not dismissive. Never dismissive.
“I think,” he says slowly, “you’re reacting to absence.”
Max’s brow furrows.
Oscar continues, “No ransom. No communication. No pattern that fits cleanly into anything we’ve seen before. It bothers you.”
“It should bother you too.”
“It does.” A pause. “Just not the same way.”
Max exhales through his nose, pushing away from the railing. “We don’t get cases like this without something underneath.”
Oscar shrugs slightly. “We don’t get most things without something underneath.”
That almost sounds like humor.
Almost.
They stand there a moment longer, the quiet between them not empty but… settled. Familiar in its own restrained way.
Then Max turns.
“Let’s go.”
The building doesn’t look like anything.
That’s the problem.
No broken windows. No obvious signs of forced entry. No noise bleeding out into the street. Just another structure tucked neatly between others that cost more than most people make in a lifetime.
But the report had been clear.
Unregistered activity. Movement patterns inconsistent with occupancy. Utilities running where they shouldn’t be.
And underneath all of it—
Nothing.
No names. No faces. No reason.
Max steps inside first.
The air changes immediately.
Cooler. Still.
Not abandoned.
Just… paused.
He lifts a hand slightly, signaling the others behind him to spread out. The team moves with quiet precision, footsteps softened, voices nonexistent.
Oscar stays near the back at first, gaze flicking over details most people would miss. Scuff marks. Dust patterns. The absence of both in places where there should be something.
Max moves deeper in.
Each step feels measured, like the building is watching him right back.
There’s a faint hum somewhere. Electrical. Distant.
No voices.
No movement.
Nothing.
And that—
That’s wrong.
Max slows.
Tilts his head slightly.
Listens.
There.
A sound.
Not loud. Not clear.
But not part of the building either.
Movement.
He turns sharply.
“Left corridor,” he murmurs.
Someone behind him acknowledges. Quiet. Efficient.
Max moves first.
The hallway stretches longer than it should, lights dim but functional. Doors line the sides, all closed, all identical. No labels. No variation.
The hum grows slightly louder.
Then—
A flicker.
At the far end.
Max’s body reacts before his mind catches up, pace quickening, focus narrowing.
Something moves.
Not a shadow.
Not a trick of light.
Something real.
He breaks into a run.
The others follow.
And then he sees them.
Two figures.
Not standing.
Running.
It’s immediate, the way it registers—not as threat, not as suspects, but something else entirely.
They’re not moving like people who know where they’re going.
They’re moving like people who only know they can’t stay.
One stumbles.
The other catches him.
Fast.
Too fast to be coincidence.
Too automatic to be thought.
They don’t separate.
Even when it slows them down.
Even when it would be easier.
Max’s chest tightens.
“Hey!” he calls out, voice sharp, controlled.
No response.
Of course not.
They don’t even hesitate.
One of them turns slightly—not enough to see clearly, just enough to catch something—
Pale skin.
Eyes too wide.
Not confusion.
Not awareness.
Fear.
Raw. Immediate. Unfiltered.
Max pushes forward, closing distance.
“Stop! Police!”
Nothing.
They keep running.
Closer now.
He can hear their breathing—too fast, too uneven, like their bodies haven’t remembered how to pace themselves.
There’s something else too.
A rhythm.
Off.
Not matching the environment. Not matching each other.
Like they’ve been moving like this for too long.
The second one—the one being held—nearly collapses again.
And again, the first catches him.
Not gently.
Not carefully.
Just—
Certain.
Like letting go isn’t an option that exists.
Max’s gaze drops briefly.
Their hands.
Locked.
Not gripping for balance.
Not holding for guidance.
Holding like—
If they don’t, something worse happens.
“Stop!” Max repeats, closer now.
This time, one of them flinches.
The smaller one.
His head jerks slightly toward the sound, but he doesn’t slow.
Doesn’t look back.
The other tightens his hold.
Pulls him forward harder.
Max is close enough now to see details.
Bare feet.
Bruising at the wrist—faded, not fresh.
Clothes that don’t quite fit right.
Nothing about them matches the world they’ve just run into.
Oscar’s voice cuts in from behind, quieter but edged with something sharper than before. “Max—”
“I see them.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Max doesn’t have time to ask.
The corridor opens abruptly.
A stairwell.
The figures don’t hesitate.
They turn, almost slipping on the edge, and disappear down.
Max follows.
The air shifts again—colder, tighter, echoing with the sound of footsteps that don’t quite land evenly.
One of them is struggling.
Badly.
Max can hear it now.
The uneven drag between steps.
The hitch in breath.
“Hey!” he calls again, softer this time, something instinctive changing in his tone. “You’re safe—just stop!”
The words feel wrong the second they leave his mouth.
Safe.
They don’t react like that word means anything.
If anything, they move faster.
Desperation sharpening into something close to panic.
Max’s jaw tightens.
They’re not running from him.
They’re running from something else.
Or
They don’t know the difference.
They hit the lower level.
A door ahead.
Unlocked.
Pushed open too hard.
It slams against the wall with a crack that echoes through the space.
One of them stumbles fully this time.
Goes down.
Hard.
The other drops with him immediately.
Not after.
Not reacting.
With him.
Like gravity applies to both.
Max slows.
Just slightly.
Something in the scene shifts.
The one still upright—barely—pulls the other up again, hands shaking but determined, grip tightening to the point of strain.
“Don’t—” a voice breaks.
Soft. Hoarse. Fractured.
It takes Max a second to realize—
It’s not directed at him.
It’s directed at the other.
“Don’t—” the voice tries again, steadier now, though still thin with something held too tight. “Don’t stop.”
The second one doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t speak at all.
Just clings.
Max steps closer.
Careful now.
Measured.
“Hey,” he says, quieter. “You don’t need to run.”
That gets a reaction.
Not the one he expects.
The one being held flinches violently.
The other turns.
Fully this time.
And Max sees him.
Really sees him.
Too thin.
Too still.
Eyes that don’t settle.
And something else—
Something that makes Max’s chest pull tight in a way he can’t explain.
Recognition.
Not of the person.
Of the state.
Of what’s left after something has been taken too far.
“Stay back,” the one speaking says.
It’s not a threat.
It’s not even strong.
But it’s absolute.
Max stops.
Not because he’s told to.
Because pushing forward suddenly feels like the wrong move.
Behind him, he can hear the others approaching. Controlled. Ready.
Oscar somewhere in that space.
Watching.
Understanding something Max hasn’t fully put together yet.
The two figures don’t move toward the door.
Don’t move toward him.
They just—
Hold on.
Breathing uneven.
Standing on the edge of something invisible.
Max raises his hands slightly.
Empty.
Non-threatening.
“It’s okay,” he says.
The words feel fragile in his mouth.
Uncertain.
Like they don’t belong here.
The one speaking shakes his head immediately.
Small.
Sharp.
“No.”
Not aggressive.
Not loud.
Just
Certain.
Max’s gaze flicks between them.
The silence stretches.
Tight.
Unforgiving.
And then
Footsteps behind him.
Closer.
Too many.
Too fast.
The shift is immediate.
The one being held tenses.
The other’s grip tightens.
Their breathing spikes.
And just like that—
They move again.
Not forward.
Not back.
Sideways.
Searching.
Looking for an exit that doesn’t exist.
Max steps forward instinctively—
“Wait!”
Too late.
They bolt.
Past him.
Too close.
For a second—just a second—Max feels it.
The brush of movement.
The heat of someone who doesn’t feel like they belong in their own body.
The grip between them tightening as they pass.
And then—
They’re gone.
Out through the open door.
Into the night.
Max turns sharply, already moving to follow—
And—
….
George is five the first time he throws a punch.