The sun bled its last light across the treetops, turning the towering pines into blackened sentinels. Ethan Drake's sedan hummed along the narrow dirt road, its tires crunching over gravel. Shadows stretched long and lean across his path, clawing at the edges of his headlights. He didn't slow. His gray eyes flicked between the darkened road and the rearview mirror, sharp and unrelenting.
His phone buzzed on the passenger seat.
A quick glance. The screen illuminated the dim cabin: $30,000 received.
The next message followed immediately, this one from Gwen Alderidge.
"Initial payment is done."
He tapped a curt reply: Received.
There was no satisfaction in his movements, only the mechanical efficiency of a man for whom such transactions had become routine. He tossed the phone into the cupholder without breaking stride, his thoughts already racing ahead to the cottage looming at the edge of memory and uncertainty.
The woods thinned abruptly, revealing Victor Alderidge's forgotten refuge. The cottage hunched under the weight of ivy and decay, its stone walls etched with age. It stood like a ghost of its former self, isolated and brooding under the canopy of nightfall.
Ethan killed the engine and stepped out. The air hit him, damp and biting, thick with the scent of moss and rot. His boots crunched against the gravel as he slung his messenger bag over one shoulder. The cottage didn't welcome him. Its broken windows and sagging roofline offered only resistance, as though daring him to enter.
The door creaked open beneath his gloved hand. Inside, the air was stale, the kind of suffocating stillness only years of neglect could produce. Dust motes danced in the faint shafts of dying light. Ethan's eyes darted across the room, cataloging everything—the warped floorboards, the peeling wallpaper, the debris scattered like breadcrumbs.
His gaze stopped at the cellar door. Its lock was shattered, jagged metal glinting in the dim light. He crouched, fingers brushing the edges of the break. Fresh. Someone had been here.
The lockpick set emerged from his bag with a practiced motion, and within seconds, the mechanism yielded with a soft click. The door groaned open, revealing a staircase descending into darkness.
Ethan's flashlight cut a narrow beam into the basement's depths. He moved silently, his steps deliberate. The cellar was a labyrinth of Victor's obsessions—shelves sagging under the weight of books, ancient instruments gathering dust, and strange symbols scrawled onto the walls.
At the center of the room stood a desk, its surface cluttered with papers, their edges curling with age. Ethan approached, his breath steady as his eyes swept over the chaos.
Scraps of paper caught his attention—notes, diagrams, symbols that seemed to pulse with meaning. His fingers traced the markings, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
"A cipher," he murmured, his voice barely audible in the oppressive quiet.
The fragments began to align in his mind. Names leapt out—familiar, powerful names. Politicians. CEOs. Figures whose public images masked darker truths. The symbols connected them like strands in a web, underlined with Victor's bold, fevered strokes.
Ethan froze. His pulse didn't quicken, but his mind sharpened. This wasn't just a composer's descent into madness—it was an exposé. A detailed, damning account hidden in plain sight.
A flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye. A shadow darting just beyond the edge of his flashlight's reach. He straightened, his hand instinctively brushing against the baton at his hip.
The phone buzzed again in his pocket.
He withdrew it slowly, the light from the screen casting an eerie glow on his face. The message was brief, unsigned: "Stop digging, or you'll be next."
Ethan smirked faintly, his thumb brushing over the screen before tucking the phone away. His calm was unnerving, the kind of quiet confidence that unnerved even those who knew him well.
He turned back to the desk, committing the symbols and connections to memory. His thoughts were already two steps ahead. Whoever had sent the message wasn't bluffing, but neither was he.
Ascending the stairs, Ethan moved like a shadow himself. He paused at the doorway, scanning the room one last time. His sharp eyes lingered on the broken window, the footprints in the dust that didn't match his own.
Someone else wanted this buried, and they were willing to kill for it.
Ethan stepped out into the cold night. The woods surrounded him, vast and silent, save for the faint rustle of branches in the wind. Somewhere out there, someone was watching, waiting.
He slid into his car and started the engine, the low growl cutting through the stillness. As the sedan pulled away, Ethan's smirk returned, faint but resolute.
"Game on."