Chapter 666: Lucky Charms

She drew in a breath, ready to speak.

Phei lifted one finger—gentle, yet firm with finality. "Wait. Before you say it... let me make this easier for you."

Her mouth closed slowly.

"Here’s what I’ll do."

He shifted on the jump seat, angling toward her, his voice dropping into something softer, more intimate. "I’ll send someone you can trust who can be discreet with your secret. You tell

her

. Then the two of you decide together what happens next—whether she shares it with me, keeps it to herself or changes her mind tomorrow morning. The choice is entirely yours."

Her brow furrowed slightly. She was listening.

"She’s someone I trust completely," he continued. "Whether you decide to trust her too... that’s up to you. No pressure. Maybe she’s exactly who I say she is. Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she tells me or she keeps your secret forever. Who knows?"

"Here’s the part that actually matters." His eyes held hers with quiet intensity.

"There is no pressure. None. For all we know, you and I never see each other again after today after this jet lands. You go back to your apartment and next assignment, keep living your perfectly fine life, with your private collection and your toys and your three quiet years that will slowly become four, then five, then more. Nothing changes."

Her lips parted slightly.

"And the only way anything

does

change," he continued, "is if you actually go through with telling her—and, eventually, telling me. Because that would change everything."

He paused. "Big things. Real things. I take care of my own. Always. But that road only opens if you choose to walk it. Otherwise it stays closed, and you go on with your evening. No hard feelings on either side."

She was watching him very carefully now, searching his face for the trap that had to be there.

"And of course,"

Phei added, with a small, lopsided smile, "I might not be as trustworthy as I’m making myself sound. The person I send might not be either. Who knows what we’d do with your secret? Who knows what kind of leverage it could become?

"Maybe I’m sitting here being charming and patient because I’m a much worse man than I’m pretending to be, and I’ve already decided exactly what I want to do with you the moment you give me what I want.

"Hell, for all you know I’m

collecting flight attendant

secrets like

limited-edition

trading cards.

’Rare:

emotionally damaged

,

secretly

kinky,

owns a drawer full of toys that could make a dominatrix blush.’

I’d trade three of those for one good blackmail photo.’"

He laughed softly at his own words, the sound low and self-aware.

"Indeed. Who knows what I could do with it." A small shrug. "And

honestly—what

would I even gain? You tell me. What’s the upside for me if my whole plan was to use it against you? Money?" He gestured vaguely at the luxurious jet around them.

"Power? Influence? You’re a flight attendant on a chartered flight. The math doesn’t add up. So either I’m being

patient

because I’m genuinely curious about what you want... or I’m playing the longest, most expensive game in the world for absolutely no return. Though if I

were

evil, I’d at least get a nice story out of it.

’How I

ruined

a perfectly nice flight attendant’s life with nothing but charm and a glass of overpriced champagne.’

"Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?"

She let out a small breath that was almost a laugh, the tension easing from her shoulders.

"When you put it like that..."

"I

know."

He smiled, warm and disarmingly honest. "It sounds very reasonable. Suspiciously reasonable. Which is exactly why I’m leaving the door wide open for you to say

no,

walk away, and never hear from me again."

His eyes suddenly landed on her left wrist.

A simple bracelet rested there.

Worn. Familiar in its

homemade

weave.

A loop of small wooden beads strung on faded red thread, with a single tarnished silver charm hanging at the center.

It didn’t belong with a flight attendant’s uniform at all and had clearly been smuggled past inspection, living hidden beneath her cuff until a certain movement revealed it.

Phei’s smile softened.

"Your mother must be really proud of you, huh?"

Her head snapped up.

Her eyes went wide.

Her hand instinctively covered the bracelet, fingers curling protectively around it. "How did you—?"

"I know a

mom-made

lucky charm

when I see one." His voice was gentle now, warm in a way that hadn’t been there a minute ago. "Wood beads. Hand-strung. The charm in the middle is a little uneven—not something off a factory line. The thread’s been replaced at least once. You can see where the original red faded and the new section is darker."

He tilted his head slightly. "

I had one too

. A long time ago."

His gaze dropped to his own

bare

wrist for a moment.

Empty.

"Cherish her,"

he said quietly. "While you can. Before life decides to step in."

He stood while she stayed seated, still cradling the bracelet against her chest, looking up at him with an expression he couldn’t quite name—somewhere between surprise, quiet warmth, and the small, fragile shock of being truly seen to the depth by a stranger in the middle of a galley conversation she had thought was about something else entirely.

Phei pulled the curtain aside and went through it.

He was halfway down the cabin aisle when his right hand felt

strange.

It was a small thing. An absence he’d forget... the faintest missing weight of something that hadn’t been there in months, suddenly making itself felt now—like a phantom limb that only twinged when something nearby reminded the nerves of what they used to hold.

His own

bracelet.

The one Selene’s mother had made him; with a small carved

charm

she had whittled herself over three quiet evenings at her kitchen table.

Selene

had finished it for him—done the final knot, tied off the loop, slipped it onto his wrist with that shy, serious smile of hers that had always belonged to a girl who took the small things seriously because the small things were the only things she ever got to give.

He had worn it every day for years.

Until

Kyle

.

Kyle fucking Abrams-Manson had spotted it during one of the worse beatings, pinned him to the locker-room floor, and ripped it off while Phei was too dazed to fight back.

Then he had snapped the thread between his fingers, watched the beads scatter across the wet tile, and stomped on the charm until it cracked in half.

That had been months ago.

Phei had picked the broken pieces out of the locker-room drain that night. Kept them in a sock under his mattress for a few weeks but he’d somehow lost them.

Where did they go, I wonder.

Phei had never

asked

Mother for another.

She had been so weak by then—so thin in the wrists, so quick to tire—that putting her through the work of stringing another bracelet for a charity-case would have felt like asking her to bleed for him on purpose.

He had told himself he would ask once she was stronger.

She had never gotten stronger.

And the first one had been special anyway. Because

Selene

had done the finishing.

"I

miss

her... so much."

He sighed and walked the rest of the way down the cabin in silence.

The lounge door slid open at his touch.

Cassiopeia was exactly where he had left her—settled deep in the leather chair, thick thighs spread wide over its arms, the void-ice construct still buried deep inside her, her cheeks flushed and her dark eyes lifting to him the moment he crossed the threshold.

Whatever fragment of melancholy had been sitting in his chest a moment ago folded itself back into the quiet place where it lived and let him put his face on properly again.

He crossed the room. Sat down beside her.

Pulled her into his arms.

Cassiopeia melted against him instantly—head finding his shoulder, one hand spreading flat on his chest, her body going boneless against him in that particular way she had earned the right to be.

"Listen, my dear,"

Phei murmured, his fingers sliding into her dark waves and beginning their slow, soothing stroke. "I have a small

task

for you."

She tilted her face up slightly.

"Anything, Master."

"There’s a flight attendant in the forward galley." His thumb traced the shell of her ear. "I want you to go meet her. Let her see who you are. Be kind. She has something she wants to ask me, but she’s nervous about asking it directly—and I think she’ll find it easier to say to a woman than to me."

Cassiopeia’s grin began to spread, slow and dangerous.

"You want me to be the messenger."

"I want you to be the

trusted

messenger." He smiled into her hair. "Whatever she tells you, you can choose to bring back to me—or not. You can choose to share the conversation—or not. The decision sits with the two of you. That’s how I promised her it would work."

Her grin widened further, sharp and predatory.

"And what if she tells me something delicious?"

"Then I will be very, very interested to hear it."

"And what if she tells me nothing?"

"Then nothing happens, and we land in Hell’s Paradise, and tomorrow nobody remembers this conversation but the three of us."

Her grin reached its full, dangerous width.

"Master..." she purred against his throat, voice dripping with wicked promise, "you know I’m going to come back with

everything

,

right?"

Phei chuckled—low, dark, satisfied.

"I’m counting on it, my dear."

He kept stroking her hair.

The jet hummed on through the afternoon sky.

[DING!]