The room carried a silence Kai had grown familiar with — not the kind bred by awkwardness, but reverence.

  The team sat like a unit, calm but alert. The city stretched out behind the massive windows like a painting only rich men got to frame.

  Mr. Grayson stood, buttoning his jacket with an effortless motion.

  “I don’t know what strings you pulled,” he said, voice composed but full of meaning, “or what kind of training your people have—but what you did… was precise, fast, and above all, discreet.”

  He walked slowly toward the table at the center of the room, a solid piece of obsidian and steel. Every step echoed softly across the marble floor.

  “My daughter hasn’t said much,” he continued. “But what she did say was enough.”

  He opened a drawer in the center of the table and pulled out a checkbook. The motion was casual, but it shifted the room’s atmosphere. Even Mara subtly sat forward. Evan tilted his head, clearly curious.

  Mr. Grayson scribbled something down and slid the check toward Kai across the table.

  “It’s blank,” he said. “Write in whatever number feels right. I mean it.”

  Kai didn’t move. He looked at the check, then at Mr. Grayson’s face.

  Gratitude, laced with helplessness.

  Then Kai leaned back in his chair.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said quietly.

  Grayson blinked.

  Kai’s voice didn’t waver. “We don’t do this for money. We help people who need it. That’s the reward.”

  The room shifted again. Subtly.

  Mr. Grayson’s hand hovered over the check for a moment, unsure if he should retrieve it or insist. He looked from Iris to Mara, then back to Kai.

  Leonard, standing quietly at the back of the room, raised an eyebrow. He said nothing — but in his mind, the words were loud:

  Why would you pass up an open check from one of the most powerful men in the city?

  Kai didn’t look back at him. But he felt the weight of Leonard’s silent question.

  Still, he didn’t flinch.

  Because it wasn’t about the money.

  It was about the message.

  Help without chains.

  Grayson finally gave a quiet chuckle, more breath than sound. “You’re… not what I expected.”

  Before Kai could respond, there was movement.

  The woman in the navy suit — the one who’d escorted them up, who had stood silent the entire meeting — stepped close and leaned into Mr. Grayson’s ear.

  She whispered something too soft to be heard, but Kai watched his face shift.

  The gratitude faded.

  His eyes darted toward the desk.

  Fingers moved instinctively to the keyboard.

  He typed quickly, pulling up a screen — and his eyes locked on it.

  Widened.

  Just a fraction. Just enough.

  But for Kai… it was more than enough.

  Because through the man’s glasses, Kai’s own new eyes saw the faint reflection of the monitor.

  Text.

  Just a few lines.

  But Kai’s mind absorbed them all.

  “Shipping delay confirmed. Three of the Singapore containers are now marked under review. The customs hold has been flagged due to unusual discrepancies in labeling and load weight. Expect 5-6 day delay minimum.”

  A partner’s signature was scrawled beneath it.

  Kai leaned forward slightly, his tone soft but sincere.

  “Is everything alright, Mr. Grayson?”

  The man froze for a breath.

  Then looked up — eyes back to composed.

  “Yes,” he said. Too quickly.

  Kai tilted his head just a bit, as if observing more than asking.

  “If there’s something else going on,” Kai continued, “and you need help… I may be able to help.”

  Mr. Grayson’s eyes lingered on the monitor, the glow casting a faint blue shimmer across his tailored cuffs.

  Then, slowly, he turned back to face Kai.

  “You already helped me,” he said, voice lower now. “You risked your lives. You brought my daughter home. And you did it without asking for a thing.”

  Kai didn’t answer. He just listened.

  Grayson’s gaze held weight. “I wouldn’t want to burden you further with my… professional problems. This isn’t your concern.”

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  Kai’s voice was calm. “It’s not a burden.”

  Grayson raised an eyebrow.

  Kai continued, “We don’t just help people when it’s convenient. If something’s weighing on you, and we can help — we will.”

  He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. “I’m not offering out of courtesy. I’m offering because I meant what I said. We enjoy helping people in need. And right now, it’s written all over your face.”

  Grayson didn’t answer right away.

  He looked at Kai for a long moment — not dismissively, but pensive. As if weighing something delicate. Trust, perhaps. Or risk.

  The silence hung in the room like static.

  Then, finally, the older man leaned back, fingers tapping lightly against the armrest.

  “It’s corporate,” he said. “Logistics. I run a global chain — electronics, rare metals, raw materials. A shipment I was expecting in two days is now delayed. Not by hours. Days.”

  He sighed, and for the first time, his armor cracked just a little.

  “I gave my word to several partners that it would arrive on schedule. I have board members, international buyers, distributors waiting — people who don’t forgive easily. In business, your word is your currency. You don’t break it.”

  He gave a tight, tired smile. “Forgive me — this wasn’t supposed to be your problem. I brought you here to thank you. Not to drag you into this mess.”

  Kai stayed quiet, letting the words breathe in the air for a few seconds.

  But inside his mind, the thoughts moved like chess pieces.

  This was it.

  An opening.

  A chance to gain something far more valuable than a check — a permanent seat at the table of the powerful.

  Kai knew something else too: in a world where influence mattered more than anything, you don’t gain trust through charm.

  You gained it by solving problems no one else could.

  “I may be able to fix that for you,” Kai said.

  Mr. Grayson blinked, then chuckled, surprised by the boldness.

  “You? With all due respect… do you have contacts in the Singaporean government?”

  Kai smiled faintly.

  “No,” he said. “But I have my ways.”

  Grayson studied him again, leaning slightly forward now, the amusement fading into curiosity.

  “This delay is tied up in customs,” the man said carefully. “Anomalies in the shipment manifest — flagged for secondary inspection. That’s not something easily… untangle-able.”

  Kai shrugged lightly. “Maybe not the usual way.”

  A beat passed.

  The other members of the team sat still. They didn’t speak. But their presence said everything: if Kai says it, we believe it.

  And maybe that was what unsettled Mr. Grayson more than anything — that this group of young people, barely out of high school, looked more composed and capable than some of the corporate heads he had in his own boardrooms.

  “You’re serious,” he said.

  Kai nodded once. “Completely.”

  The man looked down at his desk again, fingers hovering near the keyboard.

  Then he gave a single laugh — quiet, not mocking, but genuinely disarmed.

  “You’re either the most fearless young man I’ve met,” he said, “or the most confident.”

  Kai’s voice was calm. “Maybe both.”

  As the exchange between Kai and Mr. Grayson unfolded, Leonard was seated, silent — but his thoughts were anything but.

  He had worked alongside military strategists, private investigators, ex-intelligence officers.

  But this…

  This was something else.

  Leonard’s eyes moved to Kai — the way the boy spoke calmly, clearly, without ever once sounding uncertain. There wasn’t a flicker of hesitation in him. No scramble for validation. No attempt to impress.

  Leonard had doubted him once. Not openly — but internally seeing how young he was.

  Now, watching Kai speak to a man who controlled corporate districts, who employed entire fleets of lawyers and executives — and watching that man actually listen — Leonard felt something shift.

  His train of thought was broken by Mr. Grayson’s voice, directed at Kai:

  “Do this,” the man said, leaning forward slightly, “and I may be in your debt.”

  His eyes were sharp now. Measured. No longer skeptical, but intrigued.

  “And trust me,” he added, “I always pay my debts.”

  Kai stood.

  Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just smooth, confident motion.

  “Well,” he said, adjusting his jacket, “we won’t take more of your time.”

  He extended a hand.

  “We’ll look into the issue.”

  Mr. Grayson stood as well and took Kai’s hand with a firm shake.

  “My secretary will forward you the manifest, shipping numbers, partner details. Everything you’ll need.”

  Kai gave a faint smile.

  “That won’t be necessary. We’ll let you know once it’s handled.”

  The butlers stood back in silence as the lady from earlier approached the group again. She gave a short bow of respect and gestured toward the doors.

  The group followed Kai out in unison.

  Mara and Iris flanked him like clockwork. Evan threw a glance back at the desk — half-curious, half-awed.

  As the double doors closed behind them with a soft, well-oiled click, Leonard cast one last glance back at Mr. Grayson.

  The man stood staring at the monitor again — but now, not in frustration.

  In fascination.

  The ride back to the villa was quieter than usual.

  The city drifted past the SUV windows in streaks of neon and glass, blurred under the weight of everything that had just happened. No one in the vehicle said much — not even Evan, who normally filled silences with jokes.

  Even Mara was unusually still, her eyes fixed on the passing skyline, lips pressed into a thin, unreadable line.

  Kai sat in the back, eyes half-closed, not sleeping but thinking.

  By the time the SUV pulled through the gates of the villa, night had thickened. The iron gate rolled shut behind them with its usual mechanical hum, sealing them into the space that now felt like both home and headquarters.

  The villa lights glowed warm against the darkness.

  Inside, the mood was different.

  Jonah was planted in the armchair in front of the TV, remote in one hand, a half-finished soda in the other. Some slow-paced documentary was playing — the kind only Jonah seemed to have the patience for. The screen showed lions stalking through dry savannah grass, but his attention snapped to the door as it opened.

  On the couch, Lina lay on her back, oversized headphones on, one socked foot bobbing in rhythm to something too fast for her stillness. Her eyes opened lazily when the door creaked.

  Felix sat at the far table with a small stack of cards.

  Marcus and Darren were mid-game with a beat-up deck of cards, half-arguing over a rule that probably didn’t exist. As the group from the meeting stepped inside, Marcus threw down his hand with a grin and leaned back.

  “There they are. Took your sweet time,” he said, tossing a card at Darren.

  He looked at Kai. “What was so urgent that it dragged half the team into a secret field trip?”

  Kai didn’t break stride. His pace was steady, purposeful. He passed the living room with barely a glance.

  “Iris will fill you in,” he said, his voice even but distant. “I have something to take care of.”

  He didn’t stop to explain. He didn’t need to.

  Marcus blinked, watching Kai disappear around the corner.

  Iris stepped forward, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “It wasn’t a mission,” she said. “But it’s something big. I’ll explain everything in a minute.”

  Back in the hallway, Kai reached his personal room’s door and pushed it open without hesitation.

  His room was dark, quiet — as it always was. The walls still held that faint scent of candle smoke but he didn’t need it anymore.

  He locked the door behind him and leaned against it for a second.

  Just a second.

  Then he crossed the room and sat.

  The weight of the day, of the conversation with Grayson, of what he had promised, settled on his shoulders like a new coat.

  He had offered help on an international problem — without knowing yet how he’d solve it.

  He’d done that before. Trusted his instincts. His ability to bend things to his will.

  In the living room, Iris sat at the edge of the long couch, her fingers steepled in front of her mouth. She was explaining what had happened — Grayson’s gratitude, the blank check, the offer Kai had refused, and the shipment that now sat like a cloud over their next steps.

  Jonah leaned forward, elbows on knees, listening closely.

  Mara was beside him, her eyes on the muted television, but her attention had long drifted. She wasn’t watching. She was remembering — every step of the skyscraper, every guarded hallway, every subtle shift in Grayson’s tone. Her foot tapped rhythmically, unconscious and steady.

  Evan stood in the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets. He didn’t say much — but that was his way. His thoughts boiled slow, like the water he’d just set on the stove.

  Meanwhile, the leader of the group lay still in his room on a long cushion, eyes closed, breath slow.

  Kai was thinking.

  Not just about the shipment.

  About how it had to be solved.

  His power had proven itself again and again — to make what was imagined real, as long as it respected logic. He could shape the future through vivid memory — anchor his will to a moment that hadn’t happened yet and let reality bend until it did.

  But there was a problem.

  Distance.

  He couldn’t imagine future what he couldn’t experience. Not fully.

  And Singapore was far.

  Too far to smell the salt air. Too far to hear the cargo gates rattle. Too far to feel the vibration of steel containers shifting on docks lined with men whose names he didn’t know.

  His body couldn’t go there. His mind… not easily.

  And yet…

  His breath steadied.

  There’s another way.

  Kai slowly closed his eyes.

  The way he always did when slipping loose from his body.

  And then, with familiar ease, he left it.

  He stood in the middle of the room — outside of himself. The smoky ether rolled gently through the corners.

  He didn’t need light.

  He didn’t need the real world.

  He needed only possibility.

  Kai raised his head and focused.

  Not on now.

  But on two days from now.

  He imagined the villa. The same room. The same chair.

  His phone ringing.

  He picked it up. Saw the number: Mr. Grayson.

  He answered.

  “Kai,” the older man’s voice said, warm and surprised. “It’s arrived. The shipment. Right on time. I don’t know what you did, but… you did it. You really did it.”

  Kai smiled in the memory-that-hadn’t-happened.

  “I told you I had my ways.”

  And then the call ended.

  Kai opened his eyes — back inside his body.

  The smoke was gone.

  But the moment had been cast.

  A seed dropped into the river of time.

  Now… all he had to do was wait and see which way the current flowed.

  The wooden floor creaked softly under Kai’s steps as he made his way back into the living room.

  Nothing had changed.

  Jonah was still in the armchair, halfway through a different documentary now.

  The narrator’s voice echoed faintly through the room like a bedtime story no one was really listening to.

  Mara hadn’t moved. She was still on the couch, TV remote beside her, eyes on the screen.

  Darren and Marcus were near the far wall, Iris was talking to Lina, who sat cross-legged on the floor near the coffee table.

  Kai didn’t raise his voice.

  “Felix,” he said.

  Felix, perched at the edge of the couch with a tablet in hand, looked up immediately. “Yeah?”

  Kai walked over, calm but direct.

  “I need you to call Mr. Grayson.”

  Felix blinked. “Right now?”

  “Yes,” Kai said, with quiet certainty. “Tell him everything’s been taken care of. And that in two days… his shipment will arrive exactly as expected.”

  There was a pause.

  Felix hesitated only a moment. He didn’t ask how. Not anymore.

  He’d learned better than to question Kai.

  “Got it,” Felix said, already pulling out his phone and walking toward the hallway for privacy.

  Jonah raised an eyebrow. “Wait… how do you know it’s taken care of?”

  Kai didn’t answer.

  Not with words.

  He just gave the faintest smirk — a shadow of the same calm expression he wore when impossible things started becoming inevitable ones.

  Then he sat down, leaned back, and let the silence work for him.

  Because for Kai, it had already happened.

  Now the world just needed to catch up.