𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

Sky sat at his desk, fingers pressed hard against his temples as if he could crush the pounding headache into silence. The veins along his jaw twitched; rage and fatigue crawled beneath his skin like static. He hated when his control slipped - and today, everything was a provocation.

The door opened with a lazy creak. Red strolled in, tablet in hand, his grin too wide for the weight of the situation. "What the hell are you grinning for, Red?" Sky muttered, voice low but edged like a blade.

"What? I'm a happy man, that's why," Red replied without missing a beat, leaning against the doorframe like he'd walked into a café, not a lion's den.

Across the room, William sat on the couch - one hand flying across his laptop keys, the other clutching his phone. His thumb flicked over the screen where Est's name lit up again and again. He didn't even glance up.

"Did you get what I told you to?" Sky asked, eyes narrowing on William.

William nodded once. "Yes. Sersongwittyas has a big investor from abroad. That's why he's so confident about winning the site we've been eyeing."

Sky's teeth clicked together. "Why the hell has everyone sworn to get on my nerves lately?"

"It happens, Sky. Calm down." Red waved a hand in front of his face, mocking a little breeze. It earned him a glare sharp enough to cut.

"Don't we have more money, Will?" Red asked, tilting his head.

"We do," William said flatly, "but it's tied up in the other projects. We can't transfer from abroad right now because Agent Ohm is sniffing around. One wrong move and things will get ugly."

"It's all because of that agent," Sky hissed. "If I'd already gotten my shipment, none of this would've happened."

The profits from that shipment alone - split into three routes, three countries - were enough to keep his empire fed for years. Instead, everything was bleeding time and money.

Red reapplied his lip gloss before speaking,"Sky... I don't want to stress you more, but you should know this. That piece of shit Korn gave them a few leads. This morning, that Dom or whatever his name is raided a small smuggling house of ours."

Sky's head snapped up.

"But," Red continued, "I'd already cleaned everything after you killed Korn that day. They found nothing."

Sky's jaw flexed. "But what?"

Red's grin stretched wider, like a cat playing with its food. "When they raided, they planted a small camera. But don't worry-when I was admiring my pretty face, I saw it and eliminated it."

William turned fully toward him, brows arching. "Hold on. Even if you eliminated it, it was still there for a while. Whoever was monitoring it would've seen something, right?"

"Right, Will!" Red chirped.

William's eyes never left his phone. "Exactly. Which means Agent Ohm might already-" He stopped mid-sentence, realizing the weight. His gaze flicked up. "Wait. Red. Seriously. Why are you happy about that? Someone might've seen something and passed it to the agent."

"Well..." Red's head tilted at that menacing, too-calm angle, his grin splitting like a crack in glass. "He'd need his eyes intact for that."

Both William and Sky snapped their heads toward him in perfect sync.

"What did you do, Red?" they asked together.

The raid had ended just as Ohm predicted - nothing. Not a scrap of evidence worth carrying back, not a shadow of guilt that could be pinned to the Theerapanyakuns. He was frustrated, but not surprised. That's why the camera had been planted. That was their real gamble.

In the base, the team gathered, tension in the air but a faint thread of hope still tugging.

Chimon leaned casually against the glass railing, a small smile tugging at his lips. "I'm sure Mark has something. He was monitoring that camera the whole time."

Ohm nodded, relief softening his shoulders a fraction. "Good. Junior, get him."Junior, who had been pacing like a restless dog, immediately darted off. Everyone knew how close he and Mark were - partners in work, partners in life.

The metal door creaked open.

Junior's breath caught. His body froze. The metallic stench of blood hit him first, iron and rot wrapping around his lungs.

And then he saw it.

The scream tore from his throat raw and broken. "MARK!"

Ohm and Chimon bolted at the sound, footsteps hammering against the concrete floor. But the closer they got, the more their pace faltered, dread winding chains around their ankles.

Inside, the room was a nightmare painted in grotesque detail.

Mark slumped in his chair, head tilted back unnaturally. Where his eyes should have been - nothing but hollow sockets stuffed with two blood-slick strawberries, their red pulp dripping down his pale cheeks. His throat was a clean, deep slit, his shirt soaked through.

Junior collapsed at his feet, clutching his lifeless hand, sobbing until his body shook. His cries rattled through the steel walls like an open wound.

Ohm forced himself forward, jaw locked so tightly it ached. He scanned the room automatically - the way a professional did, even through grief. Every computer was shut down. The hard drives and pen drives connected to the drug case? Gone. Wiped clean.

Chimon's gaze darted higher, then lower, his stomach lurching as he realized it wasn't just murder. The entire room had been defiled. The walls, the desks, the floor - all streaked and splattered, painted in thick, uneven swipes of red.

Ohm's hands clenched into fists at his sides. This wasn't just an attack. It was a message.

Later that night the lab hummed with a quiet the rest of the compound never got to see-soft blue LEDs, the steady tick of climate monitors, and a dozen silent machines cooling off. Most people had already left; only the smallest circle of light above the main bench marked where Krittin-Pooh-still worked, hunched over a spread of prototype boards and annotated schematics that looked more like modern hieroglyphs than anything else.

Footsteps sounded too loud in the corridor. Pooh glanced up, squinting against the glow. Sky slid into the seat opposite him as if he'd been expected. He moved with that same economy of motion Pooh had watched his whole life: effortless, deliberate, impossibly calm.

"You look like shit, Pooh," Sky said bluntly, taking in the dark rings under his brother's eyes. "Take a break sometimes."

Pooh pushed the chair back and folded his hands on the table, gaze flicking to Sky. "You too," he said. "What are you doing here?"

Sky's smile was the soft sort-rare and private. "Why shouldn't I come see my baby brother?" He nodded at the bouquet of roses set carefully to the side, petals catching the lab light. "Since when do you like roses?"

Pooh's jaw tightened at the sight. He had not told anyone about those bouquets-nightly deliveries with no note, no name. For years They'd been a small, private puzzle that made something ache in him instead of comfort him. He forced his voice flat. "I made something," he said, a way to shift focus.

Sky's brow lifted. "Oh?"

Pooh explained without theatricality, the way a scientist reports a result: "After you told me about Korn, I designed a fail-safe for the men on the ground." His hands didn't tremble as he spoke; his voice was even, clinical. "A nano-implant. It's not-" He caught himself and chose his words carefully. "It's a device that can be remotely neutralized or activated under specific, controlled conditions. If operatives are captured and compelled to talk, there's a way to ensure the operation's secrecy is preserved."

Sky let out a long breath that might have been a laugh, might have been something like approval. "Pooh," he said, proud and dangerous all at once. "Only you would solve a logistical problem by turning it into an ethical one."

Pooh met his look, neither flinching nor seeking praise. "I wasn't trying to be cruel," he said quietly. "I designed it as a last-resort safety net-so innocent men don't end up spilling everything under torture, and so a raid can't undo months of work. It's contingency engineering, nothing more."

Sky reached over and rapped Pooh lightly on the shoulder, a gesture of affection that also felt like a benediction. "That's my genius brother," he said simply. "Practical. Clean. Efficient."

For a second the lab felt smaller, charged by the weight of what Pooh had created and the world that demanded it. Sky's expression softened, the father-figure edge he wore around others melting into something like pride and possessiveness. "You think about consequences?" he asked.

Pooh gave a small, dry smile. "Of course. That's why there are layers. Fail-safe protocols, legal cover, medical monitoring. You can't just make something like that and leave it bleeding into the field. It needs to be governed."

Sky nodded once. "And who governs the governor?" he asked, half teasing, half serious.

"We do," Pooh answered without hesitation. "We do the governing. Rules. Limits. Nobody uses it lightly." His voice carried the strain of someone who had built a cage with an exit only he trusted. "It's not a toy, Sky. It's... a final measure."

Sky's hand closed around the bouquet sitting on the bench and he squeezed a rose gently, as if testing the petals for fragility. He looked at Pooh with an expression that was very small and very dangerous.

"No one will ever make you use it for sport," he said. "Not while I breathe."