Page 49

"An interesting perspective," Prometheus said, studying me over the rim of his wine glass. "What do you think, Luka? Is it better to remember or to forget?"

"I think some memories find us whether we want them or not," I answered, meeting his gaze directly. "I think buried things don't stay buried forever."

A hint of displeasure flickered across his perfect facade. "Perhaps. But memories can be... managed. Controlled. With the right techniques."

"What kind of techniques?" Vincent asked.

"Exposure therapy. Cognitive restructuring." Prometheus's smile never reached his eyes. "I'm something of an amateur psychologist myself. Particularly interested in memory reconsolidation. The science of rewriting traumatic experiences."

"Rewriting or erasing?" Vincent pressed.

I caught the subtle tightening around Vincent's eyes.

This wasn't just professional disagreement.

This was personal. This was the man who had murdered his patient sitting across from him, calmly discussing the erasure of human identity like it was a fascinating academic exercise.

Vincent's fingers trembled slightly against his wine glass, the only outward sign of the rage I sensed building beneath his therapeutic composure.

"Is there a meaningful difference?" Prometheus countered. "If a painful memory can be transformed into something benign, isn't that preferable to carrying the weight of trauma forever?"

"Not if it means erasing the truth," Vincent said firmly. "Not if it means stealing someone's identity."

The temperature in the room dropped. Prometheus's eyes went flat and cold, the mask of civility slipping.

"A charming perspective," he said after a pause. "Though perhaps na?ve. Some people aren't equipped to handle their own memories. Some need... protection from their past."

"Protection or control?" I asked, the last of my restraint fraying. "There's a difference."

"Is there?" His gaze locked with mine. "When I found you, Luka, you were a child with a homemade knife in a bombed-out building.

Covered in blood that wasn't yours. Already with kills to your name.

I gave you structure. Purpose. Was it wrong of me to take that rage and shape it into something useful? "

Ana gasped softly, looking at me with new eyes. "You... you killed people? "

The horror in her voice, in her expression, felt like a knife between my ribs. My sister—who had once known every secret part of me, who had loved me unconditionally—now stared at me like I was a monster. Which I was. Which Prometheus had made me.

"Lincoln, that's hardly appropriate dinner conversation," she chided, recovering her composure. "I'm so sorry, Luka. My husband sometimes forgets his filter when discussing his security work."

Security work. The euphemism almost made me laugh. As if what The Pantheon did could be reduced to something so mundane, so legitimate.

"It's fine," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "Your husband and I have a... complicated history."

"You worked together?" she asked, puzzled.

"In a manner of speaking." I held Prometheus's gaze across the table. "He taught me everything I know about betrayal."

Vincent's hand found mine under the table, squeezing hard. A warning. A reminder that we hadn't come here for confrontation. Not yet. We were outmanned, outgunned. This wasn't the time or place.

But looking at Ana I wasn't sure I cared about the right time or place anymore.

"Perhaps we should change the subject," Prometheus suggested smoothly. "Ana, why don't you tell Dr. Matthews about your upcoming charity gala? I believe he has connections at the university who might be interested in supporting your work."

Ana brightened immediately. "Of course! We're hosting a fundraiser next month for our new initiative focusing specifically on separated siblings. We've developed a DNA database to help match family members across borders, even decades after separation."

DNA database. The words hit like a bullet. If Ana had her DNA tested, if it were run against mine... But no. Prometheus would have thought of that. Would have ensured her DNA was never entered into any system that might link her to her past.

Still, the idea took root, growing tendrils of possibility through my mind.

"That sounds fascinating," Vincent said, and I could almost see the same thoughts racing behind his eyes. "I'd love to hear more about the technical aspects of the database. How do you handle the matching algorithms?"

As Ana launched into an explanation of their system, I excused myself. "Bathroom," I murmured, needing space, air, anything to escape the suffocating reality of sitting across from my sister while she discussed reuniting families that weren't her own.

"Down the hall, first door on the right," Prometheus directed, his smile knowing.

The bathroom was sleek and modern, all black marble and recessed lighting. I braced myself against the sink, staring at my reflection. The man looking back was a stranger with pale, hollow eyes.

Ana was alive. Ana was his wife. Ana helped reunite families while her own brother searched mass graves for her face.

The door opened without warning. Prometheus. Of course.

"Twenty-six years," he said conversationally, stepping inside like finding me braced against a sink was exactly what he'd expected. "Quite the reunion, isn't it?"

I looked up at him through the mirror, no pride left to salvage. Just rage burning clean and bright as a star.

"How?" The word barely made it past my clenched teeth.

"Refugee camp outside Banja Luka. 1997." He leaned against the wall, casual as if we were discussing the weather. "She'd been there about a year. Still young enough to... reshape. The aid workers were overwhelmed with the influx of orphans. "

A year.

She'd survived a year waiting for me.

"She talked about you constantly at first. Her brave big brother who would come save her.

Who'd protected her from bigger kids. Who'd shared his food even when his own stomach was empty.

" Each word was placed surgically, designed to cut deepest. "She was so certain you'd find her.

Even made the other children call her 'Luka's sister' instead of using her name. "

I pressed my palms against the counter hard enough to leave dents, but I couldn't block out the images his words painted. Ana waiting. Ana hoping. Ana's faith dying by degrees as days became months.

"Eventually, she stopped talking about you.

The trauma, the loss... a seven-year-old mind can only hold on to hope for so long.

By the time I started working with her, she was.

.. pliable." He stepped closer, his reflection joining mine in the mirror.

"I saved her, Luka. Gave her new memories.

New life. Parents who died in a car accident instead of to Serbian death squads.

Boarding school in Switzerland instead of refugee camps.

A normal, happy life." He leaned closer, dropping his voice.

"I even erased all traces of her Bosniak upbringing.

She believes she's ethnically Serbian now.

No memory of the prayers your mother taught her.

No memory of your father's stories. She identifies completely with the people who executed your parents. "

"You stole her memories." My voice came out raw. "You stole her from me. You made her believe she's one of the people who destroyed our village."

"I gave her peace." His tone hardened. "Look what your memories made you. A killer. A weapon. Someone who flinches when touched gently, who can't sleep without checking exits. Would you wish that on her?"

No . The answer was immediate and absolute .

"She's happy, Luka. Genuinely, truly happy."

Happy. The word sat foreign in my mouth.

"Here's what happens now." His voice shifted to business mode, the caring facade dropping. "You'll finish dinner. Break things off with Vincent. Come with me willingly. Submit to re-education. Let me fix what your therapist has broken in my programming."

He stepped closer, invading my space completely, his cologne suffocating me with memories of Milan.

"Or perhaps we start with Ana. I wonder how she'd react to learning her charity's DNA database accidentally matched her to a known assassin?

Imagine her confusion when I explain that this dangerous man believes he's her long-dead brother.

" His voice dropped to a whisper. "How traumatizing for her fragile mind.

She might need... extensive therapy to recover. Private therapy. With me."

He would use her, break her again, all to punish me for my disobedience.

Something inside me snapped clean in half.

The rage that had been building since the cemetery that morning, since seeing Ana alive and married to this monster, finally broke its chains. Not the calculated violence I'd been trained for, but something primal and uncontrolled that roared up from a place deeper than training, deeper than fear.

I moved purely on instinct, my body launching forward like a released spring. My hands found his throat before conscious thought caught up, slamming him against the bathroom wall. Marble cracked, spider-webbing outward from the impact point. His pulse jumped frantically against my thumbs.

But even as my fingers tightened, pain exploded behind my eyes—not physically, but something worse.

Prometheus's failsafes activating in my brain, neural pathways he'd carved through years of conditioning.

Twenty-six years of programming screamed at me to stop, to obey, to submit.

My vision fractured, doubled. Sweat poured down my temples as I fought against my own mind.

Ana's face flashed before me—not the polished woman at the dinner table, but my six-year-old sister screaming my name as soldiers dragged her away. Vincent's voice echoed in my ears: "You get to choose who you are now." The memory of him asleep beside me, trusting me despite knowing what I was.