-Lucien
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For the most part, I find him quite interesting.
He knows he's being lied to—knows it in the way a man knows the sun will rise tomorrow, or that hot water will eventually scald. And yet he stays. There's no grand resistance, no dramatic confrontation. Just a quiet, almost pitiful surrender. Like a deer who's recognized the inevitability of teeth and decides not to run. I've seen people bargain, scream, grovel—but Reed Mercer? He folds like a page in a book that's been turned too many times. Worn and weary at the edges, but still there. Still legible.
And I get it. I really do. I've lived like this my whole life. Polished lies, curated smiles, "royalty" stitched into exile. You start to understand that truth has never been an ally—it's just a currency. One more fragile than most.
Still, what a peculiar human being.
And such a beautiful one, too.
He doesn't think he is, and that's the first tell. His face holds the kind of sharpness that you don't find in paintings—more like in films you rewatch, not for the plot, but for a singular moment: a look, a line, a linger of expression you can't forget. Dark hair that curls slightly at the ends, always a bit unruly, like it doesn't care for appearances even though the rest of him is quietly, devastatingly composed. His jaw is defined but not aggressive, his lips often pressed in thought or curled in sarcasm, and his eyes—God, those eyes. Tired, yes. But also clever. Always scanning, always somewhere between mocking and pleading with the universe.
Today, he leaned against the window with a cigarette like he'd been doing it all his life, though I'm fairly certain he only picked it up recently, either for the aesthetic or the sense of control. The smoke danced around him, wisps catching the pale slant of light as if the universe, too, wanted a better look. And he just stood there—sweater draped loose over his frame, collared shirt peeking out like he hadn't even tried, and yet he looked like a poem being written in real time. Unaware. Unwilling to be seen, but impossible not to watch.
If Reed Mercer is a pawn in this game, he's one the board underestimates.
But I don't.
I see him. I see the bruises on his hope, the cracks in his pride. And I wonder, foolishly maybe, what it would take for someone like him to stop surrendering—and start biting back.
"Hey, Reed," I said, stepping closer. My voice was calm—measured, like water just beginning to boil. "How's work going?"
He startled like I'd pulled a knife instead of a sentence. The cigarette he was holding launched itself out the window in a panic, a knee-jerk reaction that clearly wasn't thought through. A faint tch escaped him the moment it flew, as though gravity had betrayed him personally. Then came the sequence—closed eyes, inhale, delayed exhale, and the smile. That smile. Crooked. Compelled. Like a kid caught stealing a second cookie and trying to make it look like he'd never even been in the kitchen.
He is very animated, if I might say. Like watching someone act out emotions he hadn't rehearsed well enough.
"Eddie has been teaching me what to sign, he's quite effective!" he said, voice unnaturally chirpy. It landed with the kind of forced enthusiasm that screamed, please believe me I'm doing fine.
What was it about you, Reed, that made me so baffled?
Was it the desperation? The frayed threads of someone who had nothing left to lose but still tried to wear confidence like a borrowed coat?
Or perhaps it was your astonishing ability to adapt. You coped—remarkably, tragically—with wherever the tide dumped you. Even now, in a suit that didn't quite belong to you, in a job you only half-understood, standing in a castle that wasn't real. You played along.
And it made me… want to pat you on the back.
Like a teacher might to a student who tried hard on an assignment they completely misunderstood.
A ridiculous urge.
Because getting soft at this point wasn't going to do anyone any good. Least of all me.
"Yeah, Eddie is quite great! He's been working with us for years," I said with a practiced smile, the kind that was pleasant but hollow. Reed had no idea who Eddie actually was. Or who us referred to. And I wasn't about to enlighten him.
See…
I wasn't born into any castle. I wasn't even born into a living room with two consistent adults. I grew up in the UK—South London first, then shuffled north. Foster homes. Juvenile institutions. "Homes" where the mattresses had burn holes and the toothpaste came in unmarked tubes. Where silence meant safety, and eye contact could mean you didn't make it through the night without a black eye or worse.
My mother was deported when I was eleven. Undocumented. She vanished overnight—just like that. Her name removed, her clothes bagged and gone. She wasn't even allowed to say goodbye. After that, forms got filled out with blanks where a parent's name should've been. My father was a ghost with no records. I was a question no one wanted to answer.
I survived longer than most, but I was clever in all the wrong ways. Good at saying what they wanted to hear. Good at slipping blame. Brilliant, yes—but always in survival mode. By fourteen, I could forge any signature. By fifteen, I could hold eye contact and lie so smoothly you'd think you were the one mistaken. Charm is a weapon when you learn to wield it young.
At seventeen, they found me. Or rather, he did. A grifter. Said he was with a "startup." Said I had potential. What he handed me was a burner phone, a fake name, and a list of people I didn't know.
"If you make it work, you eat," he said. "If not… you vanish."
I made it work.
Too well, apparently.
They liked how I cleaned up. How I sounded. How I looked. I could play the posh heir, the foreign investor, the wayward royal. Scam by design, trust by aesthetics. Beauty privilege was a real currency—one I cashed in daily.
From posing as tech support to corporate interns, I graduated to laundering operations that required taste. Accents. French, mostly. Sometimes Dutch. They called me Lucien after a character in some novel none of us had read. Said it fit the vibe. I didn't argue. Rowan had stopped mattering by then.
Now here I am, watching Reed Mercer—a man who believes he's been hired for a job, who still clings to the belief that things might turn out fine. Who jumps when I speak, yet still smiles as if I'm a person worth smiling at.
And despite everything I've learned, I can't help but wonder: What would someone like him have been if life had been even just a little kinder?
I stepped back slightly, nodding at him, letting the silence swell between us. Smoke still lingered in the air like a half-told truth.
"Just keep learning," I told him softly. "It'll make things easier."
He nodded, probably thinking I'm talking about signatures.
But I'm not.
I'm talking about surviving—without knowing how deep you've already sunk.
The office was one of our newer facades—white walls, soft lighting, glass panels no one ever touched, and a receptionist whose sole qualification was that she looked like she belonged there. The kind of place you walked into and immediately forgot what it was supposed to do. Reed followed me in like someone entering a spa by mistake. Still slightly stunned, still trying to appear confident.
We sat in one of the conference rooms—unused, pristine, and probably still smelled like paint and capitalist dreams. I handed him a sleek tablet, already loaded with what looked like invoices, approvals, and budget summaries. All nonsense, naturally. Names that didn't exist, codes that didn't correspond to anything real, and payments that never saw daylight.
"Right," I began, crossing one leg over the other with the kind of ease that made people forget they were being duped. "So most of your work will involve reviewing requests—petty cash approvals, office maintenance, basic supplies. These are the low-tier entries. You'll see bigger ones, but we're easing you in."
He scrolled, slow at first, then faster as if the faster he read the more legitimate it all would become. Poor thing.
"This one's asking for approval on…" He squinted. "Four hundred and seventy euros for paper cups?"
"Correct," I replied, nodding as if this were normal behavior in normal companies that buy normal disposable drinkware for the price of a small kidney.
He looked up, blinking. "That's… a bit over the brim, don't you think?"
"Oh, we go through them fast here," I said smoothly, clasping my hands and offering my best straight face. "You know how it is."
"I don't, actually," he said, biting back a smile. "That's why I'm asking."
I leaned back in the chair, letting my tone turn casual. "We have a diverse office. Staff from various nationalities, each with their own preferences. Some drink tea instead of water. Some have two, three cups per hour. Some forget they've already had one and go for another. It builds up. You'd be surprised how many cultures consider hospitality sacred."
He narrowed his eyes. "And that justifies buying cups with the budget of a Greek wedding?"
"Reed." I gave him a smile—the disarming kind, the I-will-not-answer-but-you-will-feel-answered kind. "Harmony is expensive."
He scoffed, pressing his thumb against the side of the tablet like he wanted it to burn. "You people really do know how to commit."
"Yes," I said lightly. "That's the whole point."
He looked at me, lips parted, like he wasn't sure if I was joking or confessing. The truth was—I was doing both. Always both.
He tapped the approval icon after a moment's hesitation. I could see the wheels turning. He was suspicious, but not enough to stop. Not yet.
"Do I get to deny anything?" he asked, scrolling further.
I tilted my head. "Only if you're brave."
He laughed at that—an actual laugh, brief and surprised. Then he cleared his throat, visibly unsure what to do with himself.
That was the rhythm with Reed. He danced on the edge of realization without falling. Kept one foot on the cliff and the other in comedy, using sarcasm like a rope he didn't know was fraying.
"You're doing well," I told him, and I meant it.
He raised a brow. "Doing well at… what, exactly?"
"Settling in."
I didn't say disappearing into a system you don't understand. That would be rude.
Instead, I stood, straightened my sweater, and gestured for him to follow.
"Come. I'll show you where the paper cups live."
And just like that, the poor bastard got up and followed me, like he was part of something normal.
Like he hadn't just approved his first fake invoice.
Like the cups were real.
I led him through the corridor with deliberate slowness, letting the silence build like background music in a thriller. The kind that hums in your ribs and makes you feel like you're either about to discover a secret—or commit one.
"This," I said as we reached a frosted glass door labeled Tech & Cybersecurity, "is where the magic happens."
I pushed it open.
The magic, as it were, was two desks. One of them was immaculately clean—because no one had ever sat at it. The other was cluttered with monitors that weren't plugged in, a tangle of cables that went nowhere, and an open bag of sour cream and onion chips that had definitely been here longer than our last quarterly report.
Behind the mess sat Rado.
Now, Rado is many things. A genius, first and foremost. He can crack into a banking app like he's slicing cake. Metaphorically speaking, of course. It's never like the movies. But sociable? Presentable? Someone you'd put in front of a wide-eyed civilian on his first day?
Absolutely not.
Which is why we almost never do.
But today? Today we needed the illusion of activity. So here he was. Hood up. Eyes red. Probably hadn't slept. Or was high on something. I can bet of the latter. He looked up at us like we were ghosts, then slowly reached for a keyboard that wasn't even connected.
"Rado," I said with faux cheer. "This is Reed. He's new."
Reed blinked, then did a slow scan of the room—the desks, the printer, the static hum of absolutely nothing functioning.
"Nice setup," he said flatly.
"Thanks," Rado muttered, typing gibberish into a blank Word document. "Upgraded the—uh—intrusion detection matrix last week."
I bit back a smile. The man didn't even try. Bless him.
Reed leaned closer to one of the monitors, then casually trailed a finger along a dusty keyboard cord that wasn't plugged into anything. "Right. Very... matrixy."
I cut in before Rado started explaining firewall fantasies in Klingon.
"Rado manages our cybersecurity needs remotely most days," I said smoothly. "Today's just an in-office sync. We believe in face time."
"Sure," Reed replied, still looking like he was watching a play and waiting for someone to forget their lines. "So... is this where my emails go when I forward them to IT?"
I chuckled. "No, your emails go to Margo."
His face froze. "Of course they do."
I gave him a light pat on the back and gestured to the hallway again. "Come on. Next stop—our media department. You'll love it. There's a TV."
As we walked off, I caught Rado glaring at me from behind the screen of his unpowered monitor, mouthing never again.
I nodded once, discreetly.
He could go back to the shadows after this. I just needed Reed to see enough to believe we were real. That we had structure. Departments. People. Culture.
And somehow, it was working. Despite the absurdity of it all, Reed hadn't run yet.
Which, honestly, said more about his life than mine.
I guided Reed to the next wing—a shorter hallway that smelled faintly of lemon-scented cleaner and wealth laundering. On the door ahead, gilded letters spelled out Media & Creative Strategy like we were producing Oscar-winning propaganda and not fake quarterly reports.
"This one's special," I said, pushing the door open with a light flourish.
Inside, the room was dimly lit by the glow of several large wall-mounted screens, each looping a different slideshow on mute. Graphs. Logos. Stock photos of happy employees giving high-fives in untucked button-downs. One even had a quote in Comic Sans: Synergy starts with you!
The centerpiece of the room? A single whiteboard with a half-erased diagram that looked like it was supposed to be a funnel—or maybe a baguette.
And sitting at the conference table with a coffee mug and a remote he wasn't using: Daniel.
Daniel, unlike Rado, cleaned up nicely. He wore a navy shirt that hugged his shoulders too well for someone in "media." His hair was neatly combed, his smile was customer-facing, and his expression was just warm enough to not seem threatening. He was what you got when you asked the mafia for "a friendly face."
"Daniel," I said, "this is Reed. Our newest member of the team."
Daniel stood smoothly, offered a handshake like a politician meeting a donor. "Welcome, Reed. Hope Lucien's not scaring you too much."
"Oh, he is," Reed replied dryly, shaking his hand. "But it's in a charming way. Like a haunted house with good lighting."
Daniel laughed—perfectly timed, perfectly casual. "That's the vibe we aim for."
Reed's eyes wandered over to the looping screens. "What… exactly is this department again?"
"Media and Creative Strategy," I answered smoothly, stepping beside him. "Daniel here oversees branding initiatives, employee engagement content, and digital visibility reports."
Reed squinted at one screen. A slideshow titled Q1 Wins! showed the same stock image of a woman typing with enthusiasm on loop, each frame just zoomed in slightly more than the last.
"This one looks like it was made by a third grader on energy drinks."
Daniel didn't miss a beat. "That's because the client asked for a more approachable look. Raw. Minimalist."
"It's definitely… raw," Reed muttered, brows raised. "So you're telling me you guys film stuff here?"
"Sometimes," Daniel said, gesturing vaguely toward a tripod in the corner that hadn't moved since the office opened. "Training content, staff highlights, that kind of thing. The usual."
Reed gave a slow nod, then pointed at the whiteboard. "And the baguette?"
Daniel blinked. "Oh. That's the sales funnel."
"It looks edible."
"Well," I interjected, "if we're not feeding the market, we're starving."
Daniel coughed to cover a laugh. Reed tilted his head at me, suspicious again. He was always suspicious—but charmingly so. Like a cat watching a magician and trying to figure out if the bird actually died.
"So what do I do if I need to request content?" Reed asked, tapping his tablet.
"Just submit a ticket," Daniel replied.
Reed frowned. "To who?"
"To Margo."
"Right," he sighed. "Of course."
Margo, who did everything. Including covering up the fact that the only "media strategy" happening here was making sure no one looked too closely at our fake brand presence.
I placed a hand lightly on Reed's shoulder. "You're doing great."
"That's what people say right before a performance review or a funeral," he replied.
I smiled. "Let's hope it's neither."
He followed me out without protest, still glancing once more at the looping slideshow of that overly enthusiastic stock woman. Daniel gave a wave before we left.
The truth?
We launder money.
Not the quick kind, not the sloppy kind, not whatever those street thugs in counterfeit hoodies do in clubs with fake vodka and bad music. No—we move money like it's art. Like it's air. We filter it through so many layers of falsehood that by the time it lands, it's cleaner than the hands that spend it.
Shell companies. Consulting services. Fake suppliers. Events that never happen. Bonuses for people who don't exist. Rent for apartments no one lives in. Paper cups for nations that sip tea like it's sacred.
It's all theater. And I'm the director.
Why? Because dirty money is always in circulation—it never sleeps. It's restless. The kind of money that comes from weapons, drugs, and influence. It needs places to hide. It needs new names. It needs to look good in a bank account. That's where we come in. We wrap it in invoices and scented lobbies and press releases no one reads. We legitimize corruption for people too rich to risk being caught.
But I wasn't always this refined.
So why Reed?
Because you don't send wolves to do a lamb's job.
You send someone quiet. Someone broke enough to say yes. Smart enough to ask the wrong questions—but not loud enough to demand answers. Someone whose life is already so absurd that when you tell him he's been hired by a fake prince in a castle with tea-based infrastructure, he rolls with it.
Because Reed is the kind of person the world has already broken in half—and he still shows up in a sweater and tries to be polite.
You can't buy that.
You recruit it.
And you pray it doesn't realize what you've done until it's too late to leave.