A Convenient Lie

After Bronson let out a sharp, agonizing cry that echoed off the marble walls, Maeve let go. She released her steel grip on his twisted wrist and let his massive frame slump toward the polished floor.

"Don't touch me. You're not worthy." Her voice carried no warmth, no anger, and no triumph. It was a flat, chilling statement of fact.

Without offering a single backward glance, she turned her back on the collective gasp of the room and walked straight out the heavy front doors. She left the stifling air of the Vance estate behind.

Inside the foyer, Elise, Caleb, and Nolan remained frozen in a state of paralyzing disbelief. They stood like statues, their eyes tracking the empty doorway. Bronson Graves was a renowned world-champion fighter. He was a titan of Altria. Yet their supposedly uneducated sister had effortlessly repelled his lethal strike. She had broken a legend with bare hands. The sound of his snapping bone still hung heavy in the silent room.

Elise felt a cold sweat prickle along her spine. Desperate to rationalize the impossible and terrified of Maeve possessing actual power, her eyes darted wildly across the marble floor. Her frantic gaze locked onto an old, rusted embroidery needle wedged in a crack in the floorboards. She had dropped it months ago during a careless moment, but right now, it was her salvation. She snatched it up and rushed to the groaning man.

"Mr. Graves, I'm so sorry! Maeve must've used this to sneak attack you. I apologize on her behalf." Elise gasped, holding the tiny piece of rusted metal up to the light, skillfully twisting the truth to paint her sister as a dirty, cheating coward.

Caleb and Nolan, desperate to maintain their fragile worldview, eagerly swallowed the lie whole.

"I knew something was off. So that's how she did it! What a dirty trick." Caleb shouted, his face twisting with aggressive disgust.

"She's got no real skills. All she knows is how to lie and cheat. She's hopeless." Nolan loudly condemned Maeve's supposed deceitful tricks, crossing his arms in righteous anger.

Bronson coughed a few times, clutching his rapidly swelling, shattered wrist. He tried to breathe through the blinding pain. Unlike the ignorant siblings, he knew the terrifying truth. Maeve’s blinding speed and brutal precision were undeniable. She had bypassed his elite guard in a fraction of a second. The strike was raw, professional, and deadly. If any student possessed that level of raw talent, he would have dragged them into Zenith Sanctum himself.

However, faced with the sheer, crushing humiliation of admitting he was bested in physical combat by a poor village girl, the proud head of the Altria Fighting Association made a calculated choice. If the truth got out, he would be a laughingstock in Valerius. He embraced Elise’s convenient excuse to protect his fragile reputation.

"What good is an apology? I won't allow someone so shameless to enter Crownpoint University. She's banned." Bronson declared coldly through gritted teeth, fixing the siblings with a dark glare.

Miles away from the domestic drama, Maeve descended into the gritty, labyrinthine depths of Valerius's underground black market. She remained unbothered by the chaos she left behind. Her objective was clear. She needed to restock the specialized assassination tools confiscated by customs at the border. She needed real weapons to kill her target.

She navigated the damp corridors, passing makeshift stalls smelling of rust and gunpowder. She approached a shadowy stall in the deepest corner. The greasy merchant behind the counter took one look at her unassuming tracksuit and sneered. He assumed she was a clueless stray who had wandered into the wrong alley, looking for cheap thrills.

Maeve did not give him time to speak. She reached into her jacket and slammed three thick, heavy stacks of untraceable cash onto his rusted counter. The loud thud wiped the condescending smirk right off his face.

"Cut the crap. I want everything—your 1982 Desert Eagle, the Glock, Swiss knife, poison darts... all of it." She ordered flatly, her dark eyes locking onto his with demanding intensity.

The dealer recognized the chilling aura of a hardened professional. He noted the precise way she identified his hidden stock with just a glance. He operated in strict silence, skipping his usual sales pitch. He quickly pulled the requested items from beneath the counter, handling the lethal merchandise with practiced ease. He handed over a heavy black plastic bag filled to the brim with her new arsenal.

Gripping the heavy bag, Maeve turned away from the stall. She navigated the narrow, damp corridors toward the exit, mentally cataloging her newly acquired gear. Just as she reached the concrete stairwell to leave, her body froze.

Standing mere yards away was the tall, broad-shouldered, bronze-skinned figure of her ultimate target. Kael Thorne. He radiated a dangerous, overpowering masculine charisma that commanded the dark space around him. She had never met him in person, but as a top-tier assassin, she had meticulously memorized every angle of his face. There was no mistaking the man who had humiliated her to the bone. Fate had handed her this encounter on a silver platter.

Gael, his trusted subordinate, leaned in and murmured something to him.

"Mr. Thorne, it's all set. Please, this way." Gael gestured down the dark stairwell.

"Alright." Kael replied coolly.

Maeve watched them quietly head down the stairs. She scoffed under her breath at the serendipitous, almost poetic opportunity the universe had handed her. Moving with the grace of a phantom, she snatched a blank wooden mask from a nearby abandoned shelf. She pressed it against her face, slipped seamlessly into the deep shadows, and began to tail them with silent, measured steps.

Down ten flights of stairs. Around three pitch-black, winding corners. Kael and Gael moved efficiently through the maze-like facility. Maeve trailed ten yards behind, keeping her breathing shallow and her footsteps muffled against the concrete. She mirrored their pace, blending perfectly with the oppressive gloom of the underground tunnels.

Suddenly, at the final, darkest bend, the two men vanished from sight.

Every mercenary instinct in Maeve’s gut flared with an intense warning. The silence stretched for a fraction of a second. Then, a heavy, devastating fist flew out of the pure blackness straight toward her head.

Operating purely on muscle memory, she twisted her torso by a hair's breadth. The brutal ambush grazed the air right beside her ear, the sheer force of the strike rustling her hair. But before she could regain her footing, Kael lunged from the dark. His massive hand reached directly for her face, aiming to rip away her wooden mask.

"Why are you following me? Who are you?" Kael's voice cut through the pitch-black darkness. It was sharp, dominant, and demanding.

Maeve’s expression darkened behind the wood. She cursed silently. Kael's counter-surveillance skills were far beyond what she had anticipated. Just like that, in the dark, her presence was exposed.