Page 42 of Controlled Drift
Ethan nodded.“That’s the kind of move you make when you think you’re untouchable.”
Bateman leaned back in his chair.“How Directorate-adjacent is he?”
The question landed heavier than the rest.
Ethan paused, choosing his words.“Indirectly.My father doesn’t like oversight.He prefers partnerships that think they’re in control when they’re not.But the logistics patterns, the contractors he’s using—they overlap with known Directorate assets.”
“So, he’s useful,” Dev said.“Until he’s not.”
“Exactly,” Ethan replied.“And that’s the part that doesn’t sit right.”
He let the screen go dark, the room suddenly quieter without the constant motion of data.
“They took Niko,” Ethan said, voice lower now.“They thought he was Luca.”
A few faces tightened.
“But their mistake bought us time,” Ethan continued.“But it doesn’t answer the real question.”
Luca tilted his head, a familiar spark of curiosity in his eyes.“Why did they want me badly enough to risk grabbing the wrong man?Their intel was weak as fuck.”
“That,” he said quietly, “is what we still don’t know.”
Luca leaned back and grinned.“Guess I should feel flattered.”
Despite himself, Ethan laughed.
The planning had begun—but so had the deeper questions.And for the first time in a long while, Ethan wasn’t facing them alone.
****
They circled the questionfor almost ten minutes before anyone said the obvious thing out loud.
“Okay,” Marsh said, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed.“Let me ask the dumb question.What exactly does Luca do for Black Tide?”
Luca blinked.“Define exactly.”
Marsh smiled faintly.“The version you’d give someone who might be about to die.”
A few of them laughed.Luca didn’t.
He shifted in his seat, considering.“I design operational invisibility.Digital first, physical second.I build the systems that make us hard to see, harder to track, and nearly impossible to predict.”
“Meaning?”Drew asked.
“Meaning I don’t just erase footprints,” Luca said.“I make it so the ground never existed in the first place.”
Niko felt the room lean in, even if no one moved.
“I design layered systems,” Luca continued.“Drone networks that don’t broadcast.Routing protocols that never repeat.Signal loops that mimic background noise.If we’re somewhere, the world thinks we’re somewhere else—or nowhere at all.”
Marsh’s eyebrows lifted.“That’s ...actually terrifying.”
“Yeah, but it’s fun,” Luca said mildly.
Niko smiled, but he wasn’t really listening anymore.
He was watching Ethan.
