Page 281 of Let Me In

I slip inside, weightless in the dark.

The crawlspace is tight. Sharp with salt and metal. I move through it like breath through a crack in the wall.

I count each elbow bend. Each valve. Each floor support above.

Seven meters in—

An access panel.

I test the screws. Already loosened.

My work. Done earlier.

Quiet. Prepped.

This is how you kill an empire.

Not with rage.

With patience. The kind she teaches me just by trusting me to come back. The kind that sharpens, steadies—makes each breath quieter, each step cleaner. Because this isn’t about proving power.

It’s about earning peace.

I ease the panel open and drop through, landing without sound.

Lower deck. Storage level. No guards. No cameras. I walk heel-toe, slow, through tight turns and narrow metal walkways lit just enough to see.

I draw the knife from my belt. Not to threaten. Just to be ready. Everything else I need is already in place. Already done.

I’ve stood at the edge of moments like this before—not always this boat, but always this breathless stillness, right before the world shifts. The edge of breath before everything changes.

First crewman: silent. Taken at the junction corridor near the engine room. Arm around the neck, knife flat against the windpipe—not to cut. Just to press. The body slumps without a sound. I drag him into the dry storage and lock the door behind me.

Second one: sleeping in the lower bunkroom. I leave him breathing. Unconscious is enough.

I’m not here to waste time. Just precision. Just ends.

Up the narrow stairwell to the top deck, where the lights shift—warm, gold-edged, catching on polished wood and rich leather trim. Lucian’s world. The kind of silence you pay for. Expensive. Controlled.

I count the doors. Four on this floor.

Third door on the left: private suite.

The lights are on.

My boots don’t creak. They never have. I don’t open the door yet; I listen.

Voices inside—low, confident, unhurried. Not alarmed. Four, maybe five. Including Lucian. They’re drinking. Laughing.

They don’t know I’m already here.

I draw a breath. Steady.

Then I move.

The door gives under my hand without a sound.

Hinges silent. No creak, no pause.

---