Chapter 4: The Cheese Heist
The kitchen was a cathedral of cold steel and darker shadows, and Simon Riley moved through it like he owned the place. Which, technically, he did—at least for the duration of this contract. The Simmons estate had more square footage than most military barracks he'd billeted in, and the kitchen alone could have fed a platoon. It was two in the morning, and the only sound was the low, rattling hum of the industrial fridge.
That hum. That goddamn hum.
He'd been lying in his room—a guest suite the size of his old flat—staring at the ceiling and cataloguing every creak and groan of the old house. The rain had stopped around midnight, leaving the estate in that damp, muffled silence that always set his teeth on edge. Old habits. You never slept deep in a new hole. You never slept deep, period.
But the fridge had been making that noise since day one, and tonight it was like a dentist's drill against his last nerve. He'd come down to either fix it or unplug it, depending on how annoying it got.
He didn't expect company.
The first thing he saw was the glow—a pale, stark rectangle of light spilling from the open fridge door, cutting through the darkness like a beacon. The second thing he saw was the bare back, the pale skin painted with a riot of ink that crawled up the spine and fanned out across the shoulder blades. Black work, intricate and sharp. A dragon winding around a skull, or maybe a skull wearing a dragon. Hard to tell from this angle.
The third thing he saw was the boxers. Black, with a pattern of little white dots. Polka dots. On a grown man.
Ghost stopped dead in the doorway, his boots making no sound on the concrete floor. He watched as the figure—short, compact, all sharp angles and pale skin—stood on tiptoe, one hand braced against the wire shelf, the other clutching something to his chest. There was a rustle of plastic, the crinkle of a bag.
Then a sound. A soft, satisfied hum.
Ghost cleared his throat.
The reaction was instantaneous and magnificent. The figure jerked, spun, and slammed his head against the top of the fridge door with a hollow thunk. A strangled yelp escaped him—high-pitched, undignified, and utterly human—and he stumbled back, clutching the bag to his chest like a lifeline.
"Fuck—shit—who the—"
Drake Simmons stood there, wires dangling from his ears, his shaggy black hair a mess of bed-tangles, his dark eyes wide as dinner plates. A fine dusting of orange coated his chin and the collar of his bare chest. He was holding a family-sized bag of shredded cheddar cheese.
Ghost stared.
Drake stared back.
The bag crinkled.
"Evening," Ghost said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to fill the entire kitchen.
Drake's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. A torrent of swear words was clearly building behind his teeth, but all that came out was a strangled, "You—you asshole."
"I didn't say anything."
"You breathed." Drake pointed a shaking finger at him, the bag of cheese swinging dangerously. "You scared the shit out of me. My heart is—I think I'm having a heart attack. Do you want that on your conscience? Huh? Dead client, sprawled on the kitchen floor, clutching his last meal?"
"You're not dead."
"I could be! I could be dying right now!" Drake gestured wildly with the bag. "This is a traumatic event! I'm gonna have to call my therapist! I don't even have a therapist, but I'm gonna need one now, you absolute—"
Ghost watched the tirade unfold with a stillness that bordered on serenity. The kid was a firecracker. A loud, spitting, flailing firecracker with cheese dust on his chin and polka-dot boxers. It was the boxers that did it. The absolute absurdity of it—the contrast between the sharp black ink crawling up his arms and throat, the pierced lip, the hard-edged attitude he'd tried to project for the past forty-eight hours—and this. This. The world's angriest man in the world's least intimidating underwear, defending a bag of shredded cheddar with the ferocity of a soldier holding a line.
A sound escaped Ghost's throat.
It wasn't a chuckle. It wasn't a grunt. It was something low and rough and surprised, a noise that clawed its way out of his chest before he could stop it. A laugh. An actual, genuine laugh.
Drake froze mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open.
"Did you just—"
Ghost's shoulders shook. He pressed a hand to his face, trying to smother it, but it was too late. The dam had cracked.
"Did you just laugh at me?"
"Aye." Ghost managed the word between breaths, his voice rough with an amusement he hadn't felt in months. "Aye, I did."
The red that flooded Drake's face was visible even in the dim light of the open fridge. It crawled up his neck, over his cheeks, all the way to the tips of his ears. His hands tightened on the bag of cheese, crushing it. A few strands of cheddar escaped the top, drifting down like orange snow.
"I—you—" Drake spluttered, his voice cracking. "This is bullshit. This is—I was having a moment. A private moment! You can't just—you can't just laugh at a man in his own kitchen!"
Ghost's laugh finally subsided into a low, rough chuckle. He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms, a ghost of a smile still pulling at the corner of his mouth. It felt strange on his face. Unfamiliar. He hadn't used it in a long time.
"Your own kitchen?" he repeated, his voice carrying the faintest hint of a rasp. "I was under the impression I was hired to keep you alive. That generally involves being in the same building."
"Not in the kitchen! Not at—" Drake glanced at the clock on the wall, squinting. "—two in the goddamn morning! What are you even doing down here? You supposed to be, like, patrolling the perimeter, lurking in the shadows, whispering ominous shit? Not—not loitering in my cheese space!"
"Your cheese space."
"Yes! My cheese space! This is a sacred location!" Drake hugged the bag to his chest, and Ghost noticed, with a flicker of dark amusement, that the kid was now subconsciously shielding it like a precious artifact. "I have a system. There's a hierarchy of snacks in this house, and you are not part of it!"
Ghost pushed off the doorframe and took a step forward. Drake's eyes widened, and he took a matching step back, his bare feet scuffing against the greasy tile.
"Relax," Ghost said, his voice low and dry. "I'm not after your cheese."
"Then what are you after? My sanity? 'Cause you're doing a great job of—"
"The fridge." Ghost nodded toward the humming appliance. "It's been making a racket all night. I came down to shut it up."
Drake blinked. "You—you came down to fix the fridge? At two in the morning?"
"It's annoying."
"It's annoying? You just scared me half to death over a noise?"
"Aye. A loud one." Ghost's eyes flicked to the bag in Drake's arms. "You planning on eating all that?"
Drake's grip tightened. The red on his face deepened. "Don't change the subject."
"I'm not. I'm genuinely curious. That's, what, a pound of cheese?"
"Two pounds."
"Two pounds. At two in the morning. In your boxers."
"They're comfortable!" The words came out in a rush, defensive and shrill. "And I—look, I had a craving, alright? It happens. It's a thing. People have cravings. It's not a crime!"
Ghost tilted his head, studying him. The boy was vibrating with a mixture of embarrassment and defiance, his dark eyes darting around the kitchen as if searching for an escape route. His jaw was set, his shoulders squared, and he was still clutching that bag of cheese like it was the last provisions on earth.
It was the most entertainment Ghost had had in months.
"I'm not judging," Ghost said, and the words came out almost gentle. Almost. "I've seen men do worse on less sleep."
Drake's mouth worked for a moment, clearly trying to find a retort. Nothing came out. He stood there, a statue of indignant humiliation, his skin flushed from his chest to his forehead.
Then, with a noise of pure frustration, he shoved the bag of cheese onto the counter.
"Fine," he snapped, jabbing a finger at Ghost. "You want to stand there and laugh at me? Go ahead. But I'm taking this upstairs, and I'm eating the whole thing, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"I'm not going to stop you."
"You—" Drake froze, clearly thrown by the lack of resistance. He blinked. "Wait. You're not going to give me shit?"
"None to give." Ghost shrugged, uncrossing his arms. "It's your house. Eat what you want. Just don't choke on it. I'm not doing the Heimlich in that getup."
The jab was delivered with such deadpan precision that it took Drake a full three seconds to process it. When he did, his face went through a remarkable series of expressions—confusion, realization, indignation, and then, finally, a shade of red that Ghost had previously thought impossible for a human being to achieve.
"You're a dead man," Drake hissed, snatching the cheese bag off the counter. "I'm gonna—I'm gonna tell security you—you threatened me with violence—"
"I'm security."
"Then I'll—I'll fire you!"
"I'm hired by your father's lawyer. You don't have that authority."
"I'll—" Drake's voice cracked again, and he let out a wordless scream of frustration, spinning on his heel and storming toward the kitchen door, the cheese bag clutched to his chest. "I'll get new locks! I'll get—I'll put a bolt on my door! And a chain! And a—a moat!"
"I'd like to see you dig a moat," Ghost called after him, his voice carrying a thread of dark amusement. "You're what, a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet?"
The only response was a string of curses so inventive and so profane that Ghost, despite himself, found his brows rising. The boy had a vocabulary on him, he'd give him that. The door slammed behind Drake, rattling the pots hanging on the wall, and then the kitchen was silent again, save for the humming fridge.
Ghost stood there for a long moment, the ghost of a smile still playing at the corner of his mouth.
Then he pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, walked over to the fridge, and got to work fixing the damned thing.
---
The next two weeks were a masterclass in creative attrition.
Drake Simmons, it turned out, had a streak. A wild, unyielding, stubborn streak that would have made a mule look cooperative. The first week was standard fare—the kind of bullshit Ghost had seen a dozen times from teenage clients and panicked celebrities. Hiding in the laundry chute. Trying to sneak a phone past security. Claiming he had a "medical emergency" that required him to leave the estate immediately, which turned out to be a hangnail.
Ghost saw through all of it. He sent the kid back to his room with a flat look and a single, unimpressed word: "No."
But the second week, the boy got creative.
It started with the gardener. Marcus, the head of security, had been right about that particular escape route. Drake had apparently bribed old Manuela with a bottle of her favorite tequila and a sob story about a dying girlfriend who "needed him, man, like, really needed him." Ghost had intercepted him at the east gate, vaulting over the hedges like a startled deer, wearing a baseball cap pulled low and a hoodie two sizes too big.
"Girlfriend?" Ghost had asked, his voice flat.
Drake had frozen mid-step, then turned, offering a grin that was all teeth and no sincerity. "Emotional support girlfriend. It's a thing. Very modern."
"Get back inside."
"Come on, man. Just a few hours. I'll be back before dawn, I swear."
"You'll be back before dawn if you want your feet to stay attached to your ankles."
Drake had bristled, opened his mouth to fire back, and then—with a visible effort—swallowed the retort. His grin had turned sour. "You're not fun."
"Wasn't hired to be fun."
"I'm going to make you quit."
"The hell you are."
"Just you watch."
Ghost had watched. He was good at watching. And the boy's attempts, while increasingly desperate, were also undeniably inventive.
On Tuesday, Drake tried to fake a seizure in the middle of the dining hall. It would have been convincing, too, if he hadn't been chewing on a mouthful of sandwich at the time. Ghost had simply stood there, arms crossed, watching as the boy convulsed theatrically, a piece of turkey dangling from his parted lips.
When the convulsions failed to produce the desired reaction, Drake had opened one eye, glared at Ghost, and said, "I'm dying."
"You're chewing."
"I'm dying."
"Swallow first."
The boy had scrambled to his feet, red-faced, and stormed out, muttering about "unprofessional bastards" and "nursing homes."
On Thursday, he tried the classic. The fire alarm. He'd set off a smoke bomb in his bathroom, triggering the whole estate's evacuation system, and had attempted to slip out in the chaos wearing a firefighter's jacket he'd somehow acquired. Marcus's team had been scrambling, doors open, alarms blaring—it was a solid plan, Ghost had to admit.
The only flaw was that Ghost had removed the battery from the alarm system's backup the night before. He'd anticipated the fire alarm play. It was the second most common trick in the book, right after the "fake illness" gambit.
Drake had emerged from his room, jacket flapping, ready to make his escape—and had walked directly into Ghost's chest.
He'd looked up. Ghost had looked down.
"Evening," Ghost had said.
Drake's face had cycled through an entire rainbow of emotions before settling on a weary, defeated fury. "You're a machine. You're not even human."
"Get back in your room."
"I hate you."
"Noted."
And then, on Saturday, the boy pulled out the big guns. The dramatic gesture. The grand gesture that, Ghost suspected, Drake had been building up to for days.
He'd climbed onto the roof of the west wing, balancing on the rain-slick tiles with the kind of reckless confidence that came from youth and an almost total absence of self-preservation instincts. He'd been stripped to the waist, his torso a canvas of ink, his arms spread wide like some deranged martyr.
"I'LL DO IT!" he'd screamed into the wind. "I'LL JUMP! I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL JUMP!"
Marcus had been standing beside Ghost, his weathered face a mask of grim resignation. "He does this sometimes," Marcus had muttered. "Usually gets bored after an hour."
"Does he ever actually jump?"
"Nah. Last time he just sat down and ordered takeout."
Ghost had nodded, then walked into the house, up the stairs, and out onto the roof access door. He'd emerged behind the boy, silent as a shadow, and cleared his throat.
Drake had spun, wobbling dangerously on the tiles, his eyes wide. "Don't—don't come any closer! I'll do it!"
"Aye, jump then."
Drake had blinked. "What?"
"Jump." Ghost had gestured vaguely at the drop below. "Go on. It's only two stories. You'll break a leg, maybe. Nothing permanent."
"You—you're supposed to stop me!"
"Why? I wasn't hired to stop you being an idiot."
"I'm not an idiot! I'm desperate! There's a difference!"
"Not from where I'm standing."
Drake had stared at him, mouth hanging open, a hundred retorts dying unspoken on his tongue. And then, slowly, the fight had drained out of him. His shoulders had slumped. He'd let out a long, defeated sigh and climbed back down off the railing, his bare feet slapping against the wet concrete.
"You're a bastard," he'd said, walking past Ghost without meeting his eyes.
"Noted."
"You're the worst."
"Also noted."
"You—" Drake had paused at the door, glancing back over his shoulder, his dark eyes narrowed. "You didn't even flinch. Not once."
Ghost had said nothing.
"It's creepy," Drake had muttered, disappearing inside.
Ghost had stood alone on the roof for a while, watching the city lights flicker through the rain-slick air. The smile had tugged at his mouth again, unbidden. The boy was a handful, a bratty, mouthy, exhausting handful. But he wasn't boring. Simon Riley hadn't been bored in a long, long time.
It was hard to be intimidated by a short kid who'd once raided the fridge for a family-sized bag of cheese in nothing but polka-dot boxers. He'd never seen the brat so red, so quiet, so utterly defeated by a single laugh.
But the boy was persistent. Ghost would give him that.
The war wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
And for the first time in months, Simon Riley found himself almost looking forward to the next battle.