Private My Father's Son

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Gala | Serenno
TAG: Ariadne
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman Vossari returned to Serenno the way ghosts do, seen, but never truly there.

The estate was gone. Burned in the quiet way rich things vanish: sold off in pieces, devoured by lawyers and ledgers, its once-proud spires now someone else's footnotes. He'd left his father to rot in a prison cell, no speeches, no justice, just a man too cruel to be mourned and too stubborn to die quickly. Roman had taken the money. Every last credit. It was the least the old bastard could offer him after raising him like a blade.

But poison doesn't leave the blood easy. His father's debts, hidden behind layers of false names and dirty accounts, had matured. And someone out there had decided the balance would be paid with Lord Vossari's corpse.

He wasn't grieving. Roman didn't do grief anymore. He was just annoyed. Annoyed someone else had taken the shot before he could. That was his kill. Now he had to untangle the blood trail before it looped back to his own throat.

Extended shore leave was what Command called it. A much needed respite. Roman didn't mind. It suited him. He moved through the galaxy like a shadow with rank, recon, sabotage, silence. That's what he was good at: finding problems, and removing them before they made noise.

And tonight, the problem was sipping champagne on a balcony somewhere in the ruins of a dying aristocracy.

The Noble House gala, some annual charade of wealth and pretense, its halls dripping in gold and inherited guilt, was exactly where Roman needed to be. His informants had traced the assassin here. A woman with a mechanical arm. Unmissable, they'd said. Paid to make the elder of House Vossari disappear, here to collect payment.

So Roman sat at the bar, a lowball of something expensive in his hand, his face a perfect mask of jaded detachment. He wore the sharp suit of a nobleman, but it fit him like a borrowed skin. Around him, whispers bloomed like weeds. Roman Vossari? Back on Serenno? Alive, and drinking? The lost son returned from exile?

He ignored them. His attention roamed the glittering floor, watching movements, tracking conversations, hunting for a hint of metal where there should be flesh.

He didn't know who had hired her, some pathetic rival House still chewing on old Vossari bones, no doubt. Roman didn't care. The assassin was here. That meant he had a name to chase. A lead to bleed.

This wasn't revenge.

This was cleanup.

Roman Vossari had been marinated in poison. And tonight, he was back to remind Serenno why it had always feared the taste.
​

 

[Ariadne]

On her lips: a silent enticing whisper. Behind her eyes: calculus.​

She smiled, languid and poised, as the old widower at her side made yet another clumsy remark about her arm.

“You’d be surprised,” she purred, eyes half-lidded with suggestion. “It’s more versatile than you think. I’ll show you later, if you last that long.”

He chuckled, flushed with a boyish foolishness that had no place in a man his age. Ariadne didn’t mind. He’d paid for her presence, not her sincerity.

The gala unfolded like a well-rehearsed opera—perfume, polished marble, whispered envy. Her skin gleamed under the chandeliers, her gown clinging with the precision of temptation engineered. She moved like wealth incarnate. But beneath it all, the machine ticked on.

She felt them watching.

Two Senators near the balcony. A syndicate retainer tucked behind the wine table. A woman in violet pretending not to steal glances. And—Him.

Dismissed with a kiss to her hand and a lingering squeeze at her waist, she melted away from her noble ‘host’ with practiced grace. Business, he’d said. Important dealings. She didn't ask. She didn’t care.

He would wake up tomorrow still enamoured. But alone.

Ariadne’s gait shifted as she entered the heart of the crowd—less decorative, more purposeful. Her eyes scanned but didn’t linger. Every step placed for maximum silence in maximum heels.

And as she passed the bar—there. Roman Vossari.

She recognized the cut of his jaw before his name surfaced. The son. The blade his father never wielded properly. She didn’t look again. Didn’t falter. But the awareness settled on her like cold steel.

Someone had told him. Fine. Let him watch.

She had a contact to meet. A chip to exchange. A job to finish.

Let the boy brood. Her work was clean. Surgical. She hadn’t made a mess. Not yet.

| OUTFIT: Crimson silk gown with low back, thigh-split | TAG: Roman Vossari |​

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Gala | Serenno
TAG: Ariadne
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

She didn't look at him.

Which was, of course, how he knew it was her.

The rest of the room glanced, gawked, whispered with the discreet subtlety of peacocks. But she walked past without a flicker of recognition. No double take. No flinch. Just that subtle tightening of posture. That shift from predator to professional. That tiny pause in rhythm, almost imperceptible, except Roman Vossari had been trained to read people the way others read datapads.

The assassin had seen him. And chose to keep walking.

Cute.

He didn't move. Not yet. He let the tension coil beneath his ribs like a primed charge. Watched her weave through the crowd with the slow-burning elegance of a woman who knew exactly how dangerous she was, and how often that danger was mistaken for desire. The mechanical arm was obvious. She wore it like an accessory. Like a dare.

Roman lifted his glass. Took a sip. Something vintage. Something noble. It tasted like dust and wasted legacy.

His mind ticked through variables like a silent droid, entry routes, exits, security cams, guards. Everything here looked expensive and fragile. Which meant a confrontation would cost someone.

He hoped it would be whoever paid her.

He could still feel Serenno in his blood, oppressive ceilings, velvet walls, the rotten perfume of power with nowhere to go. This place, this whole party, it stank of extinction in slow motion. Nobles clinging to the illusion of relevance, laughing while someone carved up their futures in the shadows.

She was the blade tonight. But Roman wasn't some relic to be cleaned up in the dark.

His father had been the mark, sure. But dead men cast long shadows and Roman was what lingered.

He rose from the bar with the easy grace of someone who could kill a room without raising his voice. A few heads turned, the whispers circling like scavengers drawn to scent. Vossari moves.

He let them talk.

Roman didn't rush. He didn't chase. He simply fell into her wake, threading the same path she had taken. Not close enough to confront. Just close enough to remind her: I saw you.

She had a contact to meet. Fine. Let her. Let her pass that chip, finish her job.

Then they would talk. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere less...gilded.

She might have been surgical. Precise.

But Roman was thorough.

And tonight, no one left this ballroom cleaner than they entered.
​

 

[Ariadne]

She felt it in the fabric of the crowd.

The subtle split of motion—like dancers parting for more than just one. She didn’t need to look. The presence trailed behind her like a second shadow, cast not by light, but by memory. He followed her path perfectly. Silent. Purposeful. Thorough.

Ariadne didn’t deviate. Not yet.

The contact would wait. Or leave. She didn’t care. That chip could pass hands later. Right now, she had another variable to handle. So she led.

Around a corner. Past the gold-draped columns and the velvet curtain shielding one of the lesser alcoves. A quiet edge of opulence where the lighting dimmed and the air stilled.

She heard him draw close. Smelled the vintage on his breath. The tension in his stride. And as he moved past, she struck.

Her mechanical hand snapped around his wrist—not violent, but absolute. The servos in her fingers whispered promises of pressure not yet applied. She didn’t pull him. She reeled him in—fluid, controlled, with the practiced ease of someone who’d done this dance before.

“You should know better than to follow a woman like me,” she murmured, breath brushing his ear, lips just close enough to tease. Her other hand slid to his belt, fingers hooking in the leather, tugging him closer with a seductive tug that barely masked the intent beneath.

“Careful, Roman,” she whispered silk-smooth, smile curved like a blade behind red lips. "You've come to play or to kill. I make no distinction until the end."

The grip on his wrist tightened—a precise increment. A warning.

| OUTFIT: Crimson silk gown with low back, thigh-split | TAG: Roman Vossari |​

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Gala | Serenno
TAG: Ariadne
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

The grip wasn't threatening, yet. But Roman felt the potential bloom beneath her fingertips. The mechanical arm wasn't ornamental. It was leverage. It was the warning before the warhead. And she delivered it with all the charm of a razor slipped into a kiss.

His response wasn't panic. Wasn't even tension. Roman simply tilted his head.

"You don't get to flirt with consequences and call it poetry," he said quietly, voice like low thunder across glass. "You led me here. Let's not pretend otherwise."

Her fingers lingered at his belt, just shy of becoming a problem. He didn't move. Didn't give her the satisfaction. But his eyes, cold, sharp, unreadable, locked onto hers. Haunted things, those eyes. The kind you don't find in people who've survived. Only in those who've endured.

"I don't play," he added, stepping in just enough to let the distance vanish. His chest nearly brushed hers, his breath calm and close. Too calm.

"And if I came to kill, we'd already be discussing the afterlife."

He didn't pull away. But his own hand came up slowly, fingers brushing the edge of her arm where the metal met skin. Not intimate. Not cruel. Just... assessing.

"You're not surgical," he murmured. "You're clinical. There's a difference. One can lie to herself."

His eyes flicked to the curtain behind them. Private. Temporary. A hiding place, not a haven.

"Now," he said, that calm blooming into something far more dangerous. "You're going to tell me who paid for my father's life, and whether they think their credits include a second corpse. Because if they do..."

The hand at his side curled into a fist. Slowly. Precisely.

"They paid too little."

He didn't flinch. Didn't blink.

​

 

[Ariadne]

He spoke like a man used to being obeyed. Or feared. She found neither especially interesting.

Her smile was slow, provocative, unreadable. Her thumb caressed the inside of his wrist with a mockery of tenderness, while the grip of her mechanical hand began to tighten by degrees, first subtle, then firm, then unmistakably real. She wasn't squeezing to harm. Not yet. Just enough for Roman to feel the machinery beneath the synthetic skin. The intent. The capacity.

"You misunderstand me," she said softly, almost amused. "I don't flirt with consequences, Roman. I am the consequence."

Her gaze didn't waver. Didn't blink. It shimmered with faint amusement, but her pupils were still, steady, cold, calculating optics behind the illusion of warmth.

"And you're right about one thing..." She leaned in, her lips brushing the edge of his jaw as if to whisper a secret, though her words were spoken just loud enough to sear. "I did lead you here. Because I wanted to see what you'd do when the room stopped watching."

The pressure of her grip increased just enough to suggest she knew exactly where the nerves were. And how easy they were to sever.

His hand brushed her arm, measured, calm. That was fine. She had nothing to hide.

"As for your father," she continued, voice like silk drawn over steel, "I never ask who signs the contract. Only whether they can afford that which follows."

Her free hand, still at his belt, gave a faint tug, not to restrain him, but to guide. "Come," she purred, releasing his wrist with the gentleness of a spring-loaded trap resetting. "The garden is quieter. Near the east pond."

A glimmer of dry humor at the edge of her mouth. "No one can hear screams at full volume out there."

| OUTFIT: Crimson silk gown with low back, thigh-split | TAG: Roman Vossari |​

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Gala | Serenno
TAG: Ariadne
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman didn't like being touched anymore.

He tolerated it, on rare, strategic occasions, when it served a purpose. But there was something about her grip, that calculated application of pressure, that mocking tenderness, that made his nerves coil like tripwire.

Synthetic skin. Real strength. Too precise. Too aware.

She wasn't just an assassin.

Roman didn't flinch when her thumb grazed the inside of his wrist, but the data was already filing into place. The musculature, the rhythm of the servos, the way she'd clocked the nerve clusters like a mechanic checking stress points on a starfighter.

This wasn't mercenary work.

This was engineered.

She leaned in, whispered sins against his jaw like a confession. He didn't move. Let her. Let the illusion play out.

But somewhere in the recesses of his mind, a switch flipped. The kind that didn't un-flip.

Not all human. Not anymore.

Her words were the real tell. Not the threats, not the taunts. But the way she framed the contract. The way she described consequence like it was currency she could spend. The kind of language that came from someone built to be final.

Then she released him.

The absence of her grip was almost worse.

Roman didn't follow her immediately. He gave it a beat, one full second, to watch the way she moved away. Calculated steps, like a dancer trained on battlefield choreography. Too fluid. Too quiet. Too perfect.

He flexed his wrist, felt the phantom pressure, and let the ghost of a smile curl at the edge of his mouth. Not pleasure. Not amusement.

Preparation.

He followed.

Through the curtains. Down the steps. Out into the manicured opulence of the eastern garden, where ornamental flora disguised carefully monitored perimeters. The sound of the party dulled behind them, replaced by fountains and the mechanical hum of security drones flying overhead, blind to what wasn't flagged.

He could see the pond now. Surface still. No guests. No witnesses. Just her reflection waiting, long and flawless across the dark water.

He adjusted his jacket as he walked.

As he reached the stone path near the water's edge, he stopped just a few feet behind her. Close enough to strike. Far enough to draw. He didn't speak immediately. Just took in the night air, laced with perfume, pollen, and old money rotting on the vine.

"You know," he said, voice calm, even warm, like someone politely interrupting a lover's stroll, "when someone tells me no one can hear screams, I usually assume it's their scream we're talking about."

A brief pause.

"But with you... it could go either way."

His stance shifted, just slightly. A lean into readiness.

Roman Vossari didn't trust gods, ghosts, or machines.

And right now, he wasn't sure which she was.
​

 

[Ariadne]

She stood by the pond like a siren in silk,shoulders bare, hair flawless, expression unreadable. His voice floated across the stillness. A lover's challenge. A killer's tease.

"It could go either way," he said.

Her reply was silence. Then movement. The empty stone urn beside her, ornamental, heavy, and long forgotten, rose with fluid ease into her left hand and sailed through the air with zero ceremony. It spun once before shattering at his feet like a gunshot, not meant to kill, only distract.

She was already moving.

Her right arm snapped forward, palm slicing across his throat in a clean, mechanical arc. Not a bludgeon. A measured strike. Enough to collapse airflow. Enough to rob him of response.

By the time his balance staggered, she was inside his guard, spinning him with inhuman ease and dropping him with precision into the wet grass. Her knee pressed into his ribs. Her mechanical hand wrenched his arm back at an angle no joint should tolerate. A fraction more pressure and bone would surrender.

She leaned in, face close enough for her breath to ghost over his lips. No fury. No pleasure. No triumph. Just protocol.

"You are not noteworthy," she said quietly, "and you are not necessary."

Her grip tightened, not to break, but to remind. "You live because killing you would require a report. You are not worthy my time to upload."

She let the silence hang between them like a garrote.

Then, just as cleanly, she released him. Rose to her feet. Adjusted the slit of her gown with the same composure she'd use to check a mirror.

Not a flicker of regret. Not a second glance. "Do not follow me. Roman Vossari."

Her first flew downward, timed and positioned not to kill, but to subdue.

| TAG: Roman Vossari |​

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Gala | Serenno
TAG: Ariadne
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

The urn shattered like thunder across the quiet.

Roman moved, fast, but she moved differently. Not faster. Smarter. Cleaner. Her palm caught the edge of his throat with clinical grace, and for a breathless heartbeat, the world tilted sideways.

Then grass. Then sky. Then pain. His body hit the ground like he was being filed away.

The rib pressure, the arm torque, it was all correct. That's what made it worse. Not rage. Not flair. Just applied technique. Someone had taught her to neutralize threats the way you format a drive. Impersonal. Efficient. Cold.

He heard her words through the drumbeat in his ears. You are not noteworthy. You are not necessary.

And maybe that would have shut some people down. Maybe that's what she was used to. The sharp end of apathy, the message that you were beneath consequence. But Roman Vossari wasn't some drunk aristocrat or bounty-eyed fool with a sidearm and a death wish.

He didn't stop.

When she rose, when she adjusted her gown like she hadn't just thrown him into the dirt with the finesse of a protocol droid deleting garbage data, that's when he struck.

From the ground.

He rolled, fluid and ruthless, grabbing the wet dirt in one hand and launching a tight low sweep with his leg, catching her heels. Not a stumble, a fall. If she compensated, she'd have to choose between grace and balance. He was betting she'd pick wrong.

His hand snapped to his belt. Small, smooth, functional. Vribroblade. Short-range, lethal. It crackled to life.

Roman surged upward, ignoring the burn in his ribs, the ache in his twisted arm. Pain was just part of the conversation now. He closed the distance with the kind of calm only seen in men who'd spent their youth learning how to kill before they learned how to feel.

He didn't aim for the torso. He went for the joint, the seam where cybernetic met skin. He wanted her off-balance, not bleeding. Not yet.

"You had your turn," he said, voice like ice fracturing underfoot. "Now you report this."

The blade arced toward her shoulder with surgical intent.

He wasn't trying to win. He was trying to remind her... He wasn't just a name on a file. He was the one they should've deleted when they had the chance.
​

 

[Ariadne]

She felt the sweep hit, and processed the ramifications in a millisecond. She simply accepted it.

The leg struck clean, deliberate, a soldier's challenge thrown across polished stone. But she didn't stumble. She let it take her. Dropped with it. Let gravity carry her knees to the earth while her droid mind calculated a thousand responses in the blink of a pulse.

She twisted with the momentum, spinning on one knee like a pivot mount, her torso rotating just in time for the blade to strike.

It hit. Square in her upper arm, burying deep into synthetic casing, just below the shoulder. Real enough to bleed. Deep enough to matter.

But she didn't cry out. Didn't recoil. Didn't pause.

Her arm spun inward while the blade was still embedded, twisting violently at the joint. The hilt wrenched from his grip with a sickening mechanical torque.

By the time an unenhanced human could react, she was already rising, impossibly fast, fluid, coiling like a whip.

Then she pushed all her weight down. Her knee crashed down onto his throat.

Not crushing. Not yet. But dominant. Absolute. The pond shimmered behind her like a still frame. Her bleeding arm hung loosely, drips falling onto his collarbone in measured silence.

She looked him dead in the eyes. As the blade was pulled from her arm, and she drove the blade into his thigh.

No flourish. No drama. Just efficiency. Through the muscle. Just beside the artery. Pain, not death. Enough to burn.

She held there, watching. Her knee a vice at his windpipe. Her gaze clinical. Detached. And yet, something flickered. Not pity. Not rage. Not regret. Perhaps respect, or the outline of it. Just a ghost, worn like a mask. She tilted her head.

"You should have run," she said, voice even, "when I gave you the chance."

She didn't blink. She didn't breathe harder. She simply waited, calm as ever, to see how long it would take before silence claimed him.

| TAG: Roman Vossari |​

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Gala | Serenno
TAG: Ariadne
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman's breath hitched beneath her knee, ragged and strained. He tasted copper. Dirt. Blood that wasn't his... yet.

The vibroblade was in his thigh, humming softly like a sadistic lullaby. Not fatal. But devastating. His muscles screamed. His nerves lit up like fire through circuitry.

Still, he didn't thrash. Didn't plead. Didn't blink.

He just stared up at her, face unmoving, jaw set against the pain like a man choosing stillness over surrender. He'd been here before, maybe not with a blade in his leg, maybe not with a machine goddess kneeling on his windpipe, but close enough.

And it wasn't death that rattled him. It was how clean she was doing it.

He studied her as if trying to read past the layer of skin into her schematics, whatever was left of the human under there. If anything. She didn't gloat. She didn't tremble. She didn't react.

That was the worst part. His voice, when it came, was a rasp clawed from the back of his throat, every word a small rebellion against pressure and pain.

"You should've killed me," he whispered, not out of threat, not even defiance, just the cold, brutal truth of a man who knew the rules of his own survival.

His hand moved.

Not the dominant one. The left, the one she'd dismissed. It moved slowly, deliberately. Toward the side seam of his jacket. No weapon. Just a small black capsule. Dull finish. Ridged surface. A soft click between fingers.

EMP. Localized. Calibrated. Confederacy-issue, field tech. He activated it.

A pulse bloomed, not bright, not loud, but felt. A tremor in the air. The way a room changes when a predator enters. Nothing flashy. Just the world glitching for a breath.

Hopefully her arm would seize first.

Not a shutdown. Just a stall. A misfire of motion. Enough to give him what he needed.

Roman would then move like pain was someone else's problem. His right hand surged up to her shoulder, pulling, not to throw her, to keep her there.

So she'd feel the look in his eyes. That cold Serennoan fury. That order in chaos. The man who didn't scream when stabbed. The one who took hits like a ledger takes ink.

Then, with her balance compromised, he twisted, drove upward with his knee, slamming it into her midsection with enough force to lift her.

And he followed, ripping the blade from his own thigh with a sound like betrayal and lunging with it toward her side. Not for a kill. Not yet.

Just a reminder.

If she thought he'd stop, she hadn't read far enough into the Vossari family history.

Roman didn't die pretty. He endured ugly. And he never, ever stayed down.
​

 

[Ariadne]

The pulse hit her like a whisper in the dark. Her breath caught. Muscles slackened. Eyes dimmed.

For a fraction of a second, Ariadne crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut, elegant, terrifying, and completely limp. Her knees hit the grass with no ceremony. Her body folded in on itself, shoulders slumping, spine coiling awkwardly.

But the arm moved, not impacted by the EMP burst.

The mechanical limb twitched once, then recalibrated, processors re-routing autonomously, bypassing central commands. It moved not with elegance, but with efficient horror.

Her body sagged, but the arm braced into the soil, dragging her up in a crooked lean. Her head lolled. Her torso was dead weight. But that arm surged forward like a weapon possessed.

It latched onto his wrist mid-swing. The grip was vice-tight, inhuman. Snap.

Clean. Surgical. His wrist fractured in an instant. Bone displaced. Tendons ruptured. The blade began to fall, fumbled by failure.

She caught it. Not with grace. With mechanical inevitability. And without a pause, the arm plunged the blade back into him. Just below the ribs. Angled up. Not enough to kill. Just enough to punish.

Her face remained slack, eyes distant, lips parted as if caught mid-word. The body of a dead woman.

But her arm held steady. And in its grip, vengeance endured.

| TAG: Roman Vossari |​

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Gala | Serenno
TAG: Ariadne
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman didn't scream.

His breath caught somewhere between his teeth and the blade. The pain wasn't a spike, it was a detonation. A bloom of agony beneath his ribs, flaring out in sick waves. Hot. Blinding. The kind that blurred the edges of sight and made sound peel away from the world.

His wrist was gone. Not severed, but shattered in the kind of way that didn't heal clean. It hung useless, nerves shrieking, fingers twitching with betrayal. The vibroblade was now buried in his side, the wound deep enough to stagger thought.

And still, he didn't scream. He choked on it. Bit down on it like a curse he refused to give voice.

Roman collapsed backward into the grass, chest heaving, vision strobing. Every muscle clenched in resistance to the instinct to shut down. But shutting down wasn't an option. Not for him. Never for him.

Her face was a ghost above him, blank, unfocused, terrifying in its calm. But it wasn't her anymore. It was just the limb now. That arm. That thing puppeting violence through a corpse.

He laughed.

Just once.

A horrible sound, wet, cracked, feral. A short, humorless bark from a man too stubborn to die properly.

"Somebody... really did a number on you," he muttered, voice raw, laced with pain and something darker. "What'd they cut out first? The soul, or the spine?"

His good hand clawed at the grass, pulling him sideways, away, not in surrender, but to regroup. To think. His whole torso burned. Breathing was a debate between necessity and torture. And still, that arm moved. Detached from grace. From meaning. From her.

She wasn't a weapon. She was housing one. Roman blinked sweat from his eyes and looked at her, not the arm. Her.

"You still in there?" he rasped, blood beginning to soak into his shirt, dark and warm. "Because if you are... blink once."
​