"Go ahead," Neo said.

Vivienne lowered her gaze to the phone in her hand and moved her thumb across the screen with the ease of someone for whom money had never been something heavy. A second later, Neo’s own phone vibrated against the table.

He picked it up.

The transfer had gone through.

For a brief instant, the number sat there on the screen with a weight more solid than the glass, the plates, or the city blazing behind her.

123,169 Creds.

Neo stared at it a heartbeat longer than he meant to.

That was real money. Enough to breathe for a while.

Vivienne watched him from across the table, one hand resting near her glass.

"So?" she asked, the corner of her mouth lifting. "Do I pass?"

Neo set the phone down. "You keep your word."

"I usually do."

The answer came light, though the mood between them had changed. The playful edge from earlier had thinned.

Vivienne turned the stem of the glass once between her fingers.

"About the relic," she said, "be careful."

Neo stayed still.

Her gaze held him fully now.

"If Leo entered that Breach with prior knowledge, then what you found was never a small prize. It was the reason." She paused there, letting the words settle. "That means your luck tonight may not repeat itself."

Neo leaned back slightly in the chair. "You make it sound bothersome."

"It is." She gave a small nod. "And dangerous."

He believed that without effort.

Vivienne drew a slow breath, as if deciding how much more to say. In the end, she chose something measured.

"Keep the word Divine buried," she said. "Most people have never heard it. The few who have are the sort that can make trouble disappear before breakfast. Families. Old institutions. People with long reach and very little patience."

Neo clicked his tongue softly. "That sounds cheerful."

"It’s useful." Her fingers left the glass and folded loosely on the table. "If you want your head to stay where it is, don’t speak about it carelessly."

Neo studied her face a moment.

"You say that like you’ve seen it happen."

Vivienne’s expression changed, only slightly, though enough for him to catch it. A faint tightening near the mouth. A colder line through the stillness.

"I’ve seen enough," she said.

That was all she gave him.

Neo let the answer sit. It was not a refusal, not fully. More like a door closed before the room behind it could be seen.

"Fine," he said. "I’m not stupid enough to test that for fun."

"I’m glad."

The city beyond the windows had turned darker while they spoke. Light ran across the glass in long white veins, and the room around them felt farther from the ground than before, as if they were sitting above the city instead of inside it.

Vivienne reached for her glass, took a small sip, and lowered it again.

"We’ll stay in contact," she said. "If you come across anything strange, anything tied to old relics, ruins, names that shouldn’t be there, tell me."

Neo gave her a flat stare. "That sounds dangerously close to recruitment."

That drew a soft breath from her, close enough to laughter to count.

"No. If I were recruiting you, I’d be much more direct."

"You’ve already sent a giant to collect me and had people change my clothes by force. Your idea of direct is questionable."

Vivienne smiled properly at that.

"Fair."

Neo let out a dry breath through his nose.

He still didn’t trust her. That had not changed. But the shape of that distrust had. It no longer felt like simple caution around a rich girl with a dangerous surname. It felt more like standing near a blade that had not chosen whether it wanted to cut him or not.

Useful. Risky. Better to keep it in sight.

Vivienne tilted her head slightly and looked at him from collar to cuff.

"Keep the clothes," she said.

Neo frowned. "What?"

"The ones you’re wearing." Her lips curved with quiet amusement. "They suit you far better than what you arrived in. Keep them for next time."

Neo stared at her for a second.

"Next time?"

Vivienne lifted one shoulder. "You don’t think this was our only conversation, do you?"

He had no immediate answer to that.

Not because she was wrong. Because she was right, and both of them knew it.

Neo picked up his phone, slid it into his pocket, and rose from the chair.

"That depends on whether the next invitation also comes with a luxury kidnapping and a six-man dressing squad."

Vivienne laughed then, low and brief, the sound warming the air more than the wine or the lights ever had.

"I’ll see what I can arrange."

Neo looked down at her one last time.

She stayed where she was, red dress, silver pendant, citylight behind her, like she belonged more to old paintings and bad decisions than to ordinary life. Annoying woman. Dangerous woman. Useful woman.

’Yeah. I still don’t get her.’

"I’m leaving," he said.

Vivienne gave a small nod. "Until next time, Neo."

He turned and walked away from the table, past the giant by the wall, past the quiet luxury of the room, toward the elevator that would finally return him to a level of the city where people still looked human.

By the time the doors closed, one thing had settled clearly in his head.

He had come for money.

He left with that, yes.

But the real weight of the night was something else entirely.

People like Vivienne Mourne already knew that Divine existed.

And now he knew that meant the world was hiding far more than it admitted.

Neo stepped out into the night with the city still humming around him, one hand in his pocket, the new balance in his account heavier in his mind than the phone itself. By the time he reached his building, the mood from the restaurant had thinned a little, replaced by the simpler weight of tiredness. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

He was about to step through the entrance when movement below made him stop.

Alice was there, leaning against the wall with her axe nowhere in sight for once. Beside her stood Snot, holding a paper bag that smelled far better than anything Neo had expected to find at this hour.

Snot lifted the bag with a grin.

"Good. You’re alive. We brought food."