Rain fell like shattered glass over Rose City.From the rooftop of the derelict Crescent Building, Jayden watched through the infrared scope as the red silhouette of Olivia Bassett paced across her penthouse suite. Each movement was graceful, deliberate — the same way she used to move when she was trying to mask her fear.Beside him, Nova crouched low, her gloved fingers tightening around the barrel of the rifle. “She’s not alone,” Nova murmured. “Two guards by the balcony, one by the elevator. You want me to take the shot?”Jayden didn’t answer immediately. His jaw clenched as thunder rolled through the clouds.“Not yet,” he finally said. “Let her sweat first.”He adjusted his earpiece, tuning into the frequency of Olivia’s comm link — the one Nova had just hijacked. Olivia’s voice echoed faintly, brittle beneath her control. “Who’s watching me?”Jayden allowed himself a small, humorless smile. “Funny. I should be the one asking you that.”Nova shot him a sharp glance. “You’re taunt

The voice on the recording repeated itself again, this time more distinct — calm, articulate, and painfully familiar.“Welcome home, General Knox. You’ve been expected.”Jayden stood motionless, staring at the flickering holographic screen. The rain hammered harder against the windows of the safehouse, blurring the city lights beyond like an oil painting washed in tears.Nova watched him carefully. “You said that voice belongs to your father,” she whispered, half afraid to break the silence. “But that’s impossible, Jayden. Your father’s been dead for nearly twenty years.”He didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on the waveform of the voice, each pulse echoing with memories he’d buried long ago — his father’s laughter, the day of the explosion, the smell of burning steel and smoke.Jayden clenched his jaw, forcing the past down. “Run a spectral analysis,” he ordered. “Cross-reference with every known sample of Christopher Knox’s voice.”Nova hesitated but obeyed, typing rapidly. The AI

The world went red.Every monitor in the safehouse flickered violently as the Broker’s symbol pulsed across the screens — a swirling, living code that shimmered like fire. The hum of servers grew deeper, the lights dimmed, and static crawled up the walls like invisible lightning.Jayden stood unmoving, his jaw locked, eyes fixed on the face forming in the haze of digital noise. It was eerily lifelike — Christopher Knox’s expression, calm and precise, the same eyes that had once looked down at a young boy learning to shoot his first weapon.Nova froze mid-gesture, fingers hovering above the keyboard. “Jayden… it’s mapping our system.”Elena swore under her breath. “He’s already infiltrated the outer firewall.”Jayden’s voice was low but sharp. “Cut external connections. Everything.”“Doing it,” Nova said, typing furiously. The moment she entered the command, the Broker’s expression flickered — and then smiled.“You think isolation can save you, son?” the digital voice murmured. “I bui

The rain had not stopped.Sheets of water lashed against the armored convoy as it sliced through the deserted outskirts of Rose City. The city’s skyline loomed in the distance — a cluster of fractured glass and steel that shimmered beneath the flashes of lightning.Inside the lead vehicle, silence was its own presence. Every soldier knew better than to speak when Jayden Knox was thinking.He sat rigid, his eyes fixed on the holographic map projected above the dashboard. Blue markers — their units. Red — Ghost-controlled drones. Yellow — uncertain zones. And right in the center, like a black heart pulsing in the storm, stood the Blackwood Research Tower.“Still no visual confirmation of internal movement?” Jayden asked without looking up.Nova’s fingers danced across the interface beside him. “None. They’ve sealed every external comm line. Power fluctuations are irregular — meaning Ghost’s integrated system is adapting. It’s rewriting itself in real time.”Jayden’s gaze hardened. “Then

The door sealed behind them with a heavy clang, cutting off the sounds of gunfire and chaos from the lower floors. The air inside was colder — unnaturally still, like the inside of a tomb.A single pulse of red light illuminated the room, spreading from the floor to the ceiling like a heartbeat.Jayden Knox took one step forward. His boots echoed across the polished metal, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the chamber. Nova and the others remained outside the threshold, weapons raised, waiting for his command.Damien Blackwood stood near the central core — a massive column of glass and circuitry that reached up into the darkness above. Its surface shimmered with streams of data, each line a fragment of consciousness.The Ghost was here. Watching. Listening.“Five years,” Damien said, his voice quiet, almost conversational. “Five years of war, and you come home only to wage another one.”Jayden’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’ve been busy while I was gone.”Damien’s lips curved faintly.