The silence that followed Dax’s confession was unbearable. The weight of the betrayal hung in the air like a suffocating fog.Ayla’s heart was pounding, her mind racing to make sense of everything she had just heard. Her team her friends, her family had been working for the enemy from the beginning.They hadn’t just been playing the same game as Raven they had been part of it all along.“Dax… how could you?” Ayla’s voice was barely a whisper, her anger barely contained.“How could you do this to me? To all of us?”Dax didn’t answer immediately.His face was pale, his eyes filled with guilt.He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could form the words, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway, and Caleb’s voice rang out urgently.“Ayla, we need to move. They’re here.”Ayla’s pulse quickened. It wasn’t just Raven’s allies they were up against anymore.It was the people who had been pulling their strings.The people who had orchestrated everything the ones who had made th

The dust settled in the aftermath of the battle.The echo of gunfire still rang in Ayla’s ears as she stood, watching the mercenaries’ bodies lying motionless on the floor.Jules, now restrained and kneeling before them, was the only one still alive, but even she was no longer a threat.Her eyes were filled with hatred, her hands bound tightly behind her back.Ayla felt the weight of the moment bearing down on her.They had survived, but only just. Caleb and Dax stood by her side, their faces grim, their weapons lowered but at the ready.The air was thick with the aftermath of violence, and Ayla could feel the pressure building, tightening around her chest.“We need to go,” Caleb said, his voice tight with urgency.“The rest of Raven’s people will be here soon.”Ayla nodded, though her gaze never left Jules.There was so much unfinished business between them.“We’ll leave, but not before I get some answers.”Jules didn’t flinch. She was defiant, even now, her eyes locked onto Ayla’s.

The air inside the summit building turned electric with tension. Gunfire echoed through the halls, a staccato beat of chaos that matched the pounding in Ayla’s chest. Betrayed. Cornered. But not broken.She locked eyes with the traitor Agent Miranda Shaw. Once her closest ally inside Interpol’s covert division. Now standing with Raven’s mercenaries.“You’re with him?” Ayla’s voice cracked, not with fear, but fury.Miranda gave a slow, mocking clap. “Always the idealist, Ayla. Did you really believe you were the hero in this story? Raven is evolution. He’s giving the world what it needs order. Not the illusion of freedom.”Ayla raised her weapon, fury flashing in her eyes. “Order built on fear and blood isn’t order. It’s tyranny.”“Perspective,” Miranda said coolly. “And yours is outdated.”Suddenly, Dax’s voice buzzed in her earpiece. “Ayla. Secondary team’s cut off. They’ve sealed every exit. This whole place is a kill box.”Ayla knew they had to act fast. Trapped like rats. The only

Rain drummed steadily against the Lyon safehouse's reinforced windows as Ayla sat in silence, staring at the decrypted DAGGER file.Her mother Elena Quinn wasn’t supposed to be part of this story. She was a brilliant biochemist who’d died in an accident. At least, that’s what they’d told her. But now, the evidence said otherwise.Raven had been there. And more than that… the look on his face in the photo wasn’t the cold indifference of a killer. It was grief. She zoomed in. His hand was gripping her mother’s tightly. Tenderly.“What were you to her?” Ayla whispered.The DossierDax called a midnight meeting. The team sat around a battered table in the command room, steam rising from untouched mugs of coffee.Caleb leaned back with his arms folded. “So you’re saying Raven might have had a personal relationship with your mother?”Ayla nodded. “I don’t know if it was romantic, professional, or something else. But he wasn’t there by chance. This file DAGGER it’s connected to both of them.

The sky over Prague was soaked in ash-gray clouds as the private jet touched down under a false registration. The city, cloaked in political unrest and paranoia after the Raven leak, felt more like a battlefield than a capital. Ayla stepped onto the tarmac with her coat flaring behind her, her expression unreadable.The Citadel awaited. It was a structure buried beneath the skin of the city an ancient Cold War bunker fortified during three different regimes. Now, it was nothing more than a ghost, swallowed by time, war, and conspiracy. Or so the world believed.The DescentAyla entered the crumbling shell of a Soviet-era building disguised as a textile factory. The walls were blistered with mildew, riddled with bullet holes, but beneath it, sensors activated.A hidden elevator groaned open. “Last chance to pull out,” Dax said in her comms. “No,” Ayla whispered. “This ends tonight.”As she descended into the Citadel’s dark stomach, the others Dax, Caleb, and Mira moved into flanking po