The early morning light filtered through the cracked windows of the warehouse, illuminating the chaos left behind. Smoke hung low in the air, curling in lazy spirals as the city beyond slowly stirred awake. Rescue teams moved carefully, their radios crackling with coordination as they assessed the damage.Lana helped Elias out of the rubble, supporting most of his weight. His clothes were torn, his face smeared with dust and blood, but there was a fire in his eyes, a stubborn determination that refused to be extinguished. He grimaced slightly as he stood upright. “Every time we do this… I feel older,” he muttered, voice hoarse but steady.“You’ve earned it,” Lana replied, scanning the surroundings. “And I mean that in every sense. We survived, Elias. Mara’s gone… at least for now.”He allowed himself a tired smile. “At least for now. But Mara always finds a way, doesn’t she?”She shook her head. “Not this time. You ended her game before it even began. The lattice is gone, and her netw

The van moved silently along the empty highways, the early morning fog curling around its tires like fingers trying to slow them down. Elias sat in the passenger seat, his eyes fixed on the map projected on the dashboard, tracing the route to the abandoned industrial complex. The city behind them was a blur of gray, but ahead lay uncertainty — and danger.Lana tightened the straps on her tactical vest, checking her weapon one more time. “This place… it’s not just abandoned,” she said, her voice low but tense. “If Mara’s Echo nodes are activating, they’ve probably turned it into a fortress. Sensors, traps… whatever she thought would stop anyone from finding her.”Elias nodded, gripping the edge of his seat. “That’s the point. She thinks she’s safe. That she’s untouchable. But she underestimated one thing — that we don’t move like predictable players.”Miro, driving with meticulous precision, glanced at Elias through the rearview mirror. “You sure about this? Once we go in, there’s no t

The ride back to the safehouse was suffocatingly silent. Mara sat restrained between Miro and Lana in the back of the van, her wrists bound together with reinforced cuffs designed for high-level detainees. She didn’t struggle, didn’t speak, didn’t even blink much. Instead, she observed — every reflection on the window, every turn of the van, every breath Elias took from the passenger seat. She was calculating. Always calculating.Elias felt it like a prickle on the back of his neck. He kept his gaze forward, watching the blur of the city pass by, but in the mirror he could see her eyes — sharp, focused, almost… amused.“You should stop staring at me like that,” Elias said without turning around.Mara’s lips curled faintly. “You should stop pretending you’re in control. It’s unconvincing.”Miro scoffed. “Still arrogant even in chains.”“Chains are temporary,” Mara replied softly. “Ideas aren’t.”Elias finally turned enough to meet her eyes in the mirror. “Your ideas nearly got thousand

Elias sat alone in the observation room long after the interrogation had ended. Mara’s words echoed relentlessly in his mind, each syllable a cold weight pressing against his thoughts. The root is in you. He kept repeating it, unable to make sense of it, unable to shake the chill that crawled across his spine.Lana and Miro had left to check the perimeter and run diagnostics, leaving him with the screens displaying Mara’s restrained figure and the fading hum of the safehouse’s security system. Every instinct he had screamed that Mara was manipulating him, but another, more unsettling voice whispered that she might be right.He stood abruptly, pacing the room, fingers brushing against his temples as though he could physically scrape the doubt away. She studies you… every movement, every choice… you can only kill a network if you understand its architect. Elias ran a hand through his hair, feeling the tension knot deep in his shoulders.He had dismantled every trace of Mara’s Echo netwo

Elias’s chest tightened as he stood frozen, staring at the man who had stepped out of the shadows. The familiar eyes, the same sharp gaze, the way he carried himself with quiet authority—it was impossible. The brother he had thought dead for nearly two decades was alive. Standing there. Smiling like nothing had changed, like the years of absence were nothing but a dream.“My… you’re…” Elias’s voice caught. Words felt useless, inadequate to describe the torrent of emotion twisting inside him. Anger, disbelief, confusion, and something darker—an old, buried ache he had long tried to bury.His brother’s smile didn’t waver. “Yes. Alive,” he said simply. “And I’ve been watching, Elias. Always watching.”Nathan stepped forward cautiously, keeping a hand near his weapon. “He… he’s your brother?”“Yes,” Elias said, his voice taut with tension. “The one I was told had died.”Cass’s eyes narrowed. “So all this time… why? Why keep it from you?”His brother’s gaze softened slightly, though the in