The snow in Montreal turned to sleet by midnight, and Kabri’s breath burned like acid in his throat as he emerged from the warehouse. The weight of the past—Evelyn’s betrayal, the child’s false paternity, and Jamil’s smiling face—hung over him like a lead veil. He didn’t speak. Didn’t look back. He simply walked. Fast. Focused. Fueled by one final directive.Find him.The laptop's metadata, extracted with trembling hands, had revealed more than a pre-recorded taunt. It showed a nearby IP address—still active—linked to a satellite transmitter only a few kilometers from the warehouse. Kabri didn’t pause to doubt. His instincts, dulled by lies and softened by Evelyn’s arms, were now back in full, lethal form.Jamil was close. And this time, he would not vanish without consequence.The Final LeadHe hijacked a snow-splashed motorcycle from outside a bakery on Rue de Bullion, leaving a wad of Canadian bills on the ground in penance. The streets blurred past him as he followed the GPS coor

The train to Zurich cut through the Alps like a blade through silence.Snow flurried outside the window, an endless storm of white falling on steel. Inside the first-class carriage, Kabri sat still, hands gloved, hood drawn, watching his reflection flicker and fade with each tunnel they passed through.Evelyn’s voice still echoed in his mind:“I was never yours.”Her breath. Her warmth. Her trembling hands in his. The way she had whispered "I need you" when the monastery bells tolled in Portugal. The way she kissed him after the Hague trial—like a woman choosing the ruins of love over the comfort of safety.But now, every moment they had shared felt like glass over a mask.And he didn’t know what was real.The Train Attendant"Coffee, sir?"Kabri blinked.A young attendant in navy livery stood beside his seat, a silver tray in hand. He nodded once."Black."The attendant poured. Steam curled in the air like ghosts of the past. Kabri sipped and stared back at the snowy world beyond.Hi

Prague was cold that morning.The kind of cold that sat not on your skin but behind your eyes, behind your heart. The Vltava River moved slow and silver, and the sun refused to rise on time. Or perhaps Kabri no longer believed in morning at all.He arrived by rail from Vienna, under a false name stitched into a Croatian passport. The clerk at the station barely glanced up as he crossed the border.Every sound felt rehearsed.Every footstep echoed with intent.The air was too still.Kabri had lived long enough inside war to know what silence meant: someone was waiting.The Message That Lured HimThe encrypted file came at 2:17 AM, hours before the train ride.It was Evelyn’s voice.Tired. Breathing heavily. Shaking.“Kabri… please. Prague. Old Town. The Astronomical Clock. Tomorrow. Sunset. I’ll be there. It’s not too late to end this before Jamil goes too far.”Her voice cracked at the edges—regret? fear? Or a performance?Kabri didn’t know anymore.He only knew the time.Sunset.That

The wind outside the Vladivostok terminal lashed sideways like knives of salt. Kabri stepped out of the black cab and stared at the horizon where snow met sea. This was the edge of the earth—where the East dissolved into frozen stillness, and the ghosts that haunted him had names, eyes, and cold smiles.But the ghost that waited inside wasn’t Jamil.It was Evelyn.The Envelope in the IceboxRoom 407 of the Amber Port Hotel was stale with heat. Too clean. Too silent.Kabri’s senses sharpened the moment he pushed the door open.The light on the minibar blinked red.Inside, hidden beneath two vodka minis, was a plain envelope with his name typed across it in that clean, brutal font he knew too well.KABRI MALIKInside: a keycard, a note, and a strip of ultrasound film.The note read:“Test subject. Condition: stable. You lasted longer than projected. –E”He stared at the ultrasound image.It wasn’t Evelyn’s.And it wasn’t real.A Woman at the DockThe coordinates on the keycard led to

The radio crackled with static.A dull hiss, like breathing through broken glass.Then a voice.Faint. Warped by distance. Dragged across damaged frequencies like a ghost in chains.“Uncle... Kabri... please…”Kabri froze.The pistol in his hand nearly slipped. His pulse stopped—then doubled.Amir’s voice.A boy’s voice. But one carved by pain. Hollowed out.He was alive.But not safe.Three Hours Earlier – The Ruins of ExpoThe Montreal Expo grounds had long become a skeleton—fenced off by rusted gates, hollow halls colonized by ivy and vermin. It was a graveyard of 20th-century ambition.But beneath the shattered pavilions, beneath the tangle of weeds and steel, Jamil had dug a new kingdom.The Asylum.A ghost facility used once by intelligence agencies for psychological testing during the Cold War. Long buried. Now revived.Kabri and Renna crouched near a concrete vent, thirty meters from the southeast perimeter.The girl handed him a scrambled radio receiver.“Only way in without b