The firelight danced across the desert stone, casting flickering shadows that moved like spirits in prayer. The compound outside Tataouine was surrounded by silence, as though the sand itself feared what might be said within those walls. Kabri sat cross-legged on a richly woven carpet, his back to the cool plaster, eyes following the rim of a silver cup being passed.It was a night of trust-building.A rare syndicate council.Fred’s operations were bleeding across Europe. Two of his cash vaults had been bombed. One of his crypto laundries had been siphoned by ghost accounts that no one could trace—except Kabri and Yusuf’s crew. The pressure was mounting. Fred was retaliating like a cornered beast.Tonight, key leaders in Yusuf’s alliance had gathered to chart the next phase of disruption.They raised their glasses.Wine flowed.But not all wine was sacred.Kabri's throat burned just slightly as the cup touched his lips. The wine tasted metallic—just a hint, like rust beneath pomegrana

The train hummed through the Scottish Highlands like a ghost on rails, slicing mist and silence as it crept northward. Kabri sat in a corner of the carriage, face half-shadowed beneath a hooded coat, fingers wrapped loosely around a steel thermos of bitter coffee he hadn’t touched in hours.The landscape outside the window was nothing like the desert he had left behind. Here, the world was damp, layered in fog, stitched in pine forests and stone ruins. But the cold wasn’t just in the air—it had followed him from the past, clung to his coat like the blood he never truly washed off.Ahead lay Glasgow. Fred’s last known northern operations were seeded there—in the worn-down pubs, in the freight yards, in the historic stone structures converted into shell offices. Kabri didn’t have a full plan yet, just the coordinates of a warehouse on Argyle Street and a name scratched into the last letter he received:Cairnlow Syndicate.It wasn’t Fred’s original banner. That was part of the game—rebra

There was something disarming about Scottish quiet.The kind that seeped into the bones, where time felt slower and danger could be confused for calm. Kabri had slept in too many bullet-scarred cities to fully trust it. Yet, this morning, as light pushed through grey clouds, he allowed himself to breathe.The manor was cold, even with the fireplace fed and the radiator humming. Evelyn had risen earlier and moved about the kitchen with the purpose of someone trying not to think. The kettle hissed. Cutlery clinked against ceramic. For the first time in weeks, Kabri wasn’t holding a weapon when he woke up.He came down the staircase without a sound, a habit formed from years of escaping rooms before they exploded. She didn’t flinch as he entered.“Tea?” she asked, placing two cups on a rough wooden table.“What kind?” he asked.“Darjeeling. Not local. But strong.”Kabri sat slowly, eyes scanning the room out of habit. “You’re not afraid of me anymore.”“I never was,” Evelyn said, pouring

The fire had raged for hours before the sky opened up.Kabri stood under a rusted corrugated roof at the edge of the loch, his body still tingling from the heat of the drone facility he’d left in ashes. The warehouse was nothing but scorched steel and blackened timber now—a charred monument to a war no one else knew was being fought.But his mind was not on Fred.It was on her.Evelyn.He heard her boots before he saw her. The crunch of gravel against the soft thud of wet grass. She didn’t announce herself. She never did. When Evelyn walked into a space, she became part of it—like fog over moorland or the hum of whisky in an old distillery.Kabri turned.She was drenched, her brown coat clinging to her arms, her hair tangled from the wind and rain. But her face was calm. That stubborn quiet calm that made Kabri both trust her and question everything.“Did you do it?” she asked.He didn’t answer. Not with words.The wind howled across the loch, and a distant clap of thunder rolled thro

It was a cold morning in the Highlands—one of those mist-wrapped days that smother sound and sight, turning the landscape into something half-imagined. The lodge sat quiet, its chimney trailing thin smoke into the greying air. Inside, Evelyn sat by the hearth, an old leather-bound book resting on her knees, its pages yellowed and brittle.Kabri watched her from the corner, his arms crossed, a steaming mug of black coffee untouched on the table beside him. He wasn’t used to mornings like this—soaked in silence and something like peace.“I used to sit here with my gran,” Evelyn said, her voice soft but sure. “She’d tell me stories from this very book. Family myths. Local legends. All riddled with betrayal.”Kabri said nothing, but leaned in slightly.Evelyn turned the page. “Listen to this one. It’s called The Oath of Lochan Broch. A Highland chieftain once took a blood oath with an English general during the Jacobite Rebellion. They swore loyalty till death. But the general sold out th