CHAPTER 1 London rain never fell quietly. It hammered the pavements, hissed against neon shop signs, and turned the narrow street outside Ethan Vale’s locksmith shop into a river of reflected light. He liked that. The noise of rain was the one thing that made the city seem honest , it drowned out the lies. Ethan sat behind his counter, rolling a brass cylinder lock between his fingers, the radio whispering an old jazz tune from a forgotten decade. It was nearly midnight. The kind of hour where only ghosts and desperate people knocked on doors. He was just about to close when he heard it. A single, sharp knock. Then another. Then a hand , frantic , slamming against the glass. He looked up. Through the fogged window, he saw her , a woman, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to her face, clutching something tight to her chest. The way she kept glancing over her shoulder made the hairs on Ethan’s neck stand up. He unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Shop’s closed,”

Chapter 3 The rain hadn’t stopped. It fell in sheets across London’s backstreets, erasing footprints, washing away blood. Ethan Vale stood beside the ruins of what had once been a man he called friend. Marcus Keene. The hacker, the cynic ,the one person who still believed Ethan’s paranoia might be justified. Now there was nothing left but smoke and silence. Detective Inspector Isla Hart paced nearby, her soaked uniform streaked with dirt and soot. “We can’t stay here,” she said, glancing around. “They’ll trace the explosion. Fire crews, patrol drones” Ethan’s voice was distant. “They already know. They planned it.” Hart stopped, anger flashing in her eyes. “Planned it? That was your contact, Vale. Your mess.” He turned, the lines of exhaustion deep across his face. “You think I wanted this?” His voice dropped lower. “Division 9 doesn’t make mistakes, Inspector. It erases them.” The words hung heavy between them. Ethan crouched beside the wreckage, searching through

Chapter 5 (Covert infiltration – London MI5 Headquarters) Night pressed like glass against the Thames. The MI5 building rose from the riverbank, all steel ribs and mirrored windows, reflecting nothing but rain. Ethan Vale watched from across the water through a pair of borrowed thermal lenses. Inside, the corridors glowed faintly red with body heat, guards, analysts, ghosts who thought they were safe. “Entry point?” Detective Isla Hart whispered beside him, her breath misting in the cold. “Sub-level loading dock,” Ethan murmured. “One guard, two cameras. The internal grid still runs on Division 9 architecture. I wrote that code ten years ago.” He packed the lenses, slid his hood up, and crossed the pedestrian bridge. Each step measured. Each shadow rehearsed. The sound of the city drowned everything, the rain, his pulse, the low rumble of unseen traffic. At the service gate, Isla produced an MI5 clearance badge she’d cloned from a dead agent’s record. Ethan overrode the bio

Chapter 7 The tunnel smelled of oil and rain-soaked metal. Far above, trains thundered across the city, shaking dust from the ceiling and echoing like distant artillery. Ethan Vale stood knee-deep in shadow, water swirling around his boots, pistol clutched tight. He had just seen his own face vanish into darkness. Now that same face stepped out of it. The clone , clean, calm, eyes unblinking ,moved with precision Ethan recognized too well. The light from a flickering overhead bulb cut their features in half, one side human, the other ghost. For a long moment neither spoke. Ethan’s breath misted in the cold air. He raised his gun slowly. The clone mirrored him perfectly, even the tremor in his right hand. “Who are you really?” Ethan asked. The other’s voice was measured, almost gentle. “The part of you that didn’t quit.” They fired at the same instant. The tunnel exploded with sound. Sparks flared as both bullets hit metal , one striking Ethan’s weapon, the other shatt

Chapter 9 The alley burned. Ethan kicked the detonator just as his double raised the gun , the explosion erased everything. Ethan woke to fire and rain. The air was thick with smoke, metal, and ash. Every breath felt like swallowing knives. His vision swam between the pulse of orange light and the wash of blue rain from the broken sky above. He rolled onto his side, dragging himself from the cracked pavement. Pain flared along his ribs ,sharp, deep, but distant somehow, as if his body had grown numb from overuse. His ears rang, a high whistle that drowned out the world. Bits of brick and burning paper drifted down. The walls that framed the alley were half-collapsed, their edges glowing red. The van was gone , nothing but a twisted skeleton smoldering beside him. For a heartbeat, he thought he might be the only one left alive. Then he saw her. Aria lay several meters away, pinned beneath a slab of concrete. Her face was streaked with soot, her breathing shallow. “Aria,”