The safe house still smelled like smoke and antiseptic. Walls that had taken bullets hours earlier now held quiet, as if the building itself was catching its breath. Folding chairs filled the main room, stretching from wall to wall. More kept being pulled in as people arrived, faces hardened by years of war and softened by the same unspoken reason they were all here.Kai sat at the front in his wheelchair, hands resting loosely on the armrests. He watched the room fill without saying a word.Fifty became more than fifty.Men and women from different continents, different uniforms, different lives. Some wore tactical gear. Others wore plain clothes that failed to hide how alert they were. Military. Intelligence. Law enforcement. Civilians who should have been dead.Every one of them had a story that ended the same way.Kai saved my life.Jack Torres leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, his presence filling the space. He caught Kai’s eye and gave a short nod. Not gratitude. Respect.“

Vincent Blackwell stood twenty feet away. Calm. Controlled. Like this confrontation had been inevitable. Like he’d been waiting years for this moment.“Hello, Kai,” he said. Voice cultured. Educated. Familiar in ways that made Kai’s skin crawl. “It’s been a long time. Well, for you. I’ve been watching your entire life.”Kai’s weapon remained raised. Aimed. Ready. “Theodore said you died in 1987. Car accident. Body identified.”“Body was identified. But not mine. A convenient substitute. Someone who looked similar enough after the accident. Theodore believed what he wanted to believe. That his troublesome brother was finally gone.”“Why fake your death?”“Because I was building something. Something Theodore would’ve opposed. Something that required anonymity. Complete separation from the Blackwell name and fortune.” Vincent moved slightly. Not threatening. Just repositioning. “I created the Consortium in 1985. Two years before my ‘death.’ Started with five members. Grew to twelve. Woul

The room felt smaller after Mei Lin finished speaking.Not because the walls had moved, but because the future had.A soft hum came from the portable projector as lines of data froze on the screen. Red dots scattered across a digital globe. Too many to count at once.Julie stared at it. “Those are… people?”Mei Lin nodded once. Her face was pale, jaw tight. “Two hundred and eighteen confirmed targets. Spread across fourteen countries.”Silence dropped hard.Derek leaned forward slowly. “Targets meaning what exactly?”Mei did not look at him this time. “Termination.”Torres muttered something under his breath.Vincent’s name hung unspoken between them, thick and poisonous.Mei swiped the screen. The map zoomed in. Names appeared beside the dots.Julie.Lila.Derek.Torres.Then more names. Dozens. Hundreds.Network members. Former couriers. Analysts who had vanished years ago. Even people who had never touched a weapon.Their families.Kai’s chair scraped sharply as he stood. “He built

The sea was black beneath the moonless sky, a wide, shifting void that swallowed sound and light alike.Kai cut through the water in steady, controlled strokes, every movement measured. The rebreather masked his breath, turning it into a soft mechanical rhythm in his ears. Beside him, Mei moved like she belonged to the ocean, her body calm, precise, almost graceful despite the weight of the gear strapped to her back.Ahead, the cliffside loomed out of the darkness.Vincent’s island.From above, it looked like nothing more than jagged rock rising from the Aegean. From below, it was something else entirely.A narrow fissure split the underwater stone, barely wide enough for two people to swim through side by side. Faint green lights pulsed deep inside it, almost invisible unless you knew where to look.The tunnel.Mei raised her fist. Kai stopped instantly.She drifted closer to the rock wall and pulled a compact device from her vest. Its screen flickered to life, casting a pale glow ac

The cell was exactly what Kai expected. Concrete. Cold. Isolated. Professional imprisonment designed for psychological pressure, not just physical containment.Vincent entered. Calm. Controlled. Like they were meeting for coffee instead of an interrogation.“One hour,” he said. No preamble. No theatrics. Just deadline. “Join me. Partner with me. Rebuild Consortium together. I stop Protocol Omega. Everyone lives. You refuse, two hundred people die. Including Julie. Lila. Everyone you’ve ever cared about.”Kai tested his restraints. Steel. Professional grade. No give. “You’ll kill them anyway. The moment I agree. The moment you don’t need leverage.”“No. I need you functional. Motivated. Effective. Dead loved ones make poor motivation. They make you reckless. Suicidal. Useless.” Vincent pulled out his phone. Showed Kai the screen. Live feeds. Multiple locations. “But alive loved ones? Those are leverage. Forever. You want Julie safe? You cooperate. You want Lila protected? You follow or