The farmhouse appeared out of the dark like a mirage.It sat at the end of a long gravel road, surrounded by empty fields and woods, no neighbors for miles. The kind of place that didn't exist on maps, where someone could disappear and no one would think to look.Lila directed Nadia down the driveway. Lights were already on inside—someone had been expecting them.The van barely stopped before the front door opened. A woman in her sixties stepped out, gray hair pulled back in a tight bun, wire-rimmed glasses catching the porch light. She took one look at the blood-soaked passengers tumbling out of the van and nodded once."Inside. Now."No questions. No hesitation.Doctor Hayes had been a trauma surgeon before she'd gone off-grid five years ago. Lila's mother had told her about this place once, in one of the last coherent conversations they'd had before the OxyElite finally killed her. A sanctuary for people who couldn't go to regular hospitals. People running from men like Marcus Blac

Three in the morning.The farmhouse was silent except for the soft beeping of monitors from Reece's room and the occasional creak of old wood settling. Everyone was asleep—or trying to be.Lila stood in the hallway outside Reece's door, watching him through the small window. He was still unconscious, his face pale against the white pillows, bandages wrapped around his head. The monitors tracked his vitals in steady, reassuring rhythms. Alive. Barely, but alive.She'd been standing there for an hour, unable to look away. Unable to sleep."Can't rest either?"Lila jumped, spinning around. Kai stood at the end of the hallway, shadows under his eyes, his ribs still wrapped in bandages beneath his shirt."I didn't hear you," she said quietly."Old habit." He walked closer, moving carefully—everything still hurt. "What are you doing out here?"Lila looked back through the window at Reece. "Making sure he's still breathing.""Doctor Hayes said he's stable.""I know."Kai stood beside her, bo

Doctor Hayes came out of Helen's room at sunset, her face grim."She's asking for all of you," she said quietly. "And you should come now."The words hung in the air, heavy with finality. Hours, maybe less. They all knew what that meant.Kai, Lila, Julie, and Nadia filed into the small bedroom. Helen lay propped against pillows, her skin gray and waxy, her breathing labored. The monitors beside her bed beeped irregularly. She looked smaller than she had even hours ago, as if death was already pulling her away piece by piece."Reece?" Helen's voice was barely above a whisper."Still unconscious," Kai said. "Stable, but he can't—""I know." Helen managed something like a smile. "Probably better. He'd try to talk me out of what I'm about to ask."She gestured weakly for them to come closer. They gathered around the bed—a strange congregation of the broken and the desperate."I'm dying tonight," Helen said simply. "Don't waste time arguing or pretending otherwise. I can feel it. So can yo

They dragged Derek back upstairs and threw him into a chair in the farmhouse's main room.His hands were still zip-tied, his face pale and slick with sweat. He looked at Helen's closed bedroom door, then at the team surrounding him, and seemed to understand that his window for survival was closing fast."Talk," Kai said. "Protocol Final. Everything."Derek swallowed hard. "It's the Consortium's contingency plan. If exposure becomes imminent—if someone's about to go public with names, evidence, anything that could bring them down—they activate Protocol Final.""Which is what, exactly?" Nadia asked, arms crossed."Simultaneous elimination of all witnesses. Everyone who knows their names, their operations, their involvement. Kill them all within forty-eight hours. Burn all physical evidence. Frame any survivors as terrorists or criminals. Rewrite the narrative completely."The room went cold."How many teams?" Kai's voice was flat."Twelve cities. New York, LA, DC, London, Moscow, Hong K

Dawn came with fire.The explosion blew out the first-floor windows, glass and wood erupting inward in a wave of heat and smoke. Kai was on his feet before the sound finished echoing, weapon already in hand, his body moving on instinct honed by years of violence."CONTACT!" Nadia's voice from upstairs. "Multiple hostiles! Military grade!"Gunfire erupted—automatic weapons, disciplined three-round bursts, the kind of shooting that came from professional operators who knew exactly what they were doing.Doctor Hayes appeared in the hallway, running toward her patients' rooms. A burst of gunfire caught her in the chest. She went down hard, blood spreading across her scrubs, her eyes wide with shock and pain."No!" Lila started toward her, but Kai grabbed her arm, pulled her back."She's gone. We need to move. Now."Reece was still unconscious in his recovery room, hooked to monitors that were now screaming alarms. Kai ran to him, ripping out IVs and disconnecting equipment. He grabbed Ree