The safehouse lights dimmed to emergency mode, casting the concrete halls in a faint red glow as the team gathered around the central table.The world hadn’t just been alerted.It had been weaponized.Against them.Against her.Slate’s broadcast continued looping on every holographic station across the city, Ethan and Lila’s faces plastered like they were fugitives of the highest order.Riker slammed a tablet onto the table.“Great. Fantastic. We’re officially the world’s favorite monsters.”Hale rubbed his temples.“Slate played this perfectly. He built a narrative before we could even understand the full picture.”Ethan said nothing.He was too still.Too calm.That was what scared Lila most.Because Ethan Cole calm was more dangerous than any fury.He stared at the holo-screen, Slate’s smiling face reflecting in his eyes like a target marked for death.Lila finally stepped closer.“What do we do now?”Ethan didn’t turn.“We move.”Riker blinked. “Move? Move where? The second we lea

The house was too quiet.Lila felt it the moment she walked in—an unsettling, heavy quiet that didn’t belong in a home that usually buzzed with the distant hum of Ethan’s staff, security chatter, or his own sharp voice echoing from somewhere.She dropped her bag on the counter and frowned.“Ethan?” she called out.No reply.She checked the living room. Empty. His office. Empty. The balcony. Empty.Her chest tightened.He never left without telling her. Not anymore.Just when worry began to claw at her ribs, the elevator to the private lower floor slid open with a soft beep.Ethan stepped out.His shirt sleeves were rolled up, the usually perfect tie abandoned. His hair was disheveled—as if he’d run his hands through it too many times—and his jaw was locked tight enough to crack teeth. His eyes held that look she only saw on rare, terrifying days: cold determination wrapped around quiet fury.Lila froze.“Ethan… what happened?”He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he walked past her,

The moment Ethan stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut, silence poured into the penthouse like a slow flooding wave.Lila stood there, breathing unevenly.She hated this part.Not the danger.Not the enemy.Not even the threat.She hated the waiting.Waiting for Ethan to come back.Waiting to hear if he was safe.Waiting to find out if the world had tilted again.She moved to the window, arms crossed tightly, staring out over the glittering city. Somewhere out there, Ethan was walking straight into a meeting with someone shady enough to make the Board nervous.Someone who knew things.Someone who might be desperate enough to kill to protect those things.Lila swallowed hard.She tried to distract herself—but her mind kept circling back to the photo.The angle. The timing. The message.WHY send it now?Why point a camera at them doing something so… normal?Because normal made them vulnerable.A soft vibration echoed from the counter.Lila turned.Ethan’s phone was lighting

The audio buzzed through the laptop speakers, distorted but unmistakable.Slate stood in the video—ten years younger, but with that same cold, calculating stare. He faced the camera, not Ethan. Almost as if documenting what he was about to do.Lila leaned in, breath shallow, unable to tear her eyes away.In the footage, Ethan was on his knees—no armor, no weapons, no expression. Not because he was calm.Because he was drugged.His pupils huge.Body trembling.Wrists chained to steel anchors bolted into the floor.Slate walked behind him.“Subject Zero is resisting the wipe,” a clinical voice said off-screen. “Begin Phase Two.”Slate grabbed Ethan’s head and forced it upright.“You weren’t supposed to survive this long, Cole,” Slate said, younger voice crueler, sharper. “But you made it interesting.”Lila felt her stomach twist.Slate knelt in front of Ethan, face inches from his.“You’ll forget what you saw. You’ll forget who you saw.”He leaned closer, whispering almost lovingly:“Yo

The house felt colder that morning.Not because the weather had changed, but because the silence between them stretched like a wall neither knew how to climb. She could hear him downstairs—moving, pacing, stopping, pacing again. He only did that when he was bothered. And today, he was bothered beyond words.She stood at the top of the stairs, fingers curled around the railing, watching him from above. He hadn’t noticed her yet. He was staring at the window, jaw clenched, breathing too slow, the way he did when trying to force himself not to explode.“Are you going to keep avoiding me?” she finally asked.He turned. Just once. Slowly.His eyes softened for a moment—barely—but enough for her to catch it.“I’m not avoiding you,” he said. “I’m thinking.”“That’s worse. When you think, you build walls.”“And when you talk,” he said, “you break them.”She came down the stairs, each step deliberate, her heart knocking loudly against her ribs. She stopped in front of him, close enough to feel