The moment the door shut, the air inside the room shifted.Not loud.Not violent.Just two men who had every reason to hate each other—now standing in the same space with nothing between them but truth neither wanted to speak first.Lila pressed her ear to the door.Her brother grabbed her hand.“Lila—don’t.”“I need to hear this,” she whispered.Inside, her father spoke first.“You should’ve never come back.”His voice was low, steady—dangerous in the way only a man holding decades of anger could be.Ethan didn’t move. “I didn’t come back for you.”“No,” her father said harshly. “You came back for her. Again. Like you always do.”Her breath caught.Her father continued, taking a step closer.“You ruin everything you touch. You left her broken. You left her scared. And now you walk back in as if she owes you forgiveness.”“I never asked for forgiveness,” Ethan said quietly.“Good,” her father snapped. “Because you don’t deserve it.”Silence.Then Ethan spoke, voice colder.“You think

UnderCity always smelled like rust and ghosts.Ethan stepped off the armored transport and let the silence swallow him. Pipes dripped overhead. Old subway tunnels stretched into darkness. Somewhere in the distance, metal scraped against metal—a sound too deliberate to be natural.Slate was here.Waiting.The Crown Serpents had always preferred underground spaces—anywhere the light couldn’t reach. It was where Slate was born, trained, broken, and rebuilt. Ethan had once called this place the graveyard of mistakes.Tonight, it would be something else entirely.Footsteps echoed behind him.Hale’s voice crackled in his earpiece.“Signal is weak. You’re dropping off our grid.”Ethan didn’t slow.“Expected. Slate uses frequency scramblers carved into the walls.”Riker spoke next.“Meaning?”“He wants me isolated.”The tunnel widened into a massive chamber—an old maintenance hub long abandoned by the city. Ethan scanned the perimeter, body sinking into silent combat posture.Shadows moved.N

Ethan powered on the encrypted device, its dark screen flickering to life with a faint hum. It had been months since he’d touched this part of his past—he had hoped he would never need to again.But they had crossed a line.Lila sat on the edge of the bed, watching him with a blend of fear and faith. She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t ask him to explain. She didn’t plead with him to stop.She simply trusted him.That alone fueled him more than any anger.The device finished its boot sequence. Layers of security—his security—unfolded. He inserted one of the slim drives, the hidden one he had never spoken about, not even to the people who once claimed to be allies.A web of names, locations, channels, and encrypted communication lines filled the screen.Lila exhaled softly. “This is your old world.”“No,” Ethan said, eyes scanning rapidly. “This is the world I left behind because it stopped valuing humanity. Because it became greed and power and manipulation.”“And now they want you back,

The air changed.Not with sound.Not with movement.With pressure.Ethan felt it the same way he’d felt it years ago—like a hand tightening around the back of his skull, forcing old instincts to wake.He didn’t move.Neither did Lila.The alley remained empty.Too empty.Then—A soft click.Not a footstep.Not metal.A locking joint settling into place.Ethan’s eyes lifted slowly.She was there.Standing on the edge of the rooftop above them, perfectly balanced, coat unmoving despite the breeze. No rush. No threat display. Just… presence.Watching.Her face was partially obscured by shadow, but the eyes were visible—sharp, calculating, already done measuring distances, angles, outcomes.Vesper.She spoke without raising her voice.“Subject Zero.”Ethan didn’t answer.He shifted slightly—just enough to put his body fully between her and Lila.Vesper’s gaze flicked downward.Registered the movement.Registered her.“Asset identified,” Vesper said calmly.“Companion status confirmed.”Li

The countdown burned quietly in the corner of the holo-screen.05:41:5805:41:57No alarms.No dramatics.Just time bleeding away.Ethan stood absolutely still, eyes fixed on the line Hale had highlighted. The data didn’t flicker. It didn’t change. It didn’t care what it meant.Lila Dawson — External VariableStatus: ACTIVEOverride Dependency: ABSOLUTERiker broke the silence first.“That’s not a fail-safe,” he said slowly. “That’s a hostage mechanism.”Hale nodded grimly. “A living one.”Ethan didn’t respond.His mind had already moved past the shock—past the rage—into calculation. The Ghost training did that. Emotion surfaced, acknowledged, then locked away until the mission was finished.But this—This cut deeper than any conditioning ever had.“They didn’t just tie my autonomy to her survival,” Ethan said at last. “They tied my compliance to her fear.”Lila’s voice was barely audible.“So they’re watching me.”“Yes.”“How?”“Doesn’t matter,” Ethan replied. “If there’s a sensor, w