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CHAPTER 160: THE GHOST PROTOCOL
Marlow’s study felt like a mausoleum disguised as a gentleman’s den.Every book on the shelf was aligned with surgical precision. The hardwood floors gleamed with polish. A grandfather clock ticked quietly in the corner like a bomb set to a rhythm only he could hear. Luka didn’t lower his gun.“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Luka said. “We know about Project Sepulcher. We know Carrick wasn’t working alone.”Marlow gave a weary smile, folding his hands. “You don’t know a damn thing, son. What you have is dust. Scraps. You’re playing scavenger in a war you don’t understand.”“I understand enough,” Luka said, voice low. “I understand it didn’t die with him.”“No,” Marlow admitted, eyes flickering. “It never dies. Not really. Sepulcher isn’t an organization. It’s a mechanism. One that activates when men like Carrick fall.”Alessia stepped forward, gun steady. “Then what is it? Tell us straight.”Marlow’s eyes met hers...calm, penetrating, as if he were dissecting her soul.“Sepulcher was b
CHAPTER 159: THE BONES CARRICK BURIED
Tribeca Safehouse2:47 AMRain tapped at the windows like skeletal fingers. The city outside never slept, but here, the silence was dense...pressurized. A bomb waiting for a match.Luka sat cross-legged on the floor now, the file from the courier girl spread open around him like ritual offerings: photos, coded ledgers, surveillance stills of men in tailored suits and cold eyes, men whose names didn’t show up in any police database.Viktor leaned over his shoulder. “Where the hell did this come from?”The courier girl...Lena, she’d said...stood near the door, arms crossed tight. “I stole it. From a dead man.”Marco scoffed. “Convenient.”“No,” she said. “Stupid. But I owed someone.”Alessia paced behind them, her arms folded so tight her shoulders shook. “What is this? Sepulcher? Is that a name, a codename, what?”“It’s not a codename,” Lena said, almost too quiet to hear. “It’s real. A network Carrick was part of. Old guard, legacy crime. Built during the Cold War, buried under blackm
CHAPTER 158: ASHES OF THE CROWN
The sirens were closer now...wailing like ghosts mourning a throne that no longer stood. Dock 17 smoldered under fractured light. Smoke drifted from a ruptured fuel drum somewhere deeper in the yard. Carrick Gale’s body lay cooling beneath the shadow of the cranes. A king, toppled. Uncrowned. Dead. But Luka couldn’t look away. The wind blew through the ruins, tugging at his coat, whispering with the voice of every ghost his father ever made. “You alright?” Alessia asked beside him. Luka didn’t answer. He was staring at his own hands...scraped, bloodied, trembling. “He didn’t even try to run.” “Because he was never going to,” she said. “Carrick came here to die. One way or another.” He looked at her. “Then why bring the vest?” “To make sure we died with him.” Marco paced nearby, muttering curses under his breath. Viktor stood with one boot on the vest, dismantling the last of the charges. “Clean rig,” he muttered. “No remote detonation, no dead-man switch.” Alessia cocked he
Chapter 157: Beneath the Cranes
Dock 17 was a ghost’s playground.The old loading cranes stood like rusted titans, draped in shadow and chains. Fog rolled in from the river, swallowing sound and light, and the wind made the metal moan like it remembered war. Floodlights flickered on half-functioning poles, but most of the dock remained cloaked in that thick, oily darkness...the kind that settled into your bones.Luka stood at the edge of the dock alone. Hood up. Hands clenched. The night was still, but his heart was sprinting.“I’m here,” he whispered into the static of the burner.No response. Just the whistle of wind through steel and the distant groan of a passing barge.Then: clack… clack… clack.Boots. Behind him.He turned.Carrick Gale emerged from the mist like something conjured. Black coat rippling behind him, eyes like cinders under a brow heavy with old storms.“You came,” Luka said, voice tight.Carrick studied him, stopping a few feet away. “So did you.”Neither moved.Carrick tilted his head. “They’ve
CHAPTER 156: SALT IN THE VEIN
The rain came down in ragged sheets, slicing the dark city like a surgeon’s scalpel. Steam roiled from grates as if the underworld itself were exhaling. Inside an armored car weaving through the back alleys of East Parish, Luka Vuković sat silently between Marco and Alessia.Neither had spoken in ten minutes.Finally, Luka broke the silence. “You all talk about him like he’s a god.”“He thinks he is,” Marco muttered. “But gods bleed. I’ve seen it.”Alessia didn’t smile. “Not easily, though.”Luka’s gaze drifted to the window. “You’re hoping I’ll help you kill him.”“No,” Alessia said softly. “We’re hoping you’ll understand why he needs to die.”“And then kill him,” Marco added, blunt as stone.Luka looked down at his hands. His knuckles still bruised, his palms trembling slightly. “What if I said no?”Marco didn’t even blink. “Then you become a liability. To him and to us.”Alessia shot him a sharp glance. “What he means is...we’d find another way. But you’d never be safe again.”The
CHAPTER 155: BORROWED BLOOD
The safehouse above the old garment district was a crumbling relic—three floors of rusted stairwells, boarded windows, and the distant sound of trains howling like ghosts beneath the streets. Alessia stood at the cracked window, watching steam rise from the sewers. The city was moving again. Grinding. Shifting. Ready to break.Marco was downstairs, hunched over maps and documents. He hadn’t slept since the Continental burned.“Marco,” Alessia said, descending the stairs, “you need to rest.”He didn’t look up. “We’re too close. If we stop now, he’ll disappear.”“We’ve shaken him. Maybe even scared him.”“Not enough,” he said, voice hollow. “Carrick doesn’t feel fear like we do. He files it away, weaponizes it, then sells it back to you with interest.”She crossed the room and slapped the table, scattering blueprints. “You’re becoming him.”Marco blinked.She leaned in, voice quieter now. “I watched you torture that man at the docks. I saw your eyes when you cut Silvano’s throat. You’re
CHAPTER 154: THE DEVIL'S DEBT
The smoke from the Continental Club still hung low in the city’s lungs when the next move was set into motion.In a decrepit warehouse along the waterfront...abandoned since the union strikes of ’94...Marco stood before a long wooden table stained with oil, blood, and something darker. Alessia leaned against the far wall, arm wrapped in gauze, her eyes vacant. Silas knelt in the shadows, checking blueprints spread out on a crate beside a small black case of syringes and tools.Viktor Strain arrived without a word, stepping in from the alleyway, rain hissing off his coat like steam from a kettle.“We rattled Carrick,” Marco said, voice hoarse. “But he didn’t fall.”“He won’t,” Viktor replied. “Not unless you cut his spine, not just his skin.”Silas glanced up. “We’ll need to go deeper. Into his personal network. His past.”Marco frowned. “What past? The man was born in fire. Raised in war.”“No,” Silas said, pulling a photo from a dossier and tossing it on the table. “Everyone has root
CHAPTER 153: VEINS OF FIRE
The storm broke over the city at midnight.Rain fell like ash, heavy and constant, drumming against glass and stone as if the heavens themselves were mourning what was to come. Lightning arced across the sky, casting jagged shadows over the decaying skyline. Beneath the storm, in the blood-slick streets and alleyways, the game moved again.In the basement of an abandoned church near the Eastside slums, Marco stood beside his new ally—a man known only as Viktor Strain."You brought the girl?" Viktor asked, his voice an icy drawl, laced with a foreign accent that hinted at Eastern Europe.Marco nodded. "She'll be here soon."Viktor studied him, eyes pale as frost, skin stretched tight over sharp bones. He had the look of a man who'd seen too much death and made peace with it. On his belt hung twin pistols custom-machined for him in Prague, and every inch of his long coat seemed stitched with menace."Carrick won't go down easy," Viktor said."He shouldn't. The bastard has claws. But if
CHAPTER 152: THE BLACK LEDGER
Rain hammered the rooftop like war drums. The night was soaked in shadows, the kind that made men forget their names and remember their sins.Carrick stood inside a derelict warehouse on the waterfront, the metal walls creaking with every gust of wind. Maps and surveillance photos were pinned to rusted boards. Red lines connected hideouts, cash routes, weapons caches. They all led to one place...Lucien’s last known fortress: an underground vault hidden beneath the facade of a wine cellar in Oldtown.Logan adjusted the strap of his rifle as he studied the layout."You really think he’s there?" he asked.Carrick nodded once. "Intel came from someone inside. Anonymous, encrypted. Could be a trap."Marco strode in behind him, rainwater dripping from his trench coat. "If it’s a trap, we spring it on our terms. I’m tired of playing defense."Victor, bruised and stitched, leaned against a crate with his arms crossed. "And what happens if Delilah’s there?"Carrick's eyes darkened. "Then we fi
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