2026-05-20 21:40:28“Drop the tablet slowly, Ethan… or I’ll put a bullet through your heart before Crowe gets the chance.”
The gun in Lena’s hand never shook, neither did her eyes. Red emergency lights flashed across the underground corridor while steel shutters slammed shut around them one after another. Crowe’s countdown echoed through hidden speakers like a death sentence. Fifty seconds. Ethan stared at Lena silently. The message from his father still burned inside his mind. SHE IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY. His pulse slowed instead of rising, training, fear got agents killed, control kept them alive. “You were waiting for me to see that file, weren’t you?” Ethan asked quietly. Lena’s jaw tightened. “Drop the tablet.” “You knew there’d be another message hidden inside.” “Ethan.” “Answer me.” Forty-five seconds. The tunnel trembled violently as another security shutter crashed into place nearby. Dust rained from the ceiling. Lena stepped closer, gun still aimed directly at his chest. “I’m trying to keep you alive.” “That’s funny,” Ethan replied coldly. “Most people say that before betraying me.” Something flickered briefly across her expression. Guilt. But it vanished instantly. “You don’t understand what your father meant.” “Then explain it.” “He wasn’t warning you about me.” Ethan laughed once, a short, humorless sound. “The message literally says you’re not trustworthy.” “Because I’m not.” The answer caught him off guard. For the first time since meeting her, Lena looked exhausted. Broken. “There are things I haven’t told you,” she admitted softly. “But if I wanted you dead, Crowe would already have your body.” Thirty-eight seconds. The alarms screamed louder overhead, Crowe’s voice returned through the speakers. “You’re running out of time, Ethan.” Ethan ignored him, his eyes stayed fixed on Lena. “What aren’t you telling me?” Lena hesitated, then she lowered the gun slightly. “I worked for Blackout Protocol longer than I admitted.” “How long?” “Eight years.” Ethan’s stomach tightened. “That’s impossible. The program officially doesn’t exist.” “Exactly.” “What did you do for them?” Lena looked away briefly. “Hunt people.” The answer echoed heavily between then, Ethan suddenly understood the scar on her neck. The deadness in her eyes, the precision in the way she moved, she wasn’t just connected to the program, she belonged to it. Twenty-nine seconds. “Why help me?” Ethan demanded. Lena swallowed hard. “Because I helped kill your father.” Silence crashed into the corridor, even the alarms seemed distant now. Ethan stared at her, certain he heard wrong. “What?” Her voice almost broke. “I was there the night they found him.” Rage exploded through Ethan so fast it frightened even him. He slammed Lena against the wall before she could react, pinning her throat beneath his forearm. “You’re lying.” “I wish I was.” “You expect me to trust you after that?” “No.” His breathing turned violent. “You killed him?” “I tried to save him.” “DON’T.” The roar tore through the corridor. Lena winced but didn’t fight back, Ethan’s grip tightened. “Tell me exactly what happened.” For the first time, real fear entered Lena’s eyes, not fear for herself, fear of the memory. “Your father discovered they planned to use Blackout Protocol to control entire governments,” she whispered painfully. “He tried to erase the system permanently.” “And?” “Crowe found out.” The countdown reached twenty seconds. Lena continued quickly. “They sent a kill team after him. I was part of it.” Ethan released her suddenly like her skin burned him. The betrayal hit deeper than bullets. His father had been murdered, not missing, not dead by accidend, but executed, and the woman standing in front of him helped do it. “I was nineteen,” Lena whispered. “They trained me since childhood. I didn’t know who he really was until it was too late.” Ethan backed away slowly. Every instinct screamed at him to shoot her, but something stopped him, because she looked ashamed, truly ashamed. “Before he died,” Lena continued shakily, “your father gave me that data chip. He told me to find you one day.” Ethan frowned. “What?” “He knew they’d come for you eventually.” The steel shutters slammed again nearby. Ten seconds. Crowe’s calm voice echoed once more. “Goodbye, Ethan.” Suddenly the corridor lights shut off completely. Darkness swallowed everything. Then the floor beneath them trembled violently. “What did he do?” Ethan demanded. Lena’s expression changed instantly. “Hurry.” “Hurry where?” Instead of answering, Lena grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the corridor at full speed. Behind them, massive explosions erupted through the underground tunnels. Crowe wasn’t sealing the exits. He was collapsing the entire facility, concrete cracked overhead, pipes burst violently along the walls. The underground structure began caving inward. “Move” Lena screamed. They sprinted through smoke and falling pieces while alarms died one after another. Ethan could hear soldiers shouting somewhere behind them, trapped beneath collapsing steel. A huge section of ceiling crashed onto the corridor ahead. Lena shoved Ethan sideways just before concrete exploded where he had been standing, dust filled the air instantly. Ethan coughed violently. “I can’t see” “This way” Lena pulled him through a narrow maintenance passage hidden behind broken pipes. The tunnel was barely large enough to crawl through. Another explosion shook the ground. The entire facility was dying around them. Ethan crawled after Lena through darkness while hot smoke filled the passage behind them. Then he noticed something terrifying, the tunnel ahead was glowing red, fire, the exit was burning. Lena stopped crawling abruptly. Ethan nearly crashed into her. “What now?” he snapped. She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she stared ahead with horror spreading across her face, Ethan followed her gaze and saw armed soldiers waiting on the other side of the flames. But the person standing in front of them made Ethan’s blood run cold. Director Crowe smiled calmly through the smoke. Then he raised a gun toward them. Ethan realized Crowe had expected them to survive all along
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Chapter 6
“If you get into that car, Ethan… there’s no guarantee you’ll come back alive”Rain hammered the abandoned shipping yard, the storm had intensified since they escaped the collapsing underground facility. Wind whipped across the harbor, rattling loose metal containers and sending sheets of water across the cracked concrete.The black SUV sat silently beneath the storm, its dark exterior reflected flashes of lightning from the sky above, the engine idled softly, waiting, watching, like a predator.Beside it stood the young boy holding an umbrella. He remained completely motionless, not nervous, not afraid, not even curious, just waiting. Something about him felt wrong, not dangerous in the usual way, but controlled, too controlled, the kind of discipline Ethan had only seen in elite operatives.Ethan pressed a hand against his wounded shoulder, pain shot through his body instantly, blood continued seeping through his fingers despite his efforts to slow it.The wound was getting worse,
Chapter 3
“Get off the tracks now, or the train will tear both of you apart”The warning echoed through the underground tunnel just as the roar of the incoming train grew deafening, the sound wasn't merely loud, it was overwhelming.The entire tunnel vibrated beneath Ethan's boots as if an earthquake was tearing through the city above. Red emergency lights flashed across the concrete walls, bathing everything in a blood-colored glow.Ethan and Lena sprinted down the railway tracks. Behind them, armed soldiers flooded into the tunnel. Automatic gunfire erupted continuously.The muzzle flashes lit the darkness like brief lightning strikes. Bullets rebounded off steel rails, sparks exploded beside Ethan's boots, the smell of gunpowder filled the air.“The train” Ethan shouted.“I noticed” Lena yelled back.The headlights ahead grew brighter, much brighter. The darkness was disappearing beneath the approaching wall of light.The train wasn't slowing, if anything, it seemed to be accelerating. The t
Chapter 2
“Don’t fight me unless you want to drown before the bullets reach you”The woman grabbed Ethan’s tactical vest the second panic crossed his face, her grip was surprisingly strong.Dark water spiraled around them while floodlights swept across the river above like giant white blades cutting through the darkness. Helicopters thundered overhead, their rotors sending vibrations through the water.The freezing current pulled at Ethan from every direction, his body screamed for air, his training screamed for survival.Every instinct he possessed told him to break free from the stranger dragging him into the depths, but something stopped him, maybe it was the confidence in her movements, maybe it was the fact that she had warned him, or maybe it was because everyone else currently wanted him dead.The woman never looked at him, her dark eyes remained fixed on the shifting lights above the river while she guided them deeper into the current. Ethan's lungs burned, his chest felt ready to expl
Chapter 1
“Everybody get down, the bridge is coming apart”The scream ripped through the midnight rain seconds before the armored convoy exploded into chaos. The voice was sharp, desperate, and loud enough to cut through the thunder itself.Steel cables snapped above the Blackwater Bridge like gunshots erupted directly above them. One after another, they broke apart with violent cracks that echoed across the storm-dark river below. Cars whirled helplessly across the slick highway as drivers fought to regain control. Tires skidded against wet concrete. Headlights flashed wildly through sheets of rain.Men in tactical gear shouted into radios while bullets tore through shattered windshields. The air filled with smoke, sparks, and the smell of burning metal.At the center of the mania, Ethan Vale stood beside a bleeding senator with a pistol in his hand and betrayal burning in his chest.Three minutes earlier, he still believed he worked for the government, three minutes earlier, everything had
Chapter 10
Chapter Ten “Hold your breath, Ethan… because if we hit the water wrong, every bone in your body will shatter,” the duplicate said, his voice steady but urgent as his grip tightened around Ethan like a vise. They were falling through a storm-slashed night sky, swallowed by wind and chaos. The air tore at them, screaming in their ears like something alive trying to drag them apart. Above, the rooftop they had just escaped erupted in a violent explosion as the missile struck its mark. Fire bloomed outward, lighting the clouds in orange and red, while shattered concrete and twisted metal spun into the air like burning paper pieces. Ethan forced his eyes downward and immediately regretted it. The harbor rushed up to meet them with terrifying speed, dark and endless, like a mouth waiting to swallow them whole. The lights of the city blurred through rain and smoke, making the world feel unreal, like a collapsing dream. “We’re not going to make it” Ethan shouted, his voice crackin
Chapter 9
“Grab his hand, Ethan… or both of you are going to die” Glass exploded as Ethan and the duplicate tore through the shattered wall of the operations center. For a suspended moment there was only the sensation of falling cold wind, swallowing darkness, and the distant scream of alarms fading into the storm. Impact came like a hammer. They hit a lower rooftop hard enough to fracture concrete. Ethan rolled across the rain-slick surface, smashing into a metal ventilation unit. Pain erupted through his injured shoulder like fire. The duplicate landed several meters away and rose at once, still functional, still alive. Rain hammered the rooftop while broken glass fell down like glittering shrapnel from the sky above. Ethan forced himself upright, shaking. The duplicate straightened at the same time. Blood soaked through the chest wound, yet his face remained unchanged, no fear, no hesitation, no humanity. “You should be dead” Ethan said calmly. The duplicate tilted his head.
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