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Chapter 85
In the cold, wet veins beneath London’s surface, men had died for gold more than once. But tonight, it wasn’t greed that carved through the shadows—it was revenge.Kabri stood near an old maintenance shaft behind a forgotten Piccadilly Line junction, his breath quiet, eyes fixed on the tunnel ahead. His rogue cell—known now in whispers as The Ash Wolves—were scattered in precision across several entry points under the city. Every movement had been rehearsed. Every second, measured.He didn’t need orders anymore. His face was gone, his name erased. In the war for ghosts and kings, Saeed Al-Rai was all that remained.Hours Earlier – Briefing Room, Marrakesh SafehouseA flickering projector painted maps and structural blueprints across a canvas wall. Evelyn, now fully in play, pointed with a red laser.“This is Fred’s artery,” she said. “The Knightsbridge Vault connects through a service tunnel to this—an old coal route underneath South Kensington. From there, Fred moves gold in black cr
Chapter 84
The package was small. Elegant. Wrapped in black silk, no signature, no fingerprints, no markings—just a blood-red wax seal shaped like a jackal's fang.It arrived at Yusuf’s Tangier compound at dawn. The courier who delivered it vanished within minutes, having been paid more in cash than a year’s wage. He didn’t ask who sent it. He didn’t want to know.Inside the box was a silver ring—solid, heavy, ancient in design. Its surface bore a faint engraving in Arabic: “La dhikra liman la yaqra.”No memory for those who do not read.*Yusuf turned it in his fingers, intrigued. His lieutenants watched with curiosity and suspicion. It was rare for anyone to send him anything—especially something with no warning.“Who brought this?” Yusuf asked.“No ID. No camera caught his face,” said Omar, one of his closest bodyguards.Yusuf examined the ring again. It was shaped like a tribal heirloom, the kind passed from father to son through generations. There was something about its weight—familiar, almo
Chapter 83
Rain came late in Tripoli.It began as a whisper—soft, uncertain—and quickly thickened into a steady downpour that rolled over the rooftops like a cleansing tide. The hideout’s tin ceiling cracked under the weight of it. Dust turned to mud. The blood Kabri had spilled earlier smeared into the floorboards, diluted by moisture, washed toward the threshold.Evelyn stood by the open window. A storm haloed her in silhouette—wet hair clinging to her neck, jacket sagging under the weight of rain. She held Kabri’s notebook in her hands, the one with Jamil’s name scribbled in the margins and codes written only he could ever decipher.Kabri sat at the edge of the mattress, arms resting on his knees. His face was dry now, but hollow. He had not spoken since the night broke into fragments around him. Not since Jamil’s recordings exposed Yusuf’s cold orchestration.Not since his reason for revenge turned into a double-bladed curse.Evelyn turned to him.“You loved him like a brother,” she said.“I
Chapter 82
The desert wind blew hard that night—grains of sand pelting against the cracked windows of the hideout outside Tripoli. Inside, Kabri sat motionless on a wooden stool, his head bent forward, elbows on his knees, fingers buried deep into his hair.The recorder lay shattered against the wall.He had thrown it minutes after Jamil’s voice ended, as if destroying the shell could un-speak the message. But the words had embedded themselves in his blood, reverberating through his ribs like a slow-building fever.Yusuf.Jamil.Fred.All of it—fractured.The room reeked of sweat, metal, and betrayal. A single bulb swung overhead, casting spinning shadows against the walls, making the air feel unstable—like the world itself was off-balance.Kabri’s body trembled, not from cold, but from the slow breaking of something deep and once immovable.He had been bred to endure pain—beatings, bullets, exile. But he had never prepared for this: the betrayal of narrative. The idea that his entire mission mi
Chapter 81
The basement was damp, lined with rusted steel shelves and old Soviet crates that hadn’t been opened since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Kabri stood alone, flashlight in one hand, the other clenching a battered black cassette recorder. It looked useless, its tape reel jammed halfway from dust and age.But the words on it were unmistakably Jamil’s handwriting: *If I’m gone, press play. - J*Kabri hadn’t cried in years. Even at the shallow grave in the forest, he’d felt only a cold void—a cracked shell of grief he hadn’t dared confront. But now, staring at this recorder—this fragile capsule of his brother's mind—he felt the storm rising.He clicked the play button.The cassette whirred to life with a shrill screech, then: “Hey, Kabri… If you're hearing this, it means I'm dead. Or worse.”Kabri’s knees buckled. He slid down against the wall, the player resting on his thigh. The voice continued, raw and close. “I had to keep things from you. Not because I wanted to—but because I didn’t
Chapter 80
The wind across the Algerian hills howled like an open wound. Kabri stood at the edge of a limestone ridge, overlooking the crumbling remnants of a French colonial outpost buried in dust and memory. His eyes tracked the convoy approaching from the west—three SUVs, one armored truck, all black, all unmarked.Inside them was Reda Tazoul, the one man who could confirm what Kabri now feared to believe.He tightened the strap on his holster, checked the transmitter Yusuf had given him, and muttered a single line:“Let’s see if the puppet knows his strings.”---Two Days Earlier – Tripoli SafehouseThe flash drive had revealed what Kabri didn’t want to know. The last frame of Jamil’s conversation, stored in a hidden folder marked “Obsidian Cross,” contained a short audio fragment—a voice, distorted but chillingly familiar.“Execute target V-7. Confirm detonation at Hollow Bridge.”It wasn’t Fred.It wasn’t a Pale Committee handler.Kabri ran the waveform through his old laptop's decoding so
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