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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
Chapter 79
The Sea of Marmara stretched endlessly as the ferry cut through its calm waters. Kabri stood on the deck, the salt wind pressing against his face like a hand trying to erase him. The case Neziri gave him sat beside his feet—an iron vault of ghosts and numbers, stained by blood no one would account for.He hadn’t opened it yet. Not fully.Not because he feared the contents, but because part of him already knew what it would reveal—and part of him still hoped it wouldn’t.---Istanbul.*The city blinked awake beneath the call of the first *adhan*. Kabri checked into a nondescript hotel in Fatih, a place where cameras were ornamental and the night staff never asked for ID.Inside the room, he unlatched the case.Files. Contracts. Money trails. Assassination schedules. False passports. Names.Dozens of them.But one folder had no name—just a red seal with an emblem Kabri had never seen: a cracked scale, bleeding at the center.He opened it.---“Operation RAINMARK.”It was a series of bla
Chapter 78
Thessaloniki, Greece.Dawn clawed its way over the rooftops, throwing long shadows across the port city. The air smelled of sea salt and sweat, thick with stories spoken in low Balkan whispers. Somewhere in the maze of concrete alleys and rusting fishing boats, a man who had once been invisible now lived in fear.Kabri had come to silence him.His name was Ivan Neziri. A former Kosovo sniper turned mercenary. Codename: Lupo. Known for only one thing—clean kills from over a mile away. But Fred had used him not for range. Not for glory.Fred had used him for Hollow Bridge.Kabri stood still inside a stolen warehouse off Egnatia Street. Cold air curled around him. The burner phone in his pocket buzzed once—Yusuf’s signal.“Neziri is here. Second floor. Warehouse D. West dock.”Kabri didn’t reply. He no longer did. Words had grown heavy. Silence was his new grammar.He slipped the phone into his coat, his fingers brushing the scar over his ribs. It pulsed. Not in pain, but in memory. The
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