pte

tier of A

an felt like a performance balanced on a knife's edge-measured grace on the outside, chaos beneath. They moved through the manicured garden paths

now had the impression that the truth was hidden beneath a thick layer of false flags and shifting allegiances. They passed under the wrought-iron archway where her drop was suppos

behind the hydrangeas. You've been burned. Elena's jaw tightened. Everything had unraveled in a single evening: the intel, the

nned at the guards. A cool breeze ruffled

nce as they entered the awaiting

ly

n you know the next m

spered about but never admitted existed. He was once a decorated special operations soldier and is now a rogue operator who lives off the grid. He had served in locations that were not marked on maps. Jungle raids. Infiltrations into the desert Arctic takedowns. Each mission etched deeper lines into his fa

oice on the communications, and the missing satellite support. And worst of all, the classified documents

uzzle, names, documents, whispers in back alleys. He didn't want justice-not in the way governments delivered it. After finding the truth, he would decide who deserved to continue breathing. Damian's moral compass wasn't broken. It jus

. He drank only when he needed to forget. He smiled only when he remembered how things used to be-with her. Elena. The intelligence analyst who once decoded enemy cha

nd Rourke? He was in bed with arms dealers and corporate killers,

er served in the mili

sat with his back to the wall, a Beretta tucked into the waistband of his jeans, his eyes flicking from door to windo

Damian ordered, v

. She's being held somewhere in the

t like a bullet to the chest. It had been three years since she vanished. Three years s

w?" Dami

ng something-big. a trade in bioweapons with the Ode

oss the table. "Coordinates. Na

drive, and left. He didn't say goodbye. He didn

ast ripped through the alley. He rolled to his feet, dazed but alive. The m

drive w

ng a stolen passport and a name he hadn't used in years.

ey

ort by surveillance, which was too erratic to be military and too clean to be a cartel. And then, there was the

pping yard just outside Sevastopol, but encrypted files hinted at more: blu

iority. In the event of contact, neutralize

orbell rang. A secon

he window shattered, however, and he was unable to

hadn't k

ted to br

was a

oss didn't

d veng