Chapter3

I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the landmark tower. Before the night breeze could even strip the stench of cheap champagne from my uniform, my left wrist erupted in a violent tremor.

Three short, one long. A Priority-One medical alert.

Blinding red light pulsed across the micro-screen: Old Vance's heart rate plummeting. Transferred to ICU life support.

A split second later, a dead frequency hijacked the feed—one that had been silent for exactly three years.

An encryption key known to only two people in the world: myself, and the late Miller.

The decrypted gibberish scrambled into a single line of text: "Lily M.I.A. Taken to 'Potential Awakening' Project."

I stopped dead in my tracks, melting back into the shadows of the underground parking garage. My fingertips blurred against the edge of the watch bezel, bypassing the firewall and directly hijacking the hospital's internal mainframe.

Data cascaded down the screen. Old Vance’s medical parameters for the past month had been manually altered.

Back-tracing the access logs pulled up a hidden "Asset Transfer Agreement." A senior member of the Vance family had literally sold the old man out to a medical corporation under Victor Holdings.

They were using poison to accelerate the conglomerate's collapse.

And Lily?

I sliced into the insurance grid, hunting down her medical records. The GPS coordinates finally locked onto a classified, sealed-off facility on the city's outskirts.

Backer: The Life Sciences Foundation, owned by Victor.

The moment the project director's ID photo flashed onto the screen, my breath hitched.

It was a face I knew. The son of the arms trafficker whose cartel I had annihilated in the North African war zone three years ago.

This was no rehabilitation program. It was an illegal human experimentation ring.

Old Vance was hanging by a thread, and Miller’s only flesh and blood had been dragged into a hellhole run by my mortal enemy.

And just ten minutes ago, I had signed that marriage annulment agreement.

Which meant I had just forfeited my only legal pretext to mobilize resources and intervene as a member of the Vance family.

The abrasive concrete pillar dug into my spine. If I unleashed that level of power, three years of deep cover would go up in smoke. The fires of war I had kept at bay would incinerate this city once more.

A vision of North Africa's blinding sandstorms suddenly flashed before my eyes.

A blood-soaked Miller, shoving Lily into the armored transport with the last of his strength, his bloody fingers gripping my tactical vest.

"Get her out of here! Let her live a normal life!"

Then came the muffled boom. He had detonated his own rig, using his flesh and blood to blast an escape route for us.

The roar of the armored vehicle's engine still echoed in my ears. I clenched my fists, my fingernails biting hard into my palms.

I tilted my head up toward the starless night sky looming over the city skyline, and casually ripped off the wine-stained, cheap uniform.

"You touched her first."

The whisper scattered into the wind. I pulled open my collar and pressed my thumb brutally against the concealed biometric chip on the back of my old dog tags.

"War God Protocol. Terminate hibernation."