Reid Is Back

Reid

Mysterious.

The woman at the cafe narrowed her eyes at me, suspicion creeping into every line on her face.

“Never heard of her,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “You said… Agent Zoey?”

I gave a slow nod.

“Not that tall. Blue eyes. Cold smile. Might go by another name now.”

She looked nervous.

That was the fifth one today.

Same questions. Same flicker of recognition behind their lies.

I wasn’t chasing a ghost.

I was chasing a truth that someone had gone to great lengths to bury. I have to admit she did a great job hiding.

“Thanks,” I murmured, leaving a few bills on the counter before stepping back into the wind.

It hit hard. Bitter. Like a warning from a city that didn’t like being asked questions.

But this wasn’t just about Zoey anymore.

I’d seen the files. The surveillance. The kind of information they only whispered about in secured rooms.

She wasn’t just missing.

She had vanished.

And all signs pointed here, to a city rotting beneath the surface, crawling with mafia whispers and blood-soaked legends.

The same city where Thorne Del Roi had gone dark for 15 straight days after a massacring incident. Or even more.

Coincidence?

No such thing.

I pulled the worn photograph from my coat pocket.

A younger version of her, Zoey, smiling. Not the smirk she used in the field, but a real smile. The kind she probably hadn’t worn since before the Agency hardened her into a weapon.

“You promised you’d get out,” I whispered, thumb tracing the edge of the photo.

But she didn’t.

She disappeared.

And now her name slipped through the cracks of this world like a curse, Agent Zoey. A name no one was supposed to remember. Let alone say out loud.

No trail. No address. Just the kind of silence that either meant she was six feet under… or hiding so well the shadows forgot her name.

I didn’t believe in ghosts.

But Zoey?

She had a way of becoming one.

I tucked the photo back into my coat and kept walking.

The street was too quiet. The kind of street that remembered pain. Where secrets didn’t just die, they screamed as they burned.

They once called me the shadow that turned cities to ash.

Second to none, except Thorne.

I didn’t build kingdoms the way he did. I erased them. Left families hiding in basements, kings begging for mercy, bloodlines cut off like loose threads.

Mothers told their sons not to say my name. Fathers used my shadow for bedtime stories that ended in screams.

They feared Thorne because he had power.

They feared me because I couldn’t be killed.

Not for lack of trying. Armies came. Snipers. Poisoned women. Cursed children. I buried them all.

And yet, I walked.

Not because I was immortal. I was untouchable. In-law to the president of the Kingdom, but a year ago he died and I lost that privilege.

Before Zoey happened.

Or Katherine. Or whatever name she’s using now. The name never mattered. The damage did.

When Thorne’s wife, Luna, was killed… his grief didn’t stay quiet.

It became a storm.

He thought I had sent Zoey to do it.

But I didn’t.

But that never mattered to a man like him.

He came for me. Not with threats. With vengeance.

He wiped out my entire bloodline in less than a week.

Except one.

My daughter.

And in a moment that still haunts me, he gave me a choice. Her life, or my silence.

Give her up. Walk away from everything I’d ever built. And he’d let her live.

It wasn’t easy to quit the mafia.

It was bred into my bones. Etched into my name before I even knew how to speak.

But I chose her.

I always will.

And still… Thorne never believed me.

Not then.

Not now.

Maybe I should’ve stayed gone.

Pretended Zoey never existed.

Pretended she hadn’t slipped through my fingers and vanished into smoke like she always did.

But I came back.

Not for vengeance.

Not for war.

For her.

Because if Zoey’s alive, then someone’s rewriting the story we both bled to end.

Six of my men stood in front of me like soldiers at a wake.

They didn’t speak. Their eyes said everything.

“Nothing?” I asked.

Cassius shook his head. “No traces. No contacts. No whispers. But we followed orders, we’ve sent word through every underground channel. If she’s anywhere near this city, she’ll feel the echo.”

I nodded once.

“She’ll hear it,” I said quietly. “And if she’s still who she used to be… she’ll feel it in her bones.”

They stayed quiet. They didn’t ask questions. Men who worked for me learned that silence kept them breathing.

Knowing too much is danger.

“She may not come to us,” I said, folding the photo and sliding it back into my coat. “But she’ll know someone’s digging up graves. She’ll know someone remembers.”

I walked past them, slow and deliberate.

“If she doesn’t want to be found…” I paused, staring out at the road, the silence.

“She’ll run.”

Then I turned, gaze sharp.

“But if she does…”

I smiled. Let the chill roll off my words like frost.

“She’ll find me.”

Because no matter how deep she buried herself, Zoey’s past was awake now.

And it wanted answers.

I struck a match and dropped it to the gasoline-soaked floor.

The safehouse behind me roared into flames.

Another one of my men sprinted into view, breathless. “Sir! You need to see this.”

I didn’t move. “What now?”

He handed me the phone with both hands like it was cursed, or sacred.

The screen flickered. Footage. Blurry and shaky. A wedding venue, wrecked. Blood-stained petals scattered across the floor. Screaming in the background. Gunfire. Chaos.

And then her.

The bride.

Zoey.

Her hair curled. White dress ripped at the hem. Mascara smeared like she’d gone to war, not a wedding.

But it was her.

My chest locked up.

Then, him.

Thorne.

Grinning like the devil at the altar. Blood on his hands. Eyes on her like she was a prize he'd ripped out of the world’s ribcage.

The video cut.

Silence.

My fist clenched so tight around the phone it cracked.

“That’s not her,” I hissed, slamming it to the floor. “That can’t be her.”

“But sir,” one of the guards stepped closer, confused, hesitant, “she doesn’t have a twin. If she did, Zoey would've made sure she was never a liability.”

My instincts screamed one thing, not her.

But my eyes?

They whispered betrayal.

A chill crept down my spine.

Thorne.

And for the first time in years, I was afraid.