MasukISLA'S POV
I am standing in front of the biometric scanners.
Hunt. Bennett.
The choice Michael Hale designed is staring me in the face. The trap he spent thirty-three years machining into a perfect, binary cage.
Touch the scanners: save my mother, lose my father's justice, and prove once again that I am a variable to be mov
ISLA'S POVJanuary 28, 2027. One year later.Morrison Estate. The south plateau.I stand among the saplings, the January wind biting through my gloves.Oak, birch, pine. They’re small, fragile things, barely more than sticks in the frozen ground. But the roots are taking hold. They’re growing.The farmhouse ruins are gone. Cleared away like a bad dream. In their place stands the memorial: glass and stone, cold to the touch but catching the winter light with a stark beauty.Names engraved deep into the surface. The victims of the Black Swan. The people the syndicate hurt.It’s a place of remembrance. A place of healing.Visitors come week
ISLA'S POVJanuary 28, 2026. 8:07 PM.The wind on Morrison Ridge has teeth, stripping the heat from my skin the second I step away from the fire.Below us, the Atlantic is a black void, crashing against the rocks with a rhythm I can feel in the soles of my boots. We built the fire from driftwood and pine kindling scrounged from the tree line. The flames snap and twist, painting the darkness in erratic strokes of orange and gold.Gabriel tends it. He moves slowly, the exhaustion of the last month finally catching up to his limbs. But there is peace in the way he places the wood. Deliberate. Calm.I watch him. The man I love. The man I chose when the math said I shouldn't.The island is dark. Quiet. No trackers pinging my pho
ISLA'S POVJanuary 28, 2026. 4:03 PM.Morrison Estate. The airstrip.The sound hits us before we see them—a low, thrumming vibration that rattles the windows of the modular HQ.Three federal helicopters descend from the gray Maine sky. Black. Unmarked. Official. They kick up a storm of snow and frozen dirt as they touch down, the rotors slicing through the quiet we just fought so hard to win.Agent Miller. SEC investigators. Federal marshals.The law has come for the reckoning.I watch from the boardroom window, my hands resting on the sill. The glass is cold under my palms. Gabriel stands beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, but he doesn't touch me.
ISLA'S POVJanuary 28, 2026. 1:03 PM.Morrison Estate. My office.I sit at the desk, the laptop screen glowing cool against my tired eyes.Beside me, Gabriel has shed the tactical gear. He’s wearing a simple shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing forearms that have carried weapons for fifteen years. Now, they just rest on the armrests, relaxed but present.I feel the physical weight of the Enter key under my index finger. The plastic is smooth, cold.My father spent his life building this weapon. The demolition protocol.Now I’m executing it.The screen displays a cascading list of Walsh's offshore accounts. Dozens of them. Cayman Is
GABRIEL'S POVJanuary 28, 2026. 10:07 AM.The wind on the north perimeter cuts through my jacket, carrying the salt-heavy bite of the Atlantic. I walk the ridge, my stride automatic, boots finding purchase on the frozen earth.The island is quiet. Not the tense silence of an ambush, but the emptiness of a battlefield after the smoke clears.I pull my phone from my pocket. The screen glows against the grey morning light as I log into the Hunt Capital contractor portal.ACCOUNT STATUS: DEACTIVATED EFFECTIVE: JANUARY 28, 2026No insurance. No legal cover. No paycheck clearing at the end of the month.Technically, I am a trespasser on private land.
ISLA'S POVJanuary 28, 2026. 8:03 AM.Morrison Estate. The boardroom.The sun is fully up now, spilling a harsh, golden light through the windows that exposes every dust mote dancing in the air.The helicopters are gone. Just black specks dissolving into the southern horizon, taking Hale, taking Walsh, taking the rotting weight of the past with them. The silence they leave behind is heavy, ringing in my ears like the aftermath of a gunshot.For the first time in my life, I don’t hear my father’s ghost whispering about debts and vaults. I don’t hear the syndicate’s static.I hear silence. Absolute. Clean.Sarah Kim and Elena Vasquez are still here, sitting
GABRIEL'S POVJanuary 27, 2026. 11:18 AM.We are three blocks from the bank, and every step hits my chest like a hammer.My lungs refuse to expand fully. The tactical vest caught the round, absorbing the penetration, but the kinetic energy had to go somewhere. It went straight into my ribcage. It f
GABRIEL'S POVJanuary 27, 2026. 10:47 AM.The air in the sub-vault isn't just stale; it’s heavy, a metallic soup that coats the back of my throat. Each breath requires a conscious drag, the lungs working harder for a payout that diminishes with every second.I check my watch. Twelve minutes since t
ISLA'S POVJanuary 27, 2026. 10:18 AM.The sub-vault feels less like a room and more like a pressurized capsule buried forty feet beneath the pavement of Zurich.I am seated at the terminal, my face bathed in the harsh, artificial glow of the monitor. The screen displays the sum total of a thirty-y
ISLA'S POVJanuary 26, 2026. 9:47 PM.The elevator descends with a smoothness that feels unnatural, a vacuum-sealed drop that leaves my stomach somewhere on the top floor. Gabriel stands beside me, silent and watchful, a dark vertical line in the mirrored periphery.Dinner with Claire is over. The







