 Masuk
Masuk
The morning after the fire, the world seemed too still.A gray mist rolled over the wreckage of the Orpheus complex, wrapping its broken towers in veils of silence. The air smelled of metal and rain. From the hill above, Adanna watched as the last of the smoke drifted toward the horizon like ghosts finally leaving their graves.Victor sat beside her, his jacket torn, soot smeared across his cheek. He hadn’t spoken for hours. Neither had she.Everything felt… suspended.As if time itself was holding its breath.Adanna finally whispered, “It’s over.”Victor looked up at the ruins below. “Yeah.” His voice was low. “But it doesn’t feel like victory.”“It never does.” She pulled her knees close to her chest. Her palms were bandaged, still trembling from the neural overload. “I killed her. Even if she asked for it I killed her.”Victor turned toward her. “You freed her. There’s a difference.”Adanna let out a bitter laugh. “Freedom doesn’t bring people back.”“No,” he said softly. “But it s
The sea had long swallowed the lights of Port Viera behind them. Now, as dawn bled over the horizon, the water looked like liquid steel calm on the surface, cold and endless beneath.Victor steered their small vessel toward the coordinates glowing on the navigation screen. Adanna sat at the bow, hair tangled by the salt wind, her gaze locked on the horizon like she could burn holes through time itself.She hadn’t spoken much since they escaped the Syndicate ambush. Her mother’s face haunted her that impossible face staring up through the smoke and fire.Victor watched her silently. He wanted to reach out, to say something that would ease the weight pressing down on her. But there were no words for this kind of grief the kind that came with hope.“The Echelon Vault is off the grid,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “Hidden beneath an abandoned observatory in the Azores. If anyone has access to Orpheus, it’s there.”Adanna didn’t turn to look at him. “And if my mother’s there too?
The cargo ship docked at Port Viera under the pale light of dawn. The mist rolled over the bay, thick as breath, veiling the outlines of cranes and shipping containers like ghosts waiting to be unmasked.Adanna adjusted her earpiece and scanned the horizon. The air smelled of salt and rust, the kind of air that clung to memory. She had been here once, years ago before love, before betrayal. Back when killing was duty, not regret.Victor stood beside her, dressed in dark tactical gear. His movements were silent but efficient, the rhythm of a man who had lived too long in shadows. His face was calm, but she could sense the unease beneath his stillness.“The perimeter’s quiet,” he murmured. “Too quiet.”Adanna gave a small nod. “They know we’re coming.”He looked at her sharply. “Then why walk in?”“Because ghosts only fear the living,” she said, pulling her weapon close. “And we’re not dead yet.”They moved through the docks like two shadows merging with the night.Every corner was a tr
The night air was thick with betrayal.Adanna stood in the dimly lit corridor, her trembling fingers clutching the old dossier she had found behind the false wall in Victor’s study. Her breath came in sharp bursts, every inhale a fight against the pain in her chest.The papers inside the file bore the crest of an intelligence agency she thought long gone—an emblem from her past life in the covert world she had tried so hard to escape.Her husband’s name was printed there.“Agent V. K. Daren — Codename: Falcon.”Adanna’s heart broke quietly. The man she had loved, the one who had nursed her wounds, who whispered promises of forever under moonlight, had been living a second life right beside her.She could barely move. Every memory of his touch now burned like acid against her skin.Footsteps echoed in the hallway measured, confident, too familiar.Victor.He stepped into the light, his expression calm, almost unreadable, though his eyes betrayed the flicker of guilt.“You found it,” he
The safe room was silent except for Grace’s ragged breaths. The reinforced steel door sealed them in, muting the chaos outside. But the echoes of gunfire still rattled in her skull, each shot replaying like a heartbeat she couldn’t silence.Damien stood near the wall, gun still in his hand, his chest heaving with steady, controlled breaths. His shirt clung to him with sweat, dark patches spreading across the fabric. He looked carved from stone, but his eyes hard, blazing betrayed the storm inside.Grace pressed herself against the cold metal wall, clutching her arms around her body. Her whole frame trembled, not from the chill, but from the memory of Marcus’s voice.Come with me, and you live.The words clung to her like chains, each syllable a brand she couldn’t scrub away.Finally, she found her voice, thin and shaking. “He was here.”Damien’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”“He saw me. He ” Her throat closed around the memory. “He said I belonged to him.”At that, Damien’s head snapped towar
The night settled over the city like a velvet cloak, heavy and unyielding. From the warehouse’s upper floor, Grace could see the docks glittering with harsh floodlights, the black water swallowing every reflection. Somewhere out there, Marcus was moving in the shadows. Watching. Waiting.But so were Damien’s men.The room she’d been given was simple, but the word simple carried its own weight here steel door, shuttered windows, a single lamp. The sheets smelled faintly of smoke and cedar. It wasn’t a place of comfort. It was a place of containment.Grace sat on the edge of the bed, her heartbeat still uneven. Her mind replayed the scene in the office: Damien’s challenge, the boy’s terrified eyes, her voice breaking the silence, and Damien’s decision to follow it.Her choice had saved a life. But had it doomed hers?A faint knock startled her. She stiffened, pulse leaping. Before she could speak, the door eased open and Damien stepped inside.No guards. No fanfare. Just him.He leaned a








