I don’t relax.
“Confirm cascade,” I say.
“Secondary nodes are stalling,” she answers. “They’re waiting for authorization that’s never coming.”
Good.
But Malenkov never builds just one fail-safe.
My HUD flickers—two new markers light up farther out, shifting patterns like something just woke up angry.
“Ronan,” Lena says, tension creeping in. “I’m seeing movement at Red Two and Red Three. He’s accelerating.”
I glance at Jase.
He’s already nodding.
“Extraction?” he asks.
“Negative,” I say. “We push.”
I key the comm. “Aaron, Miles—redirect. I need Overwatch on Red Two. Jonah stays put.”
Static, then Aaron’s voice. “Copy. We’re inbound.”
I step away from the van, crowd closing in again, oblivious to how close they came to dying.
Malenkov thought Black Crown would force me to react late.
He misjudged something fundamental.
I was already moving.
“Let’s go,” I tell Jase.
We disappear back into the flow of civilians, predators in plain sight, chasing a contingency that’s already bleeding out.
Because Malenkov made one mistake, he can’t recover from.
He showed his hand.
And now—
I’m going to break every finger he used to point at innocent people.
75
Ronan
Location: Red Two Transit Corridor — Eastern Europe
Time: 1302 Hours
Red Two is uglier.
Less people—but tighter spaces. Narrow streets boxed in by concrete and glass, old tram lines cutting through intersections where sightlines disappear fast. This isn’t about spectacle.
It’s about efficiency.
