Another man appeared—young, tense, clearly not the one in charge.
“The Americans,” the first man said calmly, “believe Hydra is finished.”
Lena tilted her head. “History says evil doesn’t die. It sheds skin.”
That made him look at her—really look this time.
“Yes,” he said. “That is precisely why you’re still alive.”
The door shut again, plunging her back into dim silence.
Lena slid down the wall, breath coming hard. She pressed her forehead to her knees, sweat cooling on her skin, muscles trembling—not from fear, but preparation.
She didn’t know where she was.
She didn’t know how long she could endure.
But she knew this:
Whatever the Ascendancy was building, she was proof of it.
Evidence.
And when the moment came, when a crack appeared in the walls of her prison, she would take it.
Lena clenched her fists, feeling the strength she’d carved into her own body.
She didn’t plan to be rescued.
She planned to escape.
And somewhere in the world—unknown to them both—a man named Ronan Pierce was already moving closer to her storm.
1
Ronan
Some ghosts scream.
Mine stays quiet.
I wake before dawn, heart hammering, hand already searching for the knife I keep taped beneath the edge of the mattress. It’s been that way since Morocco, since the desert swallowed my team whole and spat me back out alone.
The room is dark, spare. A rented place near the coast, paid for in cash, nothing on the walls. I don’t believe in roots anymore. Roots get torn up.
I sit up slowly, breathing through the remnants of the dream. Gunfire. Shouting. Blood in the sand.
And Lena.
Not screaming. Not broken.
Alive.
She’s always there at the worst part—her voice breaking through the chaos, telling me to stop, to think, to trust her. Telling me the truth mattered more than fear.
I scrub a hand over my face and swing my feet to the floor.
“Get it together,” I mutter.
