Cyclone whistles softly. “Hydra’s remnants folded into something cleaner. Smarter. Meaner.”
“They learned,” I say. “They always do.”
River studies me. “You’ve been tracking them longer than we realized.”
“Because they were tracking me first.”
The room goes still.
I don’t elaborate. They don’t ask. Professionals recognize boundaries the way soldiers recognize minefields.
River changes the screen.
A satellite image fills the wall—an industrial compound near the Mediterranean. Coastal. Isolated.
My chest tightens.
“Intel suggests they’re moving assets through here,” River says. “Personnel. Tech. Prisoners.”
That last word hits harder than a bullet.
I stand before I realize I’ve moved. Lean closer to the screen.
“Zoom in,” I say.
Cyclone does.
Cargo trucks. Guard towers. A secondary structure hidden just far enough from the main complex to evade casual observation.
A black site.
My pulse thunders in my ears.
“Ronan,” River says carefully. “You recognize it.”
“I recognize the pattern,” I answer. “And I know what they keep in places like that.”
Journalists. Whistleblowers. Anyone who refuses to disappear quietly.
Anyone like Lena.
I force my hands to unclench.
“She’s alive,” I say, voice steady, certain. “And if they’re holding anyone like her… she’ll be there.”
Silence stretches tight as wire.
River nods once—slow, decisive. “Then this just became personal.”
I meet his gaze, a vow burning behind my ribs.
“It always was,” I say.
Somewhere, buried behind concrete and steel, Lena Hart is still fighting.
And I am coming.
2
