I kiss her temple.
She’s already asleep when I whisper back—
“No. They won’t.”
26
Lena
Location: Outer Banks, North Carolina
Two Days Later
The breadcrumb isn’t dramatic.
That’s how I know it matters.
It’s buried in financial filings—shell corporations dissolving and reforming under different names, always near abandoned Cold War infrastructure. Always funded through humanitarian fronts.
Always underground.
My pulse starts to race—not fear.
Recognition.
I zoom in, cross-referencing shipping manifests and black-site rumors I never published because I couldn’t prove them.
Until now.
“Oh my God…”
I print everything.
Hands shaking—not because I’m scared.
Because I’m right.
Ronan looks up from the table the second I step into the room.
“You found something,” he says.
Not a question.
I lay the pages out. Maps. Names. Coordinates. Photographs of reinforced subterranean access points disguised as storage facilities.
“Viktor Malenkov doesn’t just imprison people,” I say quietly. “He stores them. He’s pure evil.”
Ronan goes very still.
“These are holding sites,” I continue. “Separate zones. Soundproofed. No shared corridors.”
His jaw tightens. “Isolation chambers.”
“They don’t know who’s alive,” I whisper. “They don’t knowyouare.”
He reaches for my hand, grounding both of us.
“You’re sure?” he asks.
