Ronan
Location: Outer Banks, North Carolina — Night
Iwake up with my hand already reaching for a weapon that isn’t there.
The room is dark, quiet, safe.
Too safe.
Lena stirs beside me, sensing the shift even before I fully come back to myself. Her hand slides over my chest, grounding. Familiar.
“You felt it too,” she murmurs.
I don’t ask how she knows.
“I did,” I say quietly.
Something moved.
Not here.
Not yet.
But somewhere underground, someone screamed.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there for a long moment, forearms braced on my knees. The ocean wind softly rattles the windows. Normal sounds. A normal life.
And still—
“He punished them,” I say.
Lena sits up slowly, pulling the sheet around herself. “Malenkov.”
“Yes.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t ask how I know.
She just nods. “Because the signal got through.”
“And because that’s how men like him respond when they lose control.”
I stand and cross the room, pulling on jeans, already shifting into command mode. The calm Ronan disappears. Lieutenant Pierce steps forward.
I activate the secure terminal.
Delta Five answers immediately.
Aaron’s face fills the screen first. He looks grim. “We just got movement.”
“Talk to me.”
“Eastern Europe. One of Malenkov’s holding facilities went into full lockdown about an hour ago. Internal discipline protocols triggered.”
My jaw tightens.
Jase swears softly. “He retaliated.”
Miles adds, “Heavy. Lights-on isolation. Food restriction. Increased rotations.”
