I close my eyes for half a second.
That confirms it.
“They heard us,” I say. “And someone paid for it.”
Silence drops over the call.
Then Aaron says, “That makes this official.”
“Yes,” I agree. “We’re done waiting.”
Lena steps into view behind me, hair loose, eyes sharp. She doesn’t hide. Never has.
“I found something else,” she says.
Every head snaps toward her.
She lifts a file onto the shared screen—photographs, archived intelligence, blurred faces pulled from sealedNATO reports.
“This is Viktor Malenkov before he became the Warden,” she says. “Psychological warfare architect. Specialized inpost-capture neutralization.”
Miles goes still. “That’s not interrogation.”
“No,” Lena says calmly. “It’s long-term erasure.”
Aaron exhales. “Jesus.”
“He keeps prisoners alive because broken legends are more valuable than dead ones,” she continues. “If Ronan’s men disappear quietly, they become ghosts. If they break publicly? They become warnings.”
I stare at the screen.
At the facilities.
At the timelines.
At the pattern.
“He’s been waiting for me,” I say.
Lena meets my gaze. “Then he won’t expect what comes next.”
I turn back to the team.
“Delta Five,” I say evenly. “We move to hunter status—no command oversight. No signatures. We don’t rush. We don’t announce.”
Jase smiles grimly. “We dismantle.”
“Yes.”
Aaron nods. “Extraction priority?”
“All of them,” I answer without hesitation. “Alive.”
“And Malenkov?” Miles asks.
I pause.
Just long enough.
