Feeling makes you choose wrong.
But I’m already choosing.
Because she’s here.
Because they came in public.
Because they put a stopper in the street like they owned the city.
And because she looked at me earlier like she was trying to decide if I was a threat—
and now she’s about to realize the truth.
I’m not the threat.
I’m what comes after.
I lift my hand toward my earpiece.
“Ronan,” I say, voice calm, “tell the team to shift.”
Ronan’s reply is immediate. “To what?”
I stare at Lark London—civilian, archivist, the wrong woman in the right file—and feel the war turn under my feet.
“To extraction,” I say. “Because they’re done watching.”
I pause, eyes hardening.
“They’re coming to take her.”
And this time—
I’m going to let them try.
4
Arron
Location: Safehouse — Lisbon
Time: Early Morning
The garage door seals behind us with a hydraulic sigh that sounds final.
I don’t like final.
I cut the engine and sit still for a beat longer than necessary, listening—feeling—for the echo of pursuit. Concrete holds sound differently. Lies to you if you let it. I don’t.
Clear.
For now.
I unbuckle and step out, scanning the corners, the ceiling, the stairwell that leads up into the building like a throat. No movement. No heat signatures. The quiet here is intentional—too intentional to be comforting.
“Stay put,” I tell her.
She doesn’t argue.
