The burner phone sat on Ethan's kitchen counter like a sleeping weapon. He hadn't touched it in hours, not since he got home. But he hadn't thrown it away either.
His apartment was a one-room matchbox with concrete walls and peeling paint. The rent was cheap, the neighbors invisible, and the silence familiar. But tonight, that silence pressed harder against his chest. Something had shifted.
He stared out the cracked window into the street below. Neon lights flickered off puddles from a recent rain. People walked like ghosts, their faces buried in collars and screens. No one noticed anything unless it was screaming.
And Cassian didn't scream. He whispered. Calculated. Controlled.
Ethan moved back to the table, eyeing the small flash drive Cassian had left. Against his better judgment, he plugged it into his encrypted laptop—one of the only things he'd invested real money in.
The screen came alive. No passwords. No software. Just a single folder titled: "FOR ETHAN."
He opened it.
Bank statements. Tax records. Obscure company registrations in the Cayman Islands. Offshore accounts under pseudonyms. But they all traced back, piece by piece, to one name.
Marcus Alden.
His father. Or at least, the man who had vanished when Ethan was six.
The next file was a video. Grainy. Surveillance footage from what looked like a private airport. In it, Gideon exited a black car, flanked by two men in dark coats. They walked fast, heads low.
Ethan leaned in.
One of the men guiding Gideon turned to the camera for a split second. Ethan froze. He knew that face.
Cassian.
But the footage was timestamped ten years ago.
Ethan sat back, cold creeping up his spine. Either Cassian hadn't aged a day in a decade, or this was one hell of a trick. Or—and this was the worst option—everything Cassian said was true.
He shut the laptop. His mind spun.
Before he could make sense of anything, a sharp knock rattled his door.
Not a neighbor. No one here knocked.
Ethan stood slowly, his hand drifting to the drawer beneath the sink. A compact blade—nothing dramatic, but effective.
Another knock.
He moved quietly, pressing his back to the wall beside the door. "Who is it?"
Silence.
Then a voice. Female. Steady.
"I have something for you, Mr. Alden."
He didn't like that name. Not in her mouth.
"Slide it under the door," he said.
A pause. Then the edge of a thick, cream-colored envelope pushed through the gap.
Ethan waited a beat before picking it up. Heavy. Real. Embossed seal on the flap—a symbol he recognized from the photo with his father: a lion with wings, encircled by the Latin phrase "Fiat Lux in Tenebris."
Let there be light in darkness.
He opened it carefully. Inside, a single sheet of black cardstock, and a line in gold ink:
"You are being hunted. The safehouse at 41st and Grove has been compromised. Move. Now."
No signature.
He cursed under his breath and turned to grab his gear, but the window exploded inward.
Glass rained across the floor. A dark figure dropped in with surgical precision, dressed in black from head to toe, rifle swinging.
Ethan didn't hesitate.
He flung the kitchen chair into the intruder's knees, grabbed the blade from the drawer, and slashed upward. The attacker deflected, fast, but not fast enough. Ethan caught his forearm, twisted, kicked him back against the counter.
Gunfire ripped through the silence. The attacker fired wide, tearing through plaster and smoke.
Ethan rolled low, grabbed the flash drive, and dove for the hallway. More footsteps echoed from the stairwell.
"Damn it," he hissed.
He burst into the hallway, turned right—and stopped.
Cassian.
Standing at the end of the hall like he'd been waiting the whole time.
"We need to go," he said simply.
"You followed me here?"
"They followed you. I followed them. Big difference."
Ethan didn't argue. Not now. He sprinted past him, down the emergency stairs.
Outside, a black SUV roared to life, its back door open. Ethan jumped in, Cassian close behind. Tires screeched. Bullets sparked off the trunk as they vanished into the night.
Inside the vehicle, breath ragged, Ethan looked at Cassian.
"Who are they?"
"People who don't want you alive long enough to ask that question."
"Why now? Why tonight?"
Cassian glanced out the window. "Because someone inside our circle betrayed us. Your location was leaked."
"Our circle?"
"You'll understand soon."
Ethan clenched his fists. "I don't like being dragged into other people's wars."
Cassian finally looked at him, eyes sharp.
"It stopped being someone else's war the moment they broke into your apartment."