The morning after the warehouse meet was too quiet.
Elena awoke to the rhythmic whisper of wind through pine branches outside the cabin's thin walls. Liam was already gone, but a folded note sat on the nightstand.
Just scouting the road. Be back soon. Don't open the door unless it's me. — L.
She stared at the handwriting longer than she meant to. There was something comforting in the clean sharp strokes of his letters—controlled, precise, like everything he did.
But as the minutes ticked by, unease crept into her chest.
She busied herself checking their bags, reloading the pistol Reign had passed to her at the docks. It felt foreign in her hands, but less so than it had days ago. That alone told her how much had changed.
By the time Liam returned, dusk was creeping in again.
"Trouble?" she asked the second he stepped inside.
His face was taut. "They found Reign's warehouse. Burned it. Hard."
Elena's breath caught. "So they know we're not dead."
"Yeah. And they're not bothering to be quiet anymore."
He tossed a burner phone onto the table, cracked and still buzzing with encrypted messages.
"I triggered the switch," he said. "Everything Reign collected is now in motion. Documents, hard drives, videos. She left instructions—if we disappear, it all goes live."
"Is that what you meant by dead man's switch?"
Liam nodded grimly. "Now the game changes. They'll come fast."
Elena leaned against the table, her voice lower. "What does that mean for us?"
"It means we stop reacting. We go to the source."
She tilted her head. "Which is?"
He opened the laptop Reign had left them, typing in a keyphrase.
A black-and-white image popped up on screen: an older man with gray at his temples, cold steel eyes, and a military badge on his lapel.
"Colonel Victor Sloan," Liam said. "He oversaw Black Reef—the ghost ops program Reign and I were part of."
"What does he want with me?"
Liam's jaw tightened. "He doesn't want you. He wants leverage. He wants me back in the system."
"And you think going after him is our only option?"
"It's our only shot to stop this clean."
Elena looked at the man's face on the screen. Something about his expression—controlled cruelty—sent a chill through her.
"And Reign? Will she help?"
"She's going dark. Said we're on our own now."
Elena stepped toward Liam, resting her palms against his chest. "Then let's do this together. No more shadows. No more running."
He looked down at her, eyes dark and full of things she still didn't fully understand. But his arms circled her waist, pulling her close.
"Together," he whispered. "Until the end."
Later that night, as they loaded the last of their gear into the trunk, a single message blinked onto Liam's cracked burner phone:
"Package moved. Sloan en route to Ridgepoint. Window: 48 hours."
No sender.
Just coordinates.
Liam crushed the phone beneath his boot heel, then looked at Elena across the top of the car.
"Time to end this."