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Reid forced himself to meet Julian’s eyes, the screen’s ghost still burning behind him. “I did,” he said quietly. “But now I know what I’m rebuilding for.”
Claire stoodwhen the secure room door hissed open. Reid walked out under his own power. No walker. Tuck walked beside him, Julian behind. His pace was unsteady, but his eyes were sharp and somehow changed.
Claire met Reid halfway down the hall. The space between them was filled with everything she couldn’t ask out loud.
He answered anyway, “I remember.”
Her breath hitched. “All of it?”
Reid nodded once. “Every second. Every breath. Every failure.”
Her hands reached for his face, framing it gently. “There was no failure.”
His jaw clenched. “They were in my house, and they did that to me.”
“You survived.”
Reid reached for her now, fingers resting just above her hip. “I won’t need saving next time.”
She stepped into his arms, into the storm he’d brought back from the screen. And he held her tightly and steadily, one palm drifting instinctively to her belly. No words. But everything spoken.
FORTY-THREE
WASHINGTON D.C. – CHASE EAST OPS CENTER – 1743 HOURS
The screen replayed in silence. Vos, walking with Heather Bowman, past a private medical clinic on the eastern edge of Prague. The street was clean. It was controlled, not tourist-heavy, and not random.
Ian stood at the head of the ops table, flanked by three silent analysts and a shifting blur of satellite data on the secondary displays. He didn’t move.
Heather kept her head down. Vos walked like a man with nothing to hide.
Ian said, “Run every registry tied to that building. I want to know who owns it, funds it, operates inside it, and who’s visited in the last year. If it so much as changed cleaning crews, I want it flagged.”
One of the analysts nodded and vanished through the side door.
Ian’s eyes returned to the screen. Vos paused briefly before they entered the clinic and looked up, almost directly at the lens,with a new face. The kind of look you gave when you’d spent years waiting to walk back into daylight.
Behind him, someone cleared their throat. “Mr. Kieran Chase is still in Denver, sir. He’s already initiated containment with Claire and Mr. Collier.”
Ian nodded once. “Good, keep it that way.” He gestured to the footage. “Because if Vos brought Heather Bowman to a clinic in Prague, he’s not just hiding. He’s trying something, or he’s about to harm someone.”
Ian straightened, voice cooling to steel. “Pull every record that clinic’s touched—patients, anonymous donors, experimental trials. If it’s a weigh station for Vos to broker another coup, I want every call in and out traced, every contact mapped. That’s his usual play since he was disavowed. He stirred governments until they broke. But…” He paused, the thought cutting sharp. “What if it isn’t geopolitical? What if the bastard’s sick? Or is that where he got his new face? Damn it.”
His jaw set. “What if he wants to finish what he started in Ann Arbor?” He snapped his fingers once. “Trace every camera feed within three miles of the clinic. Street feeds, traffic grids, private security. I want to know where he’s living.”
Someone started to protest about the legalities.
Ian’s gaze cut through him like a laser. “You want to play by rules while Vos redraws the war map?”
Silence. He tapped the desk once. “Keep me updated every two hours. I don’t want a briefing. I want proof.”
PRAGUE, CZECHIA – PRIVATE MEDICAL CLINIC – SAME TIME
The ceiling tiles vibrated slightly with the hum of halogen. Vos lay back in the recovery bed, half elevated, bandages wrapping his lower face like a second skin. His jaw throbbed. It was a deep, pressure-cooked pain, but he didn’t flinch. Pain meant progress. This was his second surgery altering his jawline.
Mahler finished tightening the facial wrap, his gloved fingers precise and cold. “You will bruise deeply for the next forty-eight hours,” the surgeon said. “Swelling will peak on day three. You may speak, but sparingly. No chewing solids. Avoid mirrors.”
Vos blinked once. “How long until I’m presentable?”
