The man watching Amelia didn't blink.
From across the alley, hidden beneath the brim of a faded cap and a coat several sizes too big, he stood still in the cold as if he were part of the brick wall itself. He didn't smoke. Didn't shiver. He only watched.
His name wasn't Zahir—but he worked for him.
And tonight, he had one job: confirm proximity.
He raised the camera again, its lens no larger than a coin. It clicked softly as Amelia stepped into her living room, barefoot, wrapped in a blanket, her face pale. She moved like someone trying not to wake ghosts.
She knows, he thought. Or at least, she suspects.
Then his earpiece buzzed.
"Report," came the voice—calm, gravelly, with an accent that didn't belong to any country.
"She received the card," he murmured. "She hasn't told Cross yet."
Silence.
Then: "Continue. Intercept if necessary."
The line went dead.
He stayed.
Watching.
Waiting.
Across the city, Dominic Cross was drinking scotch in a warehouse that stank of motor oil and dust. The only light came from a single hanging bulb and the screen of his laptop.
The flash drive Vivienne had given him was plugged in.
Encrypted safehouse coordinates blinked on screen—each one a memory he'd buried.
Bangkok. Marrakesh. Istanbul. Kyiv. And now: Lagos.
He's getting closer, Dominic thought.
The last entry was time-stamped three days ago. The same day Amelia received the photographs.
He knew what this meant.
Zahir was circling her.
Dominic ran a hand through his hair, eyes burning.
He'd fought monsters. Killed them. Buried the guilt in cities that didn't speak English. But Amelia? She was the one thing he couldn't afford to lose.
And now he was running out of time.
He closed the laptop.
It was time to vanish again.
Only this time, he wasn't going alone.
Amelia woke up at 3:07 a.m. to a knock on the window.
She froze.
Not the door. The window.
Second floor.
She crept out of bed, heart in her throat. The curtain trembled slightly. Her fingers reached for the pepper spray in her drawer—but before she could grab it, the knock came again.
Two short. One long.
A pattern.
She peeled back the curtain.
Dominic stood on the fire escape, in a black hoodie, eyes wild.
She opened the window. "What the hell are you doing?"
"We need to go," he said. "Now."
Amelia blinked. "It's the middle of the night—"
"Someone was watching your apartment. I had him followed. He works for Zahir."
Amelia stepped back.
"The card…"
He nodded. "A warning. But also a countdown."
"To what?"
"To your death," Dominic said, voice flat.
"Unless we disappear first."
They drove in silence for thirty minutes, out of the city, into the hills. Dominic took her to a safehouse she hadn't known existed—camouflaged behind an old vineyard, covered in vines and regret.
Inside, it smelled of cedar and secrets.
"How many places like this do you have?" she asked.
He didn't answer. Just checked the windows, the alarms, the floorboards.
"Are we safe here?" she pressed.
"As safe as we'll ever be," he muttered.
She folded her arms. "That's not comforting."
He turned to her, eyes hollow. "Comfort is a luxury. I gave it up a long time ago."
Amelia stared at him. "Why didn't you tell me everything from the start?"
"Because the truth is poison. And once you drink it, there's no cure."
Later, wrapped in a blanket on the couch, she asked the question she'd been holding back:
"Who is Zahir, really?"
Dominic sat across from her, shadows clinging to his face.
"He's not just a killer. He's an architect of chaos. He dismantles lives slowly—by infiltrating everything and everyone you care about."
He paused. "He killed my sister. He slit her throat and left her in my apartment as a message."
Amelia went cold. "Why?"
"Because I stopped a weapons deal he was brokering in Ankara. She was the price."
She whispered, "Jesus…"
"I've been hunting him ever since."
Amelia's voice broke. "And now I'm just another pawn?"
Dominic crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of her.
"No," he said softly. "You're not a pawn.
You're the only thing that makes any of this worth surviving."
And then he kissed her—not with heat, but with ache.
Like he was memorizing her mouth in case it was the last time.
Back in the city, the man who watched returned to the alley.
The apartment was empty.
He called it in.
"Target has moved."
Zahir's voice answered. "Good."
A pause.
"Release the decoy."