Dime and Magritte ran, ducking behind pillars as bullets ricocheted off the walls. Whoever was after them wasn't just trying to scare them they were trying to end this. Clean. Final.
Magritte yanked a small EMP device from her jacket and slammed it onto a nearby security panel. The lights flickered, then cut off completely, plunging the hallway into red emergency glow. The gunfire stopped. Silence returned.
"They're regrouping," she whispered.
"Who are they?" Dime asked, panting.
"Black Site operatives. Trained to erase problems without questions. They don't work for Draxon. They work for the people behind it."
She led him through a side passage, swiping her card through a hidden reader. A metal door hissed open, revealing a narrow tunnel.
Inside was a secondary operations room lit in a cold blue hue, walls lined with monitors and encrypted storage units. Magritte shut the door and started typing furiously on a console.
"I thought this level didn't exist," Dime said.
"It doesn't," she replied. "Officially."
She brought up a map of Draxon's ownership layers. A visual web of shell companies, offshore accounts, and dead-end corporations filled the screen. At the center, a name blinked VALENTH CORPORATION.
"What is that?" he asked.
"The true parent company of Draxon. The board doesn't report to shareholders they report to Valenth. And Valenth answers to a committee of six global elites. They don't just want money. They want control."
Dime stepped closer, jaw tightening. "So Draxon is a puppet."
Magritte nodded. "And you? You were never meant to rise. You were a useful idiot in their eyes. But when Elias Thorne re-emerged when you re-emerged they got scared."
"Scared of what?"
"Of the truth."
Later that night, in a quiet penthouse in Midtown, Dime finally faced himself in the mirror.
He could no longer deny it the odd memory lapses, the instincts that didn't feel like his own, the strange sense of having been here before. He stared into his reflection and whispered:
"Who the hell am I?"
Suddenly, images flooded his mind sharp, blinding. He saw a ship on fire. A woman screaming. Hands dragging him into water. And then... a second figure. A man who looked like him, exactly like him, but older. Angrier.
He stumbled back, gasping.
His phone rang.
It was Jude.
"Sir, it's Valerie. She's demanding to see you. She's here. At the lobby."
Dime closed his eyes. Valerie Dexter his betrothed, his political match. A woman with knives hidden behind her perfume.
"Send her up," he said.
Valerie entered with fury veiled in silk. Her red dress clung to her like war paint.
"What's happening, Elias?" she asked, voice cold. "Landon's missing. A Swiss banker was found dead in his hotel room. And the Zurich deal you just reversed? It's tanking our Asian bonds."
"You were in on the Mirage trap," he said evenly.
Her expression didn't flinch.
"I never betrayed you," she said. "I protected the company."
"You protected yourself."
She stepped closer, placing a hand on his chest. "I don't care who you've become. You're still Elias. And Elias belongs to me."
He removed her hand gently. "The Elias you knew died on that ship."
Valerie narrowed her eyes. "Then who am I looking at?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, the door buzzed. Jude entered.
"There's someone downstairs. Says she knows you. Wouldn't give her name."
Dime's heart pounded. "Send her up."
Moments later, Magritte walked in face bruised, arm wrapped in gauze. She and Valerie locked eyes. Fire met frost.
"You brought her here?" Valerie spat.
"She saved my life tonight," Dime said.
Valerie looked him over, something soft flickering behind her rage. "You're playing a dangerous game."
"No," he replied. "I'm ending one."
As Valerie stormed out, Magritte spoke softly.
"She's going to war now. That woman doesn't lose."
"Then she's not ready for *me*," Dime said.
Magritte studied him. "You really don't remember the boat?"
"Flashes."
She opened a folder and pulled out a photo. It was of two men. Identical. One of them wore a ring. The other did not.
"That's you," she said, pointing at the one with the ring. "The real Elias Thorne."
"And the other?"
"We don't know his name. But they called him The Replacement. And they're still looking for him."
Dime's voice was quiet.
"What if I'm not Elias?"
Magritte stepped closer. "Then why do you have his memories?"
Silence fell between them.
But it wouldn't last long. Because tomorrow, the real war would begin.