Aria hadn't slept in three days.
The safe house was a steel cage pretending to be a haven. Its white walls, stripped of warmth, pulsed with the silence of unanswered questions. She sat hunched over a desk littered with empty coffee cups and digital fragments of the stolen data, Julian's encrypted drive glowing on her laptop like a dying star.
She hadn't cried.
She didn't know how anymore.
Julian's last message echoed in her head on a loop.
"Don't trust anyone—especially not the one who claims to love you next."
Damon, her father's former associate turned reluctant ally, hovered near the door with his arms crossed, gaze unreadable.
"He's not coming back," he said for the fourth time.
Aria's hands clenched around the edge of the table.
"You don't know that."
"I do. Men like him don't get out."
"He did once."
"Yeah—and they always pull him back in."
She stood so fast her chair clattered back. "If you're not here to help, get the hell out."
Damon sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. "You're going to burn yourself out. You're one step from a breakdown."
"Then step back and watch."
She didn't flinch when the screen pinged. A message had decrypted itself—automatically, like it had been waiting for this precise moment.
A string of numbers. Coordinates. A single word:
SEVERIN.
Aria's stomach dropped.
It wasn't a location.
It was a name.
She pulled up the master file again and searched.
Severin. Former Echo asset. Presumed dead. Decommissioned after going rogue.
The picture that appeared made her blood run cold.
A woman.
Tall. Pale. Eyes like knives.
And under her profile:
Last confirmed mission: eliminate Echo One.
Julian.
—
She didn't wait for Damon to argue.
She packed light, grabbed a burner, and walked out the door before the sun could rise. The coordinates pointed to Zurich. High-end. Private sector. Swiss clean.
If Severin was there, she'd find her.
If Julian was alive, Severin was the key.
And if he was dead—Aria would make her talk.
—
The flight was a blur.
No sleep. Just adrenaline and the echo of Julian's touch before he vanished into gunfire.
The memory stabbed sharper than a bullet.
She arrived at a private residence cloaked as an art gallery. It was closed to the public. Guarded by men in suits who didn't flinch when she said the name.
"I have an appointment," Aria said.
"Name?"
"Echo."
The guard stiffened.
Thirty seconds later, she was led through velvet halls into a sun-drenched room filled with white marble sculptures. Cold. Silent. Curated.
And standing at the center: Severin.
She wore white like armor. Hair slicked back. A scar along her jaw.
"You're his," Severin said, not looking up from the statue she was chiseling. "The Laurent girl."
Aria didn't blink. "You know why I'm here."
"Yes. To cry about a boy you don't understand."
Aria's fingers twitched near the blade she kept in her boot.
Severin finally turned.
"There's no body. That means you think he's alive. That means you still hope. How foolish."
"Where is he?"
"If I knew," Severin said, circling her, "he'd be dead already."
"Then why haven't you found him?"
Severin smiled. "Because I'm no longer hunting him."
Aria narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
Severin's gaze turned razor-sharp.
"Because they are."
—
Aria sat across from her, pulse loud in her ears.
"Who's 'they'?"
"The Syndicate. The real one. The one that funded Echo. The one that killed your father. The one that has Julian now."
Aria's voice dropped. "You're saying he's alive?"
"For now."
"Then help me."
Severin studied her for a long moment.
"You want to save him?"
"I want to burn them down."
A pause.
Then Severin smiled. Not kindly.
"Then you'll need to become what they trained him to be."
—
The next two days were hell.
Severin didn't hold back.
She taught Aria how to disappear. How to weaponize silence. How to read a room in seconds and leave no trace. Aria broke twice. Bled once. Cried never.
"Emotion is a liability," Severin said. "Until you learn to use it like a knife."
Aria learned fast.
Every bruise was a vow.
Every scar a promise.
By the third day, Severin handed her a flash drive.
"Everything they never wanted Echo to see. Coordinates. Weak points. Access codes. They'll be expecting me. Not you."
"Why help now?"
"Because they tried to kill me too."
And that was enough.
—
Aria boarded a jet to Warsaw that night, drive in hand. Alone.
Julian was being held in an underground Syndicate lab—off-grid, disguised as a genetics research facility. But it was really a prison for rogue assets. Torture by another name.
She didn't sleep.
Didn't eat.
Didn't feel.
She just moved.
For him.
—
The lab was a fortress, but she didn't need to break the front gate.
She slipped in through the utility tunnels. Severin's codes worked. The drive overrode every firewall.
She found him in a cell designed to kill memory.
White walls. No windows. A cot. And Julian.
Chained. Gaunt. Eyes closed.
But alive.
Her breath caught.
"Julian."
He looked up.
And for the first time, something cracked in his expression.
"Aria."
She ran to him, dropping to her knees, undoing the cuffs with shaking hands.
"I thought—"
"I told you," he rasped, voice like gravel. "You shouldn't have come."
She cupped his face. "I don't care. I'm not leaving without you."
His mouth twitched, almost a smile. "Then we run."
But they didn't get far.
Because as they reached the main corridor, alarms erupted.
Floodlights.
And standing at the far end—
Damon.
Gun raised.
Expression unreadable.
"I warned you not to trust the next one."
And Aria realized too late:
Julian had been right.
Again.