The safe house seemed tiny with the weight of what lay ahead. Lucas, Aiden, and Damian had spent countless hours studying every scrap of intel they possessed. The enemy's movements were deliberate, their means almost unlimited. Waiting time was through.

  Damian rested against the table, arms folded. "We take them out first, or we don't make it through the next forty-eight hours."

  Lucas nodded, already planning. "We require leverage. Something that compels them to respond on our terms."

  Aiden, still wrapping his head around the extent of Lucas's history, stood up. "And I have an idea about how to do that."

  Everyone looked at him.

  Aiden's tone remained firm. "Sentinel AI is not simply a security system. It's a key to their secret networks. If we can uncover them before they reach us, we turn the hunters into the hunted."

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Lucas glanced over at Damian. This was a game of risk, but Aiden was correct. It was time to end the running.

  "Then we begin now," Lucas announced. "We take the fight to them."

  And so, the reckoning came—a tempest of vengeance intended to untangle the shadows that had tormented them for too long. All their moves, all their decisions, had resulted in this instant. The ghosts of their own histories would no longer control their destiny. They needed to stand up and battle back, not merely for existence, but for redemption.