Naya didn't sleep.
She hadn't since the message came.
She moved through the city like a rumor hood up, face hidden, instincts sharp. Every reflection felt like surveillance, every sound like a footstep just out of range. This wasn't new fear.This was familiar.
These were her enemies.They had a signature.
Clean. Quiet. Patient.
Men who didn't rush because time had always worked in their favor.
She accessed an old secure line in an abandoned internet café, the kind that smelled of dust and neglect. The screen flickered to life, green text crawling across black.
ASH IS ACTIVE, the system flagged.
She exhaled slowly.
So they still used her old name.
The first file opened wasn't about Kairo.
That mattered.
It listed operations—sealed, buried, redacted. Her unit. Her mission. Names that were supposed to be dead or retired.
One name stood out.
Project CINDER.
Her jaw tightened.
Cinder had been a contingency program used to clean up "loose ends" after black operations. Not assassinations.
Erasure.
If Cinder was active again, it meant someone had decided the past wasn't finished with her.
She followed the trail carefully, methodically. No emotional decisions. No reckless moves.
That's how she survived before.
Her enemies were ex-military contractors—men who had learned how to make people disappear without paperwork. They didn't want Kairo.
Not yet.
They wanted her attention.
The message wasn't a threat.
It was a reminder.
You belong to us.
Her phone vibrated again.
Unknown number.
This time, no words.
Just a photo.
A grainy image of a dock. A familiar tunnel entrance. Her footprints captured, cataloged.
They had been watching her long before the collapse.
"You're not hunting me," she whispered. "You're herding me."
She closed the laptop, pulse steady now.
These enemies didn't rush kidnappings or make demands.
They waited.
And waiting meant leverage.
...
Far away, in a darkened room that smelled of metal and disinfectant, a different set of eyes watched a different screen.
Kairo Blackwell laid unconscious, restrained, monitored but untouched.
Not yet.
The men watching him weren't military.
They weren't ghosts.
They were businessmen.
Predators who understood optics, timing, and spectacle.
"Not now," one of them said calmly. "Let her run."
Another smiled faintly. "She'll bring the noise. He'll bring the money."
They turned off the monitor.
Kairo's enemies were patient too.
They didn't interfere.
They observed.
Because when two wars collided
The fallout was always bigger.
Naya stepped back into the night, face hard, purpose sharp.
Her enemies had made the first move.
But Kairo's enemies?
They were still in the shadows.
Watching.Waiting.
And when they stepped forward
No one would see it coming.