The salt air from the New York waterfront usually carried a sharp bite, but today, it tasted like ash and deception. I sat on the west terrace, gripping the porcelain teacup Hannah had left me. My mind raced backward through five years of controlled existence.

The safehouse was a secluded, timber-framed lodge tucked deep into the heavily wooded hills overlooking Puget Sound. Inside, a roaring fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting warm, dancing light across the rustic wooden beams.

Hannah sat at a large oak table, analyzing the downloaded Meridian files while the security team secured the perimeter. I stood by the rain-streaked window, watching the distant lights of the Seattle ferry cutting through the dark waters of the bay.

The door to the basement holding cell clicked open. Miller walked into the living area, dragging a bruised, soaked Apex mercenary we had managed to capture alive during our extraction from Pier 42.

The man was shoved roughly into a wooden chair in the center of the room. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floorboards, glaring up at me with defiant, terrified eyes.

"I don't know anything," the mercenary snarled, his voice raspy. "You can break my teeth, Mercer, but the syndicate owns this coast. You’ll never—"

I didn't let him finish. I walked slowly across the room, stopping directly in front of him. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't threaten him with violence. I simply leaned down, looking straight into his eyes with the cold, dead gaze of a man who had stared into an abyss for five years and crawled back out.

"Cross is sitting in a federal maximum-security cell in New York," I said softly, my voice cutting through the crackle of the fire. "He can't protect you. Vernon Hale is facing consecutive life sentences. He can't save you. Right now, you are standing in a room with a man who was supposed to be blind, whose family was supposed to be dead, and who just took your entire West Coast infrastructure offline in twenty minutes."

The mercenary swallowed hard, his defiance visibly fracturing under the sheer weight of my presence.

"Who is running the Pacific cell?" I asked quietly. "Give me the name."

The man trembled, glancing nervously toward the dark windows before whispering, "Kane... Viktor Kane. He’s the regional director for Meridian. He answers directly to the mysterious board member in Zurich who financed the original Pier 17 explosion."

My grip on the back of his chair tightened until my knuckles turned white.

"Where is Kane?"

"Aboard the Vanguard," the mercenary gasped, pointing frantically toward the bay. "It’s a private container ship anchored three miles offshore in international waters. It leaves for Asia at dawn with a full cargo of restricted neurotoxin precursors."