Chapter 6 - Resurrection of the DeadTessa’s hand trembled so violently she nearly dropped the phone.
The screen displayed a dim, industrial room with exposed concrete walls. Bound to a wooden chair in the center was Julian, his eyes wide with fear, a piece of heavy silver tape over his mouth. Standing over him, adjusting a camera tripod, was a man with a jagged scar running from his jawline down into his collar.
"Leo..." Tessa whispered, her voice barely audible.
The man on the screen turned, looking directly into the lens. His eyes—the same striking hazel eyes as Tessa’s—were devoid of the warmth she remembered.
"Hello, little sister," Leo's voice cracked through the phone's small speaker. "I see you finally decided to use that brilliant brain of yours again."
"You're dead," Tessa gasped, tears finally spilling over her soot-stained cheeks. "I buried you! I identified your body at the morgue seven years ago!"
"You identified a body that the Bratva paid the coroner to give you," Leo corrected with a bitter, hollow laugh. "I didn't die, Tessa. I was claimed. While you were playing angel in the ER, stitching up cheap street thugs, I was building weapons for the men who actually rule this world."
Victor snatched the phone from her hand, his voice dropping into a register of pure murder. "Rostov. Put the boy on."
Leo’s expression hardened on the screen. "Ah, the great Victor Costa. The man who thought he could own this city forever. You took my life seven years ago when you let the Bratva burn my laboratory. Now, I take your legacy."
"Name your price," Victor said coldly. "Money. Territory. The shipping docks. Take it all. Give me my son."
"I don't want your money, Victor," Leo sneered. "I want the chemical compound Tessa just synthesized in your vault. The stabilized Lazarus Agent. Bring it to the abandoned dry docks at Pier 42 by midnight. Come alone, or I start cutting the boy apart piece by piece."
The screen went black.
The room fell into a suffocating silence. Tessa stood frozen, her mind spinning in a chaotic whirlwind of betrayal, grief, and disbelief. The brother she had mourned for nearly a decade was alive—and he was the mastermind behind the terror gripping the city.
Victor turned to look at her. His expression was unreadable, a wall of cold granite.
"Did you know?" Victor asked softly.
Tessa looked up, her eyes flashing with instant fury. "Did I know my dead brother was alive and working for the mob? Are you insane?!"
"He's your blood, Tessa," Victor said, stepping closer, his presence overwhelming. "In my world, blood is the only thing that dictates loyalty."
"In my world, right and wrong dictate loyalty!" Tessa spat back, slapping his hand away as he reached for the hard drive on the table. "He has your son! He's using my medical research to build a chemical weapon! If you go there alone, he will kill you, he will kill Julian, and he will release that toxin into the city!"
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Victor loaded a fresh magazine into his pistol with a crisp, terrifying click. "Then I suggest you help me finish that antidote, Miss Hayes. Because at midnight, we aren't going to negotiate. We're going to execute."
CHAPTER HOOK: As Tessa finalized the antidote in the high-tech mobile lab inside Victor’s armored truck, she realized a terrifying detail in Leo's video code: the dry dock wasn't an exchange site—it was a detonation zone set to wipe out half the city.
