The drive to the outskirts of the city was a masterclass in suffocating silence. The rain continued to blur the world outside the reinforced glass, matching the murky uncertainty between the two leads.
They reached the perimeter of the "Unlisted" facility—a sprawling complex hidden behind a screen of old growth forest. It looked more like a prison than a rehab center.
As Elara set up the long-range scanners, a movement in the trees caught her eye. She raised her rifle, her finger on the trigger, but a voice crackled over a local, unencrypted channel.
"Nightingale? If you fire that, you'll trip the seismic sensors. It's me. It's Marcus."
Elara's breath hitched. Marcus Thorne. The Director's nephew, and her former partner from the Bureau Academy—the only man she had ever trusted before Julian.
Julian, watching from the monitors in the van, saw Elara's posture change. He saw the way her shoulders dropped slightly, the way her grip on the rifle loosened. He didn't know who "Marcus" was, but he felt the sudden, violent surge of territorial rage—the kind of jealousy that only a man who has never loved before can feel.
"Who is he?" Julian's voice came over her earpiece, cold and vibrating with a possessive threat.
"Someone who shouldn't be here," Elara replied, her eyes fixed on the man emerging from the shadows.
Marcus was handsome, in a clean, Bureau-standard way. He looked like the life Elara had lost. As he walked toward her, Julian stepped out of the van, his silhouette dark and lethal against the rainy woods, his hand resting openly on his weapon.
The triangle was formed. And the forest was about to get very, very hot.