463 She expected to surprise her daughter after months on a secret mission—but the woman forcing the little girl to kneel had no idea she was humiliating the true owner of everything she thought she possessed.

The torrential downpour over the neon-lit skyline of Bangkok hammered against the glass windows of an abandoned maritime warehouse on the city's outskirts. The air was thick with the scent of ozone, rusted iron, and old secrets.

Evelyn dropped silently from the rusted rafters, landing with absolute weightlessness onto the concrete floor below. Dressed in tactical matte-black armor beneath a heavy rain-slicker, she scanned the cavernous interior through her night-vision HUD.

The Lazarus Beacon had led her here—to a derelict shipping dock owned by a front company once run by Director Kross.

As she moved forward, her combat boots making zero sound against the wet concrete, the sharp crack of a lighter flared in the shadows near a stack of empty cargo containers.

"I knew the legendary Agent Ghost couldn't resist a Lazarus call," a gravelly voice echoed through the vast, empty space.

Stepping out from the gloom was a tall man wearing a trench coat, his face half-hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. As he stepped into the dim amber light of a flickering overhead bulb, Evelyn recognized him instantly: Viktor Vance—Marcus’s estranged older brother, a man who had supposedly vanished into the Siberian gulags a decade ago.

"Viktor," Evelyn said, her voice a calm, razor-sharp hiss. "I thought the Syndicate had buried you in a frozen grave years ago."

Viktor chuckled, a dry, coughing sound. He took a slow drag from a cigarette before tossing it into a puddle, where it hissed and died. "The grave was a bit too cold for my taste, Evelyn. And unlike my pathetic brother Marcus or that amateur Julian, I don't care about corporate titles or fancy mansions. I care about legacy. And you hold the master biometric key to the entire Syndicate grid."

"The grid was burned to ash," Evelyn replied, her pistol rising smoothly to lock dead center on Viktor’s chest. "There is nothing left for you here."

"Oh, but there is," Viktor smiled, his eyes gleaming with malicious satisfaction. He snapped his fingers.

From the shadows behind the containers, two armed mercenaries dragged forward a bound, gagged figure—a man in a battered intelligence uniform. Evelyn’s eyes widened slightly as she recognized Agent Miller, the very federal official who had helped her put Marcus away.

"Viktor, let him go. This is between you and me," Evelyn warned, her finger resting lightly on the trigger.

"It’s between all of us," Viktor sneered, pulling a heavy brass detonator from his coat pocket. "You see, Evelyn, you built a nice little life for yourself. You thought you could walk away from the blood and the code. But the blood is in your DNA. And either you hand over the sovereign master codes to me right now, or Agent Miller—and the GPS tracker currently locked onto your daughter's bedroom window back home—will become very, very unfortunate casualties."