The night was silent—too silent. Even the hum of city lights seemed to hold its breath. Inside a safehouse deep in the industrial outskirts of Estera, Ash stared at a wall of maps, screens, and blinking nodes. His coat lay across a chair, damp from the earlier rain, and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing scars like cracked marble up his arms.

Reina entered quietly, carrying a tray with two cups of strong black coffee. “You haven’t rested,” she said, offering him a cup.

“I don’t sleep well,” Ash replied, accepting the drink with a ghost of a smile. “Not when I know he’s out there.”

She didn’t need to ask who he meant. The name “Solomon” hadn’t left anyone’s lips since their last mission. It didn’t need to. His presence was like fog—cold, heavy, always creeping closer.

---

The Trap They Couldn't See

Arlo tapped away at a tablet, cross-referencing satellite patterns and communication logs. “He’s moving,” he said. “Signals bouncing between safe channels and the Black Line grid. This guy’s a ghost.”

Ash leaned over his shoulder. “He’s not trying to hide. He wants us to follow. He’s baiting us.”

“Then we don’t take the bait,” Reina said firmly. “We go silent, recalibrate, wait for an opening.”

Ash shook his head. “No. We let him think we’ve taken it. But we flip the board under his feet.”

---

Planning the Ghost Move

Later that night, the team gathered around a holographic projection table. Ash stood at the head like a conductor.

“He’ll expect direct confrontation,” Ash explained. “But what he fears… is silence. We'll pull a classic Dagger Twist—Operation Ashen Web. We infiltrate the Net Node Tower in Rellion, reroute his communications, and drop a false data packet mimicking a security breach. He’ll overcorrect, send men, expose their base.”

Kade, their tech operative, raised an eyebrow. “And what if he doesn’t fall for it?”

“Then we’ll know something worse—he’s watching us from closer than we thought.”

---

The Infiltration Begins

Two nights later, under a veil of clouds, Ash and Reina descended into Rellion’s underground tunnel grid. They moved with grace—like shadows cutting through darker shadows.

The Net Node Tower loomed above ground, a mass of antennae and encrypted servers. They slipped past biometric locks and neural scan sensors, aided by Kade’s remote interference.

Reina whispered, “You always make breaking into fortified networks look like a dance.”

Ash smiled faintly. “I prefer ballet to war.”

Inside the server room, Kade’s voice crackled in their comms. “Drop complete. Packet sent. Solomon will see it in under five minutes.”

---

When Plans Break

The building trembled.

Alarms didn’t scream—they whispered. Lights flickered red. Reina’s fingers tightened on her pistol.

“He knew,” Ash muttered. “He was waiting.”

The exits locked down. Above them, footsteps. Many. Heavy. Armed.

Ash looked to Reina. “We fight smart. You take lower levels. I’ll deal with the floor above.”

“No,” she said, stepping in front of him. “We’re a team, remember?”

He met her eyes. For a second, his coldness cracked. “Alright. Together.”

They moved like fire and wind. Reina disabled the stair sentries with her EMP blade while Ash used stun darts to disable enemy tech units. They reached the rooftop just as a stealth chopper approached.

“I called in backup,” Arlo said over comms. “You’ll need it.”

---

A Face from the Fire

As they lifted off the tower, Ash spotted him.

On the next rooftop, silhouetted against the flames, stood Solomon. No longer hidden. No longer dead.

Ash's breath caught.

Solomon raised a hand in mock salute… and vanished into smoke.

---

The Aftermath

Back at base, silence hung like a curtain. Kade patched data. Arlo paced. Reina sat beside Ash, both drained.

“He’s leading us somewhere,” Ash said finally. “This wasn’t a test. It was a warning.”

“What do we do?” Reina asked.

Ash looked up, a strange calm in his eyes. “We walk into the storm.”