He didn’t say a word for days. Not because he was being strong, but because his brain hurt. Words came in fragments now. Memory smeared like fog on a window.
Two women cleaned him up, shaved his head and strapped him to the chair again, same room, same light. His head was slumped forward, mouth dry, heartbeat a fast, mechanical drum.
The door opened. Not the handlers. Not the masked enforcers. This time—it was her.
Monroe.
She entered with no urgency, no weapon. Just the quiet arrogance of someone who believed she had already won. She pulled up a chair and sat across from him. Close. Too close.
“You look tired.”
He blinked slowly but didn’t respond.
“I imagine you’ve been asking yourself the wrong questions,” she continued. “You’ve been clinging to your identity. To memory. But those things… they’re fragile. Weak. They break like glass.”
She leaned in, voice lowering. “You want to know who you are?” she whispered. “You’re a product. And your expiration date just got pushed back because we found a new use for you.”
She reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out a photo. It slid onto the silver table in front of him. Charlotte. Not a surveillance image. Not a file photo. A live shot. Recent.
Alex’s breath hitched—barely. But Monroe caught it.
“There he is,” she murmured, smiling faintly. “The last piece of the old you. Still clinging to her.”
Alex tried to speak. His voice cracked, rough and broken. “Don’t?—”
“Don’t what?” Monroe cut him off. “She’s part of this. She always was. And Elias… Elias made sure he’d pull her back in.”
She stood, slipping the photo back into her coat. “Forget who you were,” she said. “Because, soon, you’ll be who we need you to be. And when that time comes… she’ll be the one standing in your way.”
The door hissed shut behind her. What was left of him was alone again. But this time, something in him fought the darkness. Not because he remembered who he was. But because of who they’d threatened.
Day Five after Alex’s Disappearance
The front door opened before Ethan could even knock.
Tristan stood there, sleeves rolled up, tie undone, a drink still in his hand. “She’s out back. She’s been waiting for your call.”
Ethan nodded once, his jaw tight. “Thanks.”
He stepped inside the house—warm, quiet, polished in that way Tristan and Sophie always kept it, like nothing could ever go wrong inside. But tonight, it felt off. The air was too still, the lights too soft.
He found Charlotte on the enclosed patio, sitting alone with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a half-drank cup of tea on the table beside her. She looked up the second she heard him.
Her eyes were tired. Alert. Guarded. “Ethan.”
“Hey,” he said, stepping out into the cold. “I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”
She sat up straighter. “Anything?”
He didn’t soften it. “I’m sorry. Nothing.”
Charlotte froze. Her mouth parted like she was about to speak, but nothing came out. Her hands tightened around the blanket.
Ethan continued, tone sharper now, “We’ve got a dead signal, no digital footprint, and a perfect blackout from the moment he left your house. No pings. No comms. No trace.”
Charlotte swallowed. “He was meeting a contact. He said—he said he’d come back here.”
“He didn’t.”
