KASPER
The knock split Kasper's skull like an axe—three sharp raps that sent ice flooding his veins and his hand snapping toward the KS23 before consciousness fully returned.
6 AM. Dead on the fucking dot.
Through sleep-crusted eyes, he caught the black Packard idling in the street, exhaust steaming in the morning chill like dragon's breath. Two suits on his porch, their posture screaming federal authority even from thirty feet away.
His enhanced hearing picked up Aldair's exoskeleton powering up in the next room—hydraulics hissing, servos whining under sudden load. Carmen's heartbeat spiked from sixty to ninety-two beats per minute. Isabella's wheelchair motors activated with their familiar electric whine.
His family. Awake and listening to their son get dragged away like some rabid dog.
"Kasper de la Fuente?" The taller suit had dead bureaucrat eyes and a smile like broken glass. "Bureau of Enhanced Individual Affairs. Time to discuss your reintegration status."
Kasper's tactical assessment kicked in automatically: two targets, probable sidearms, backup vehicle likely positioned on cross street, civilian collateral damage unacceptable, throat shots would drop them in—
He forced the calculations to stop. These weren't enemy combatants in Costa del Sol. They were government agents in his childhood neighborhood where Mrs. Rodriguez still hung laundry and kids played stickball in the street.
"What d'you want?"
"Standard psychological evaluation. All Costa del Sol veterans require assessment before civilian integration." The man's clipboard stank of fresh ink and government lies. "Forty-eight hours to report to San Juan facility. Non-negotiable."
The papers felt wrong in Kasper's hands—too new, too perfect, like they'd been printed yesterday instead of being standard government forms. His enhanced memory catalogued every detail while his conscious mind read the fine print: Failure to comply will result in immediate detention and evaluation of family members for potential security risks.
"Two days."
"Starting now." The shorter agent stepped closer, and Kasper caught the scent of expensive cologne mixed with gun oil. "Mr. de la Fuente, cooperation ensures your family's continued... privacy."
The threat wasn't even subtle. Kasper's fingers tightened on the papers until they crumpled.
After they left, Kasper stared at the evaluation notice until his vision blurred. Forty-six hours, fifty-three minutes. Not nearly enough time to get his family somewhere safe and come back to handle this properly.
Heavy footsteps. Aldair's exoskeleton frame filled the doorway, brass joints catching the morning light.
"Packing again?"
"They're not just threatening me." Kasper held up the notice, hands steadier than he felt. "Look at the fine print. Family members, potential security risks—they'll take all of you."
Aldair scanned the document with enhanced optics, his face darkening with each line. "Bureaucratic extortion."
"Effective bureaucratic extortion." Kasper yanked his duffel from the closet, the familiar weight of preparing for war settling on his shoulders. "I disappear tonight, problem fucking solved."
"You run tonight, problem gets worse." Aldair's brass joints creaked as he sat heavily on the bed. "Boy, what makes you think disappearing stops them from coming after us? After what we know?"
Kasper's hands went still on his tactical vest. "What we—"
"Your enhancement specs. Isabella's research. My military connections." Aldair's voice carried thirty years of earned paranoia. "We're not collateral damage, Kasper. We're the real targets."
The words hit like a kidney punch. Kasper dropped into his desk chair, the weight of realization crushing his chest like a collapsed building. All this time he'd been thinking like a soldier—protect the mission, eliminate the threat. But this wasn't a mission. This was a hunt, and his family were the prey.
"Then what—Cristo, what do I do?"
"You remember who you're protecting." Aldair stood, exoskeleton whining under the strain. "And you figure out how to win without running away from the fight."
Through the wall, Carmen's muffled sobs leaked through plaster and prayer. Forty-six hours to save his family or watch them disappear into government black sites where enhanced soldiers went to have their minds taken apart piece by piece.
Kasper reached for his pen and started writing contingency plans he prayed would stay theoretical.
CARMEN
Coffee sloshed over Carmen's knuckles as she read the Bureau notice for the fourth time, scalding liquid mixing with tears she couldn't seem to stop. The pain felt good—real and immediate compared to the nightmare unfolding around her.
Two days. Forty-seven hours and change before men in suits dragged her baby boy to some facility where enhanced soldiers went to vanish.
She'd seen it happen before. Rodriguez's son, back from the Pacific with shell shock that made him jump at car horns. Santos boy after the border fights, returned home missing three fingers and most of his sanity. Families got telegrams about "training accidents" and closed caskets that rattled when you shook them.
The kitchen door banged open hard enough to rattle the windows. Isabella wheeled in fast, her face white as hospital sheets and her hands shaking on the controls.
"Mami, we need to leave. Ahora mismo."
"¿Qué pasó, mija?"
"Found bugs in my workshop yesterday. Professional grade—they've been listening to us for weeks." Isabella's voice was wire-tight with barely controlled panic. "They know about my research, Aldair's contacts, todo. Everything."
Carmen's nursing instincts fired like artillery—assess, prioritize, act. Don't think about what you're losing, focus on what you can save.
"Where do we—"
"Tía Elena's place in Bayamón. Off the grid, no phone lines to tap, no neighbors to ask questions." Isabella pulled out a wrinkled list written in her careful engineer's script. "Three hours to pack and disappear."
"And abandon Kasper?"
"Kasper can handle himself. We can't." Isabella's voice cracked like breaking glass. "Mami, if they take us, we become leverage. They can force him to do whatever they want."
The logic was brutal and perfect. Run to save her son from choosing between family and freedom. Become refugees in their own country so he wouldn't have to become a government weapon.
"¿Camila?"
"Already called the paper. Emergency leave, driving up with Marco separately." Isabella's motors hummed anxiously as she fidgeted with her controls. "It's not perfect, but everyone stays breathing."
Carmen stared around her kitchen—seventeen years of memories, birthday cakes, scraped knees, the slow work of building a life that could be packed into three suitcases and abandoned in an afternoon.
"How long?"
"Until they find bigger problems. Or until Kasper figures out how to make them disappear permanently." Isabella's expression hardened to engineer-cold. "But we can't be here when they come back."
Car doors slammed outside. Carmen's heart jumped like a startled rabbit, but it was just the lechero making his morning rounds. Normal people living normal lives while hers exploded like a grenade in her chest.
"Start packing. Essentials only."
"What about—"
"I'll handle Kasper." Carmen folded the notice into her apron, feeling the paper's edges cut into her palm. "He won't like it."
"He'll hate it. But he'll understand." Isabella spun her wheelchair toward the stairs. "Family first, right?"
Carmen found him writing letters with military precision, each envelope addressed in his careful script. The sight made her throat close up—her baby boy preparing for war in his childhood room where she used to read him stories about brave knights and happy endings.
"Last will and testament?"
"Contingency plans." Kasper sealed another envelope without looking up. "If things go malo."
She sat on his bed, noting the packed gear, cleaned weapons, the man preparing for battle surrounded by model airplanes and baseball trophies.
"You can't fight the entire government, mijo."
"Watch me."
"And get killed. Get us all killed." She pulled out the crumpled notice, smoothing it against her leg. "This isn't Costa del Sol, Kasper. You can't solve everything with bullets."
"Then what do you suggest? Let them drag me off to some facility? Let them—"
"Run." The word tasted like poison in her mouth. "All of us. Tonight."
Kasper's head snapped up, his eyes wide with something between shock and betrayal. "Mami—"
"Isabella found surveillance equipment. They've been watching us for weeks, planning this." Carmen's voice strengthened with decision. "We disappear until this shit storm passes."
"I won't make you refugees in your own—"
"You won't make us anything. We're choosing." She stood, jaw set like concrete. "Pack light. We leave after dark."
"This is my fault. I brought this down on—"
"This is survival." Carmen moved toward the door, then paused. "Your family, your job to keep us safe, ¿verdad?"
Kasper stared at government threats and contingency letters, his enhanced mind probably calculating a dozen different tactical scenarios. But for once, the soldier would have to trust the mother.
"Where do we go?"
"Somewhere they won't think to look." Carmen's smile could cut steel. "Trust your mother to have backup plans, mijo."
MARCO
The newspaper hit Marco's lap like a slap—page three, small print that made his blood freeze in his veins:
Enhanced veterans require mandatory psychological evaluation following recent security concerns...
They were hunting Kasper like a rabid dog.
Marco struggled upright, his ribs screaming protest loud enough to make his vision blur. Through his hospital window, the de la Fuente house looked peaceful as a cemetery. No idea the storm already breaking over their heads like God's own wrath.
The telephone shrilled. Marco grabbed it before the first ring finished, nearly dropping the receiver when his damaged wrist protested.
"Marco?" Camila's voice was wire-tight with barely controlled panic. "Tell me you saw—"
"Page three. Government oversight." His throat still ached from Kasper's fingers, making every word feel like swallowing glass. "How long do we have?"
"Hours. Maybe less." Words tumbling fast like she was being chased by demons. "Isabella found bugs, surveillance, the whole thing's been orchestrated from the beginning."
Marco's mind raced through implications, connections, the chess game someone else had been playing while they fumbled around like children. "Where are you going?"
"Can't say. Phone's probably tapped by now." Her voice cracked like breaking stone. "Marco, I need you to warn your father. If they can't find us, they might—"
The line went dead with a click that sounded like a coffin closing.
Marco stared at the receiver, pieces clicking together like rifle bolts. The surveillance, fake evaluations, perfect timing—someone had been playing chess while they played checkers, and now both families were about to be swept off the board.
A knock rattled his door. Vincenzo entered carrying newspapers and wearing the expression Marco had learned to associate with family wars.
"Figlio mio, we need to discuss your girlfriend's brother."
"He's not the enemy, Papá."
"No?" Vincenzo settled into the visitor chair with careful movements. "The man who nearly killed you?"
"Someone wanted him to. This whole thing—" Marco gestured at his bandaged ribs, wincing as the motion pulled at healing wounds. "It's a setup. All of it."
"Explain."
"Think about it. Enhanced veteran with documented psychological issues attacks innocent civilian. Government steps in to protect public safety." Marco's voice grew urgent despite the pain. "But who reported the incident? Who made sure the right people knew about Kasper's capabilities?"
Vincenzo was quiet for a long moment, processing angles with the careful precision of a man who'd survived thirty years in a dangerous business.
"You believe we're being manipulated."
"I believe someone needs both families eliminated, and they're using the government to do their dirty work." Marco pushed himself straighter despite ribs that felt like broken glass. "Papá, if Kasper vanishes tonight and questions get asked—"
"They'll look at us first."
"Exactly." Marco reached for his father's hand with his good arm. "We need to help them."
"Or we need to disappear ourselves."
"No." Authority crept into Marco's voice, the tone of a man who'd learned hard lessons about consequences. "We find who's pulling the strings. End this before they finish whatever they started."
Vincenzo studied his son with something that might have been pride mixed with concern. "What do you propose?"
"Partnership. All of us against whoever's orchestrating this nightmare." Marco's jaw tightened with determination. "Because running just delays the bullet, and I'm tired of being someone else's pawn."
CAMILA
The newsroom hummed with deadline energy, but Camila couldn't focus past the clock above Rodriguez's desk. 6:47 PM. Three hours until her family loaded into Aldair's truck for a midnight drive to uncertainty.
If they made it that long without federal agents kicking down their door.
"De la Fuente!" Rodriguez's bark cut through her spiral like a knife. "Office. Now."
She followed him into the glass box that separated editors from the chaos of the newsroom floor. Rodriguez shut the door hard enough to rattle windows and make her jump.
"Federal agents were here. Hour ago." His voice stayed flat, professional, but she caught the tension in his shoulders. "Asking questions about your family. Specifically your brother's mental state and whether you've observed concerning behavior."
Ice settled in Camila's stomach like a lead weight. "What did you tell them?"
"Told them journalists don't discuss sources. Even family sources." Rodriguez moved to his window, looking out at the San Juan skyline where normal people lived normal lives. "But they're coming back. With subpoenas and probably handcuffs."
"How long do we have?"
"Tomorrow morning if we're lucky. Tonight if they're feeling aggressive." He turned back to face her. "Camila, what kind of trouble is your family drowning in?"
She could lie. Probably should lie. Protect Rodriguez and the newspaper from whatever shitstorm was about to break over their heads.
Instead, she told him everything.
When she finished, Rodriguez was quiet for a long moment, his editor brain clearly spinning through possibilities.
"Enhanced veteran oversight. Public safety." He shook his head slowly. "Christ, it's actually elegant."
"What is?"
"The frame job. Feed intelligence to bureaucrats about potentially dangerous enhanced individual. Find evidence of violent behavior." Rodriguez's voice carried grudging professional admiration. "Family runs rather than submit to evaluation, confirming their guilt. Government looks competent, family looks guilty, and whoever planned this gets exactly what they wanted."
"Which is?"
"Depends who benefits from discrediting enhanced veterans." Rodriguez opened his desk drawer, pulled out a thick manila folder. "Been making calls since the agents left. Very interesting pattern emerging."
Camila flipped through clippings, documents, interview notes. A systematic campaign targeting Costa del Sol veterans across multiple cities.
"Someone's building a database."
"Someone's building a hit list." Rodriguez's voice was grim as winter. "Question is why."
Before Camila could respond, the newsroom door exploded open. Isabella, wheelchair at maximum speed, her face flushed with panic and something that might have been fury.
"Camila! They moved the timeline up. Agents are at the house right fucking now!"
Through the office windows, black vehicles circled her neighborhood like vultures sensing fresh meat.
"How long ago—"
"Ten minutes, maybe less." Isabella's hands shook on her controls. "Mami and Aldair got out, but Kasper—"
"What about Kasper?"
"Stayed behind. Said someone had to answer their questions, buy us time to disappear." Isabella's voice broke like glass. "Camila, he's facing them alone."
Camila looked at Rodriguez, at evidence folders full of conspiracy, at her sister's tear-streaked face. Her family scattered like prey while her brother played rearguard against federal agents who might not be federal agents at all.
"Rodriguez, I need a favor."
"Name it."
"If we don't make it through this, publish everything. Make sure people know this wasn't random, wasn't some veteran having a breakdown." She grabbed the folder with both hands. "And pray to whatever saints are listening that we're all alive to read it tomorrow."
ISABELLA
The workshop felt like a mausoleum, heavy with the scent of burned circuitry and destroyed dreams.
Isabella sat in darkness, listening to footsteps overhead as agents tore through her family's house like locusts. Muffled voices, furniture scraping across floors, the systematic destruction of seventeen years of careful living.
Her kinetic charging system lay in pieces across the workbench—not from her research, but because she'd spent three hours methodically destroying anything useful to whoever orchestrated this nightmare. Twenty years of engineering work, reduced to scrap metal and the bitter satisfaction of denying her enemies the fruits of her labor.
Better to burn it all than hand over innovations that could be weaponized against innocent people.
Footsteps on the workshop stairs. Isabella's heart hammered against her ribs, but it was just Marco, moving carefully on damaged ribs and wearing determination like armor.
"Isabella? You down here? Jesus, what happened to this place?"
"Welcome to the aftermath." She powered up her chair's lights, illuminating the carnage around them. "Twenty years of work, gone in three hours."
Marco surveyed scattered components, burned research notes, evidence of desperate improvisation. His face cycled through shock, understanding, and something that might have been respect.
"How bad is the damage?"
"Total. All of it." Isabella's voice stayed steadier than she felt, engineer training keeping emotion locked down. "But better destroyed than stolen."
"I'm sorry you had to—"
"Don't be. It was always going to end this way." She gestured at the chaos with hands that barely trembled. "Someone's been planning this for months. Perfect timing, surgical precision—they knew exactly how to make us destroy ourselves."
Marco settled onto a work stool, wincing as his injuries protested. "My father's been watching the agents. Professional surveillance."
"Why would he—"
"Because he thinks we're being set up. All of us." Marco's voice carried grim certainty. "Question is by who."
Isabella's engineer brain began working connections, patterns, possibilities clicking together like gear teeth. "Someone with government access. Someone who benefits from enhanced veterans being discredited or eliminated entirely."
"Corporate interests?"
"Maybe. Or political." Isabella spun her wheelchair to face him directly. "Marco, what if this isn't about Kasper specifically? What if it's about all enhanced veterans?"
"Meaning?"
"Enhanced individuals are living weapons, but they're independent contractors. Don't answer to traditional military hierarchy." Isabella's voice grew urgent as pieces fell into place. "What if someone wants to change that? Bring them under direct government control?"
Marco was quiet for a moment, processing implications that made his face pale. "Using public fear to justify increased oversight."
"Create a few high-profile incidents, demonstrate the need for regulation, and suddenly every enhanced veteran becomes government property instead of free agents."
The workshop door opened with a creak. Vincenzo, flanked by two men Isabella didn't recognize but who carried themselves like professional killers.
"Miss de la Fuente. My son said I might find you here."
Isabella's hand moved instinctively toward the emergency alarm Aldair had installed, but Vincenzo raised his hands peacefully.
"We're not enemies. But we may be your only allies left breathing."
"What do you want?"
"To propose partnership." Vincenzo stepped closer, his presence filling the small space. "Someone's been playing our families against each other while setting up a much larger game. I suggest we find out who before they finish what they started."
Isabella looked at Marco, seeing desperate hope warring with uncertainty in his eyes.
"What kind of partnership?"
"The kind where we stop being victims and start being predators." Vincenzo's smile was all teeth and old menace. "After all, if someone wants to treat us like criminals, perhaps we should give them something to be properly afraid of."
Through the workshop ceiling, agents' voices faded as they finished their search. Phase one of someone's plan complete. Her family scattered, her brother marked, their entire life turned inside out like a butchered carcass.
But Isabella had spent her entire life solving impossible problems with insufficient resources and stubborn determination.
Time to get creative.
"What did you have in mind?"
VINCENZO
The situation had evolved far beyond simple family conflict.
Vincenzo stood in his study, surrounded by surveillance photographs, intelligence reports, and evidence that would impress his most paranoid associates. Someone had orchestrated a sophisticated campaign against both the de la Fuente and Moretti families, and they'd been playing chess while everyone else fumbled around with checkers.
"Timeline's crystal clear," he told his assembled lieutenants. "Six months of intelligence gathering, three weeks of active surveillance, two days of bureaucratic manipulation. Professional work."
"Government operation?" Torres, his security chief, leaned forward.
"Government resources, private direction." Vincenzo spread photographs across his mahogany desk. "The agents who visited the de la Fuente house this morning aren't from any Bureau of Enhanced Individual Affairs."
"How can you be certain?"
"Because I had my people check. BEI doesn't exist—never has." Vincenzo's finger traced connections on his wall map. "Someone with access to government vehicles, official documents, and detailed intelligence on enhanced veterans. But they're not actually federal agents."
"Corporate contractors?"
"Has to be. Someone who benefits from either controlling enhanced individuals or eliminating them entirely." Vincenzo's voice hardened with thirty years of earned suspicion. "Question is: do we let them finish their operation, or do we remind them why people respect the Moretti family name?"
The study door opened. Marco, moving under his own power but still favoring his injured side, flanked by the de la Fuente girl in her wheelchair. Both of them looked like they'd aged years in the past few hours.
"Papá, we need to talk."
Vincenzo dismissed his men with a subtle gesture, leaving the three of them alone in the study's oppressive silence.
"Miss de la Fuente. I trust our hospitality meets your current standards?"
"Your people probably saved my life tonight." Isabella's voice was steady despite everything she'd been through. "Those agents were prepared to drag me away for questioning about my technical work."
"Which brings us to an interesting crossroads," Marco said, settling into a chair with visible effort. "What happens next?"
Vincenzo moved to his liquor cabinet, pouring three glasses of aged rum despite Isabella's obvious youth. Tonight called for adult beverages and adult decisions.
"That depends entirely on your family's intentions. Planning to run indefinitely like rabbits? Or are you interested in a more... permanent solution to this problem?"
"Define permanent."
"We identify whoever orchestrated this campaign. We gather irrefutable evidence of their manipulation. And then we ensure they understand that targeting our families was a serious strategic error." Vincenzo handed them each a glass. "The question is: are you prepared for that level of commitment?"
Isabella and Marco exchanged glances—a moment of silent communication that spoke of shared desperation and growing trust.
"What would you need from us?" Isabella asked carefully.
"Access to your brother when he surfaces. Your technical expertise in analyzing their surveillance methods. And most importantly, whatever intelligence your family gathered about the situation in Costa del Sol." Vincenzo's expression grew serious. "Because I strongly suspect this operation has direct connections to interests your brother disrupted during his military service."
"And in return?"
"Protection for your family. Resources to fight back effectively. And when this nightmare ends, a guarantee that you can all return to normal life without fear of government harassment." Vincenzo raised his glass. "Assuming, of course, that we all survive the next few days."
Isabella stared at the rum, at Marco's bruised but determined face, at the man who controlled half of San Juan's illegal activity and was offering to make her family's problems disappear.
"If we do this, there's no going back."
"Miss de la Fuente, someone already made sure there's no going back." Vincenzo's voice carried thirty years of hard-earned wisdom about impossible choices. "The only question now is whether you face what's coming with allies or alone."
Through the study windows, San Juan glittered like scattered diamonds against black velvet. Somewhere in those lights, her family was hiding. Somewhere else, fake federal agents were planning their next move. And somewhere beyond her reach, the people responsible for this nightmare were congratulating themselves on an operation proceeding exactly according to plan.
Isabella raised her glass with a hand that barely trembled.
"To permanent solutions."
But even as the words left her mouth, something cold settled in her chest like winter ice. Because permanent solutions in Vincenzo Moretti's world usually meant someone ended up in a shallow grave.
And she was no longer completely certain they'd be the ones holding the shovels.