The world tilted.
Dominic's gaze was fixed on Daniel—the brother he had mourned, the ghost he had chased for years. Alive. Changed.
Daniel stood at the center of the underground chamber with an eerie calm. The shadows pooled around his figure like a second skin, his once warm brown eyes now cold and unreadable.
"I don't understand," Aria whispered, stepping toward him. "How are you—why are you—here?"
Daniel gave her a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Because I was never gone. Not really."
Dominic's voice was low, strained. "They said you were dead. I saw the blood."
"You saw what you were meant to see," Daniel replied. "Marlowe made sure of that. The video, the traces, the whispers of torture—they were all carefully crafted pieces of a narrative. One I agreed to… at first."
Aria's chest tightened. "You agreed to disappear?"
Daniel nodded. "We thought it was the only way. The only way to take WRAITH down from the inside. I volunteered. But it wasn't long before I realized... I wasn't infiltrating them."
He turned his gaze on Dominic. "I was becoming one of them."
Dominic took a step forward, jaw clenched. "You're not like them."
"Aren't I?" Daniel asked. "What makes you so sure?"
"Because you're my brother," Dominic said, his voice cracking for the first time in years. "Because I know who you were."
Daniel's smirk faded. "That man died in that warehouse."
Aria looked between them, her heart pounding. "This is what Marlowe does. He twists people. Breaks them. You're still Daniel Blackwood. You can still walk away from this."
Daniel's silence said everything.
Marlowe, watching from the back of the room, finally spoke. "He won't walk away. He chooses this. Just like you chose your empire, Dominic. You could have walked away. Instead, you built higher walls and deeper graves."
Dominic turned toward him. "You think you've won because you turned my brother against me?"
Marlowe raised an eyebrow. "I didn't turn him. I gave him the truth. You left him to rot."
"I searched for him!" Dominic roared.
"Not hard enough," Daniel cut in.
Silence slammed down.
A screen behind them lit up—security cameras showing the perimeter of the villa under siege.
Felix's voice came through Dominic's earpiece. "We've got incoming. Armed. Ten minutes tops."
Marlowe smiled. "You'll never make it out alive."
Dominic reached for his gun. "We'll see."
"Don't," Daniel said, stepping between them.
His weapon was already drawn.
Aimed at Dominic.
Aria stepped in front of Dominic without thinking. "Daniel, this isn't you."
Daniel's hand trembled.
And then—he lowered the weapon.
But it wasn't mercy.
It was strategy.
"I won't kill you," he said to Dominic. "Not yet. Because I want you to see what happens when everything you built turns to ash."
He turned to Marlowe. "Let them go."
Marlowe tilted his head. "You disappoint me."
Daniel's eyes didn't waver. "They're not the enemy. Not yet."
Dominic and Aria backed out of the room, steps slow, careful. But the tension didn't fade. It grew with every second, every echo of the coming attack.
They reached the service tunnel just as the first explosion rocked the facility.
Dominic looked back only once—and saw Daniel standing in the firelight.
Watching.
Waiting.
A ghost in his own skin.