MIKE
Maps were scattered on the table, red lines and markers dancing across cities like a trail of blood. Elena sat across from me, legs folded on the chair, eyes focused behind her glasses as she tapped furiously on her tablet.
"Tell me you found it," I muttered, leaning forward, elbows on my knees.
She glanced at me, then turned the tablet so I could see. A digital map of flight logs popped up. One name flagged in red:
LEON WINTERS — PRIVATE JET FLIGHT, DESTINATION: SICILY, ITALY.
My eyes narrowed.
"He actually went."
"He didn’t just go," Elena said, voice low. "He used a ghost alias tied to an old Alpha contact. Took off from a restricted airstrip just four hours after he decked you in HQ."
I leaned back in my chair, jaw tightening. Leon wasn’t just hiding something—he was moving with intent.
"Why Italy?" I asked. "What the hell is he chasing there?"
Elena hesitated, then tapped again. A new image came into focus—surveillance stills. One of them nearly made me sit up straight.
Siren.
"That’s from Palermo, thirty-six hours ago," Elena said. "Sources confirm she’s there. And so is another name we haven’t heard in a while..."
I looked at her.
"Samuel Meier," she said.
The pieces were falling into place too fast. Leon, Siren, Samuel—the same name the former Russian Don’s wife screamed about when their house was attacked.
"Elena…" I said slowly, brain connecting threads I didn’t want to believe, "Leon’s not just dealing with rogue assets. He’s in the center of this."
She nodded grimly.
"And Siren's watching. Waiting."
A chill ran through me. I knew Siren—her patience was a weapon. If Leon was trying to prove something by walking into Italy, he wasn’t just testing her. He was challenging her.
"We need to get ahead of this," I said, standing.
Elena already had her gear ready.
"I’ll start clearing the backdoors. If Leon's in Italy, he left digital footprints. Give me twelve hours."
I nodded.
"And I’ll find a way to reach someone on the ground." Because if Siren and Leon were about to collide…
…I needed to make sure we weren’t caught in the blast.
Elena had just slipped out of the safehouse to run her trace lines when the door slammed open with the fury of a gunshot.
"MIKE!"
I barely had time to turn.
Alfred.
He looked like hell—half-burned cigarette still clinging to his lips, jacket soaked with rain, eyes furious. He froze when he saw me sitting on the edge of the desk.
"You're supposed to be in the fking infirmary!"** he barked.
Before I could answer, he stormed forward, grabbed my collar, and slammed me against the wall so hard the maps fluttered from the table.
"Al—!"
"Shut up!" he growled, his breath hot with rage and panic. He shoved a photo inches from my face.
I blinked. It was Agent Rock—laughing. Standing beside him, half in shadows, was someone unmistakable.
Gray.
The photo was grainy, but real.
"You knew." Alfred’s voice dropped, rough and low like gravel. "You knew he was one of Siren’s. Just like Sian. Just like the others!"
"Why didn’t you tell me?" he asked finally, voice low but deadly sharp. "You knew Rock was one of Siren’s. How long have you known, Mike?"
I met his eyes.
"I had no choice."
"No choice?!" he spat, pointing at me like I’d betrayed him.
"You think I wanted this?!" I snapped back. "You think I enjoy walking around HQ pretending I don’t see the shadows crawling around me?!"
The silence thickened, only broken by the distant ticking of a broken wall clock.
I sighed heavily, stepping away and gripping the edge of the table.
"Alfred… it’s Siren." I turned to him again. "She’s not just a ghost. She’s power. Influence. Control. If I blew the whistle on Rock without hard proof, it would’ve been buried within the hour."
Alfred scoffed "You’re afraid."
"I’m calculating," I corrected. "Because the truth… might compromise more than just us. It could burn everything we’ve built. It could collapse what little trust is left in this agency."
Alfred turned his back to me, staring at the bullet-riddled map of Europe pinned on the corkboard.
Alfred was still pacing across the room, the veins on his neck taut with frustration. He turned to me, fingers twitching at his side.
"Then you have to tell Director Leo," he said firmly. "If Rock is compromised—if he's one of hers—Leo needs to know."
I remained quiet.
Alfred narrowed his eyes. "Mike—"
"I'm not sure whose side Leo's really on."
Those words dropped like bricks between us. Alfred stopped pacing.
"What are you talking about?"
I exhaled, rubbing the back of my neck.
"He knew things. About my father. About what happened in the past—and he’s been dodging my questions since. He shut me up, like someone else was listening."
Alfred frowned. "You think he’s working against us?"
"I think he’s working with someone. And I don’t know yet if that someone is with us or against us."
I pulled out my phone and quickly typed a message, then looked up.
"I’ve called someone I do trust."
"Who?"
"Patrick." I met his gaze. "I sent him the coordinates. He’s on his way here."
Alfred’s brow furrowed. "Can we really trust him?"
"I do." My tone was certain. "He’s clean. I've known Patrick long enough to bet my life on it. He’s not one of Siren’s. If there’s anyone who’ll help us without running to the wrong side—it’s him."
Alfred didn’t look convinced. He looked… tired.
"I want to believe that, Mike. But we’ve been burned too many times."
"I know," I nodded. "But if we keep doubting everyone, we’ll be alone in this—and that’s exactly how they’ll take us out."
There was a knock on the metal door—three short taps, a pause, then two.
I checked my phone. "That’s him."
Alfred reached for his gun instinctively, but I raised my hand.
"Relax. He’s not the enemy."
He didn’t lower the weapon, but he stood to the side, silent, as I walked to open the door.
The metal door creaked open, and Patrick stepped inside, then froze.
His eyes locked onto Alfred.
"Holy—" he breathed, his hand twitching near the side of his holster. "Alfred?"
Alfred stayed still, standing just beside the table where maps, pins, and photographs were sprawled. He didn’t say anything at first. Just observed Patrick carefully, almost as if reading him.
"Freya said you were dead," Patrick said, disbelief in his voice. "Or missing, at the very least. She’s been losing her mind trying to track you down. What the hell’s going on?"
Alfred finally moved—just a slow tilt of his head and a small sigh.
"And I want it to stay that way," he replied coolly. "Let Freya believe what she has to. I’m safer in the shadows. We all are."
Patrick’s brow furrowed. His gaze shifted between us before he closed the door quietly behind him.
"This place looks like a war bunker," he muttered, eyeing the scattered intel. "What exactly am I walking into here?"
I motioned for him to come closer, offering a seat, but he didn’t sit. He remained standing, eyes darting from photo to note to scribbled red lines and pinned names.
Then, after a long pause, Patrick spoke.
"There’s something you need to know—both of you," he said. His voice lowered, more serious than I’d ever heard it.
Alfred’s posture shifted slightly. Alert.
"Go on," I said.
Patrick glanced once more toward the door, as if ensuring it was shut tight. Then he leaned in.
"Siren is the Don."
Patrick’s words hung in the air like a gunshot.
I blinked. My breath hitched.
Alfred straightened slowly, the shock visible in the tightening of his jaw. He turned to me, eyes narrow, searching my face as if to see whether I already knew.
I didn’t.
"The Don?" I repeated quietly. "You mean... the Don of the Italian Mafia?"
Patrick nodded grimly. "The real one. The one pulling the strings for years. Not just some figurehead. he’s the head of the entire machine."
Alfred stepped back, visibly rattled. His voice was sharp when he asked, "And where the hell did you get that information?"
Patrick didn’t flinch. He pulled a small drive from his jacket and tossed it onto the table. It clinked against the wood.
"A leak from Interpol. But it was flagged CIA-classified before it even hit their system. This wasn’t a rumor. This came from an asset buried deep. Real deal."
My head was spinning.
Siren.
The woman who once worked under the same flag as us.
The one who now manipulated intel like a puppeteer with a hundred strings.
And now, apparently, the most powerful underworld figure alive.
I ran my hand down my face. "If Siren's the Don… and Leon is going to Italy to meet Samuel Meier…"
Patrick’s reaction was instant.
"That's a suicide."
Alfred turned sharply toward him. "What do you mean by that?"
Patrick met our eyes one by one, his voice low but intense.
"Italy isn’t just another turf war zone. It’s... something else. It operates like a single living organism. My contact in the CIA said when agents are deployed there without clearance from someone inside, they vanish. No traces. No bodies. Not even chatter. They're just... gone."
Alfred was listening now, fully. His arms folded tightly across his chest.
Patrick went on. "Italy’s syndicate is unified. The government, the ports, the streets, the underground—everyone moves in sync. Like they’re wired to the same mind. Siren’s mind."
He paused, then looked straight at me.
"They knew who we were the moment our boots hit the tarmac. The mafia there—it's not hiding in the shadows anymore. It owns them."
I swallowed hard.
"So you’re saying... we step into Italy uninvited, and we’re walking into our own graves."
Patrick nodded. "If Leon isn’t sanctioned or expected, he’s done. Unless…"
Alfred's voice cut in.
"Unless Siren wants him there."
We all fell silent again.
Patrick paced slowly toward the wall plastered with maps, red strings, blurry CCTV stills, and pinned notes scribbled in code. It was our war board—the visual anatomy of chaos we were barely beginning to understand.
He stopped in front of a photograph.
Patrick stared at her for a moment, brow furrowed, his posture tense with curiosity.
I could tell.
He didn’t know.
I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, Elena stepped forward from the shadows. She had been silently reviewing a file on her tablet, but now she stood beside Patrick and looked directly at the photo.
Her voice was casual, but her words dropped like stone.
"That’s her."
Patrick tilted his head slightly. "Who?"
"Siren," Elena answered simply.
A beat of silence passed. Patrick blinked. Once. Twice.
Then his face twisted—shock, then disbelief.
"Wait, what?" His voice climbed. "That’s… Siren?"
I stepped forward quietly, watching his eyes scan the photo again like it might morph into someone else if he stared hard enough.
"You didn’t know," I said, more of a statement than a question.
Patrick turned to me. "I thought Siren was a codename for some warlord in the Balkans or a deep-state ghost. Not…" he gestured toward the wall, "…her."
Elena raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. She doesn’t look like much, does she?"
Patrick let out a sharp breath, as if trying to recalibrate his entire understanding of the case. "She’s the most dangerous person alive and no one ever told me she was a woman?"
"That’s the point," I said. "Everyone made assumptions. And she used that."
Patrick ran a hand through his hair, muttering, "Jesus Christ…" before turning back toward the photo.
He stared for another moment, his voice lower this time. "She looks familiar… like I’ve seen her before."
I exchanged a glance with Elena, who stiffened slightly.
I narrowed my eyes.
"Where, Patrick?" I asked carefully.
Patrick turned away from the wall slowly, his eyes no longer scanning the photo of Siren. Now, they locked onto mine with unnerving clarity. He glanced briefly at Alfred—then back to me.
His jaw tensed. That casual energy he carried earlier was gone.
Now, he was all business.
"What are we doing?" he asked quietly, voice low but heavy. "Are we going against Siren… or against the Agency?"
His question hit like a loaded gun placed gently on the table.
Alfred stepped forward slightly, arms folded
But I held Patrick’s gaze.
I didn’t flinch.
"We’re going for the truth," I said.
Silence followed.
Patrick studied me, trying to see if there was more hiding behind those words—if I had picked a side already.
But I hadn’t.
Because there were no sides anymore.
"The truth," Patrick echoed softly, almost like he didn’t know what that word even meant anymore. "You sure it still exists, Mike?"
I swallowed hard and looked past him to the web of names and faces on the wall.
"It has to."
Alfred’s voice joined in, grim but grounded. "Because if it doesn’t… then everything we’ve done—everyone we’ve lost—meant nothing."
"Then I’m in," he said