Damian's eyes snapped open. The blinding white light of a private hospital room in Manhattan stabbed his retinas.

He ripped the IV needle out of the back of his hand. Blood dripped onto the pristine white sheets. The private doctor standing nearby let out a panicked gasp.

Mark, Damian's executive assistant, stepped forward, his face pale. He held out a tablet. "Sir, the extraction team found you in the cave just in time."

Damian ignored the tablet. His jaw was locked tight. "Did you find the girl? Jane."

Mark swallowed hard, sweat beading on his forehead. "Sir, we ran the name through every database in West Virginia. There is no Jane Smith in that region that matches her physical description."

Damian snatched the tablet from Mark's hands and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall. "It's a fake name," he snarled, his chest heaving.

He touched his chest. The strange, burning heat in his scar was gone, replaced by a dull ache. His eyes darkened with a violent mix of anger and obsession.

"Find her," Damian ordered, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Tear the state apart. I want that woman."

Four hundred miles away, outside a rusting trailer park in West Virginia, a black Maybach idled in the dirt.

Arthur, a man in a stiff suit, handed Helen a thick manila envelope. "The DNA results are conclusive," he said, his tone dripping with condescension. "You are a blood member of the Gallagher family of New York."

Helen stared at the name 'Fredy Gallagher' printed on the lab report. A cold, sharp smile cut across her face.

She didn't say a word. She turned around, walked into her cramped trailer, and grabbed a faded canvas duffel bag.

Hours later, the Maybach pulled through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Gallagher estate in Long Island.

Helen stepped out of the car. She wore cheap, faded jeans and a plain black t-shirt. She walked into the cavernous, marble-floored living room.

Eleanor, the matriarch of the family, sat rigidly on a velvet sofa. Her eyes raked over Helen with undisguised disgust.

"You smell like poverty," Eleanor said, her voice echoing in the quiet room. "It's practically baked into your skin."

Sylvia, Helen's stepmother, offered a tight, fake smile. Her eyes were hard and defensive.

Candice, her half-sister, stood by the fireplace in a custom couture dress, covering her mouth to hide a vicious smirk.

Helen didn't blink. She didn't look down at her clothes. She walked straight toward the sofa and stopped two feet from Eleanor, looking down at the older woman.

"I'm not here to beg for scraps," Helen said. Her voice was ice. "So drop the aristocratic act."

Eleanor's face turned a mottled purple. She gripped her pearl necklace. "You lack basic breeding!" she spat.

Helen let out a short, hollow laugh. She turned to the head butler standing frozen by the stairs. "Take me to my room."

The butler felt a sudden, terrifying pressure in his chest. Helen's eyes held a deadliness that made his knees weak. He bowed his head instantly and hurried up the stairs.

Behind her, Candice stomped her foot. "Mom, she's a feral animal! How can you let her talk to Grandma like that?"

Helen walked into the small, dusty guest room at the end of the hall. She shut the heavy oak door and locked it.

She walked to the window and stared down at the manicured lawns. Her eyes were pitch black.

"Everything you took from my mother," Helen whispered to the glass, her fingernails digging into her palms. "I'm going to rip it right back out of your hands."

Helen turned away from the window. She sat down on the edge of the stiff mattress and grabbed the remote, turning on the small television mounted on the wall.

A local news anchor was standing outside the National Museum in Manhattan. The banner at the bottom of the screen read: Exclusive Private Antiquities Exhibition Tonight.

The screen flashed to a B-roll of the artifacts. Helen's stomach dropped. Her pupils dilated.

Sitting on a velvet pedestal was an intricate, dark wood Lotus Box.

It was her mother's. Alverta had carried it everywhere before she vanished.

Helen dropped the remote. She unzipped her duffel bag and pulled out a heavy, encrypted micro-laptop. She booted it up, her fingers flying across the keys in a blur of motion, bypassing firewalls to access the Dark Web's auction ledgers.

The data loaded. An anonymous donor had transferred the Lotus Box to the museum's underground vault for the night.

Helen knew the truth. Hidden inside the false bottom of that box was the biological key her mother had died trying to protect.

She slammed the laptop shut. She wasn't going to let it sit in a vault.

By midnight, Helen was dressed in a skin-tight, light-absorbing black tactical suit. She pulled a black mask over her lower face.

She opened the guest room window. She slipped out into the cold night air, gripping the copper drainpipe. She slid down the three stories in seconds, her boots hitting the grass without a sound. She vaulted over the estate's stone wall and vanished into the shadows.

At 1:00 AM, Helen crouched on the roof of the National Museum.

She pried open an air vent and dropped into the dark, narrow shaft. She crawled until she reached the main security junction box. She plugged a small, black decryption drive into the port.

Lines of green code raced across her tiny wrist monitor. Ten seconds later, the infrared laser grid in the hallway below flickered and died for exactly three seconds.

Helen dove through the grate, hitting the marble floor in a silent forward roll before the lasers snapped back on.

She moved like a ghost, hugging the blind spots of the security cameras, descending toward the underground vault.

She reached the massive steel vault door. She pulled a pen-sized thermal laser from her belt and pressed it against the electronic lock. The metal hissed and melted. The heavy door clicked and slid open an inch.

Helen slipped inside. The vault was pitch black, save for the faint glow of emergency lights. In the center of the room, encased in bulletproof glass, sat the Lotus Box.

She pulled a diamond-tipped glass cutter from her pocket. As she raised her hand, her ears caught a sound.

A microscopic scuff of rubber on marble. Someone was coming through the secondary service door.

Helen aborted the movement. She melted into the deep shadows behind a towering Egyptian sarcophagus.

The service door swung open silently. Four men in black tactical gear fanned out into the room.

The man leading them was massive. His shoulders filled the doorway. He moved with a heavy, predatory grace that commanded the space.

The faint emergency light caught the sharp angle of his jaw. Helen's eyes narrowed behind her mask.

It was Damian Montgomery. The man she had drugged and left in the dirt.

Damian raised his hand, signaling his men to spread out. He was looking for something, his eyes scanning the glass cases.

Helen cursed silently. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her combat knife.

She had to get the Lotus Box out from under his nose without letting him see her face.

Damian's men moved toward the center display. One of them pulled out a heavy-duty plasma cutter and aimed it at the bulletproof glass protecting the Lotus Box.

Helen knew she had seconds. She reached into one of the small pouches on her tactical belt and pulled out a marble-sized smoke pellet.

She flicked her wrist, bouncing the pellet hard against the far wall near the ventilation grate. It popped with a sharp crack, releasing a thick, hissing cloud of white smoke.

Damian's men instantly raised their suppressed rifles, spinning toward the noise.

In that split second of distraction, Helen exploded from the shadows. She sprinted at the glass case, her laser pen already activated. She slashed it across the glass in a perfect circle. The glass shrieked and popped loose.

Damian whipped his head around. His eyes locked onto the slender figure in black.

"Take her down!" Damian roared. He lunged forward, his massive body closing the distance with terrifying speed.

Helen grabbed the Lotus Box. She sensed the rush of air behind her and violently twisted her torso.

Damian's heavy fist grazed her shoulder. The sheer force of the near-miss sent a shockwave of pain down her arm.

He didn't stop. He threw a brutal, military-style hook aimed at her head. Helen ducked under it, her body moving like water. She used his momentum against him, grabbing his wrist and twisting her hips to throw him.

Damian planted his feet, refusing to go down. He slammed her backward. Helen's spine hit the cold concrete wall with a bone-jarring thud.

Damian pressed his forearm against her collarbone, pinning her. Their bodies were crushed together in the dark. His hot, angry breath washed over her black mask.

In the violent struggle, Damian's heavy hand snagged against a small utility pouch on her belt, tearing the fabric. Immediately, a sharp, distinct scent of crushed pine and raw mountain herbs spilled into the suffocatingly close space between them. It was the exact same homemade paste the girl in the woods had rubbed on his chest.

Damian's pupils dilated. His heart slammed against his ribs. "Jane," he breathed, his voice thick with shock and rage.

Helen's stomach tightened. His senses were too sharp.

She didn't speak. She brought her knee up in a vicious, punishing strike, driving it directly into his wounded abdomen.

Damian let out a choked gasp. The pain was blinding. His grip on her collarbone loosened for a fraction of a second.

Helen spun out of his hold. She ripped a high-explosive flashbang from her vest, closed her eyes tightly, and smashed it against the floor between them.

The vault erupted in a blinding, searing white light.

Damian's men screamed, dropping their weapons to cover their eyes. Damian squeezed his eyes shut, tears of physiological pain leaking from the corners. Blinded, he reached out blindly, his fingers clawing at the air.

He caught a handful of fabric.

Helen didn't hesitate. She slashed her knife downward, severing the piece of her jacket he held.

When the spots finally cleared from Damian's vision, the vault was empty. The glass case was broken. The Lotus Box was gone.

Damian stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving. He looked down at his hand. His fingers were wrapped tightly around a jagged piece of black tactical fabric.

His jaw locked. The muscles in his neck strained against his skin. "Lock down every block in a five-mile radius," he growled to his groaning men. "Find her."

High above the street, Helen scrambled across the rooftops, the Lotus Box secured against her chest, racing back to the toxic Gallagher estate.