The morning fog still clung to the cracked highway leading into Pine Creek. A sudden, violent shudder ripped through the chassis of the black Maybach. The engine gave a pathetic metallic grind and died.

Pierce slammed his fist against the dashboard. “Dammit! There’s zero cell service out here. Nothing.”

In the back seat, Graham pushed his door open and stepped out onto the gravel. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his dark suit jacket pulling tight across his back. His sharp jaw was set, dark eyes scanning the desolate landscape without a flicker of panic.

Pierce scrambled out, staring at the white smoke pouring from under the hood. “We are going to miss the briefing tonight. In this godforsaken wasteland.”

Graham didn’t look at him. He raised his right hand, thumb finding the heavy black ring on his pinky finger. He twisted it once.

“There are fresh tire tracks heading two miles up the road,” he said, voice low and steady. “There’s a shop.”

They started walking. Loose gravel crunched under their Italian leather shoes. Dust coated the expensive leather immediately.

They rounded a sharp bend. A dilapidated corrugated iron structure came into view. Faded, aggressive graffiti covered the walls.

Pierce pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You think some backwoods hick in that dump can fix a V12 engine?”

Graham ignored him and walked straight toward the half-open rolling metal door. The sharp clank of metal hitting metal echoed from inside.

They stepped into the dim, dusty interior. The air smelled of rust and old gasoline.

Graham’s eyes adjusted to the shadows. He stopped.

Ten feet away, someone was lying flat on a mechanic’s creeper, slid halfway under the chassis of a lifted truck. Grease-stained cargo pants. Long, straight legs bent at the knees, coiled with a raw strength.

The metallic clanking stopped.

With a swift, fluid motion, the creeper rolled out from under the truck. Allison sat up.

Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, streaks of grease smeared across one sharp cheekbone. Her eyes were cold, calculating, and completely empty of welcome.

Pierce froze. His mouth opened slightly. He hadn’t expected to find a girl in a place like this—let alone a girl with a face that striking, carrying an aura that felt like a loaded gun.

Graham’s gaze dropped to her right hand. She was casually gripping a heavy-duty wrench. His eyes narrowed. He could smell it on her—not just grease, but the faint, metallic scent of blood and adrenaline.

Pierce recovered his composure and plastered on his signature playboy smile. He took a step forward. “Hey there. Is the boss around?”

Allison didn’t blink. She tossed the heavy wrench onto a metal table. It landed with a loud crash.

“Get out,” she said. One word. Flat and sharp.

Pierce’s smile vanished. He choked on his next breath, completely thrown off. His charm usually worked like magic. Here, it hit a brick wall.

Graham stepped forward, smoothly placing himself in front of Pierce. His presence instantly dominated the cramped space.

“Our car broke down,” Graham said. His voice was deep, carrying the weight of a man used to giving orders. “Name your price.”

Allison finally shifted her gaze to Graham.

Their eyes locked. The air in the garage tightened.

She took in the perfect cut of his suit, then her eyes flicked to his left wrist. A limited-edition Patek Philippe. A walking ATM.

She picked up a filthy rag and slowly wiped the grease from her fingers. The corner of her mouth twitched upward in a mocking smirk.

“Five figures. Cash. Upfront.”

Pierce let out an angry laugh. “Five figures? For a backwoods mechanic?” He reached into his jacket for his black card.

Graham raised a single hand. Pierce stopped dead.

Graham reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a thick stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills. He walked to the greasy metal table and slammed the cash down.

Allison stared at the money. Her heart rate didn’t change, but her mind calculated quickly. She needed untraceable cash to grease the wheels for her return to Aethelgard.

She swept the stack into her pocket without a word of thanks.

She snapped her fingers. Ricky jumped from the shadows in the corner.

“Take the rig. Go get their car.”

Ricky scrambled out the door, fired up the rusted tow truck, and peeled out of the lot.

Silence fell over the garage.

Graham walked over to a half-assembled motorcycle sitting on a stand. His eyes traced the exposed exhaust pipes.

“The welding on this manifold,” Graham said casually, not looking at her, “is professional-grade racing spec. Not something you learn in a small-town shop.”

Allison’s spine went rigid. The muscles in her arms tightened.

She moved fast, stepping directly between Graham and the bike. Her chest was inches from his arm.

“Don’t touch my things,” she warned, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Or I’ll break your fingers.”

Graham looked down at her. She was glaring at him like a cornered leopard. He didn’t feel insulted. Instead, something dark and fascinated sparked in his chest. This girl was a puzzle. And he was going to rip it apart piece by piece.

The screech of the tow truck’s brakes shattered the silence. Ricky violently backed the rig into the center of the garage and dropped the Maybach onto the concrete with a heavy thud.

Pierce winced. “Hey! Watch the undercarriage, you animal!”

Allison ignored him. She grabbed a heavy black toolbox and walked to the front of the luxury car. She didn’t bother looking for the hood release inside. She shoved her fingers under the edge and forced it up.

A massive cloud of boiling white steam exploded from the engine bay.

Allison didn’t flinch. She didn’t step back. She let the scalding mist wash over her face, her expression completely dead.

Graham stood three yards away, arms crossed over his chest. His dark eyes locked onto her, tracking every tiny movement of her hands.

She pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves and plunged her hands into the burning, complex maze of V12 engine wiring. Her fingers moved with terrifying speed, navigating the components like she was playing a piano.

Ten seconds later, she pulled her hands out.

“The ECU overloaded,” she said coldly. “It locked the fuel injection system.”

Pierce scoffed, throwing his hands in the air. “You didn’t even hook up an OBD scanner! You expect me to believe you diagnosed a computer failure by looking at it?”

Allison didn’t waste breath answering. She reached into her toolbox and pulled out a massive, solid steel hammer. She weighed it in her hand.

Pierce’s eyes bulged. He lunged forward. “Are you out of your mind? Put that down!”

Allison didn’t look at him. She swung her arm back. The heavy hammer sliced through the air, missing Pierce’s nose by an inch. He stumbled backward, heart hammering.

Without hesitating, she brought the hammer down with brutal force.

CRASH.

The steel head smashed into a pristine metal shielding plate deep inside the engine bay. The plate shattered, exposing a cluster of melted, blackened wires hidden underneath.

Pierce stared at the burnt wires, mouth hanging open. He was completely speechless.

Graham’s breath caught. A jolt of pure shock hit him. His top engineers in Washington needed hours and a million dollars in diagnostic equipment to find a fault like that. She found it in ten seconds. By instinct.

Allison dropped the hammer. It clattered against the concrete. She grabbed a pair of wire cutters and a spool of thick copper wire.

She started stripping the wires with her bare hands and twisted the copper together, bypassing the burnt circuits in a crude, violent hotwire. Sparks flew, biting into the skin of her wrists. She didn’t even blink.

Three minutes later, she ripped a piece of electrical tape with her teeth and wrapped it tight. She stepped back.

She looked at Ricky and jerked her chin toward the driver’s seat. “Start it.”

Ricky swallowed hard, opened the door, slid in, and pushed the ignition button.

The Maybach’s engine turned over instantly, settling into a smooth, powerful purr.

Pierce walked around the front of the car, eyes wide. He checked the dashboard. No warning lights. He stared at the smooth hum of the engine, his initial rage dissolving into dumbfounded awe. He had never seen anyone bypass a fried ECU with bare hands and a hammer. He looked back at the girl, a newfound reverence replacing his arrogance.

Allison peeled off the rubber gloves and threw them on the bench. She walked straight up to Graham and held out her hand, her palm stained with fresh motor oil.

“Double the price.”

Graham looked at her hand, then up to her face. The sheer audacity made the corner of his mouth twitch upward.

He reached into his jacket again and pulled out another stack of bills. Instead of dropping them into her hand, he pressed the money firmly into her palm.

His thumb deliberately brushed against her skin. He felt the thick, hard calluses at the base of her fingers. Calluses that didn’t come from turning wrenches. They came from holding weapons.

Allison jerked her hand back like she had been burned. Her eyes flashed with pure murder.

“Watch your hands,” she hissed.

Graham held his hands up in mock surrender, but his eyes were entirely serious. “Skills like that are wasted in a place like this.”

Allison shoved the money into her pocket. “None of your business. The car runs. Get out.”

Pierce stepped forward, his tone shifting into genuine, almost desperate respect. “Seriously, what’s your name? If this thing breaks down again, I’m calling you.”

Allison turned her back to them and waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder. She didn’t give them a name. She didn’t give them a look.

Graham got into the back seat of the Maybach and rolled down the tinted window, his eyes burning into her retreating back.

As the car pulled out of the dirt lot, Graham pulled a heavily encrypted satellite phone from his pocket and dialed a secure line.

“I want everything,” he ordered, voice cold and absolute. “Pull the background on the owner of the Pine Creek garage. Every breath she’s ever taken.”

The bell above the clinic door let out a pathetic, rusty jingle.

Allison pushed through the entrance, the heavy scent of bleach and rubbing alcohol hitting her lungs. She walked straight down the narrow hallway, her boots silent on the linoleum floor.

Dr. Alistair Cromwell looked up from his microscope. His white hair was a mess. When he saw her, the deep wrinkles on his forehead pulled into a harsh frown.

Allison didn’t wait for him to speak. She shrugged off her heavy jacket, tossed it onto a plastic chair, and rolled up the sleeve of her black t-shirt, exposing her pale left wrist.

The black band secured to her skin was pulsing with a faint, steady red light.

Alistair grabbed a specialized digital thermometer from his desk and pressed the metal tip hard against her carotid artery. He stared at the digital readout. The blood drained from his face.

“You’re abusing the suppressants again,” he snapped, his voice shaking with anger. “Your core temp is lethal. You keep this up, your heart will stop before you hit twenty.”

Allison’s eyes were completely empty. “I’m going back to Aethelgard. I don’t have time to sleep it off.”

Alistair let out a heavy, defeated sigh and walked to a locked filing cabinet. “Speaking of Aethelgard... one of your old contacts from Langley sent a ghost signal. He intercepted chatter on the dark web. Partial coordinates for an abandoned lab tied to the 319 Project.”

The air in the room instantly dropped ten degrees.

Allison’s eyes darkened. A suffocating, violent energy rolled off her body. Her chest tightened so hard she couldn’t breathe.

She snatched the slip of paper from Alistair’s hand before he could even offer it and shoved it deep into her pocket.

“Stop digging, Alistair,” she warned, her voice a low, terrifying rasp. “If they trace you, you’re dead.”

Alistair didn’t argue. He opened a small refrigerated lockbox and pulled out a glass vial filled with a glowing blue liquid. There was no label. He handed it to her.

“Only if you are dying,” he said strictly.

Allison took the vial, slid it into the hidden pocket inside her jacket, and turned and walked out without another word.

She pushed the front door open, stepping out into the bright afternoon sun.

Her peripheral vision caught a flash of black metal.

She stopped and slowly turned her head. Parked at the end of the street, half-hidden in the shadow of an old oak tree, was a black SUV. It looked ordinary, but Allison’s eyes locked onto the license plate.

A cold smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth. He came back.

She didn’t run. She didn’t hide. She walked with slow, deliberate steps straight across the street, heading directly for the driver’s side window.

Inside the SUV, Pierce saw her coming. Panic flared in his chest. His hand instinctively dropped to his waist, fingers brushing the grip of his concealed Glock.

“Don’t move,” Graham commanded from the back seat, his voice sharp.

Allison reached the SUV and slammed her palm flat against the roof. She leaned down, putting her face inches from the tinted glass. The window slowly rolled down.

She stared right past Pierce and locked eyes with Graham in the back.

“Federal Government internal sequence,” Allison said, her voice dripping with boredom. “That plate prefix belongs to the D.C. motor pool.”

Pierce’s jaw dropped. His hand froze on his gun. That was classified information.

Allison didn’t stop. She shifted her gaze to Graham’s chest. “And that slight bulge under your left lapel? Secret Service standard-issue tactical holster. You’re printing.”

Graham’s eyes widened a fraction. His heart gave a hard, sudden thump.

“And the red clay on the bottom of your shoes,” Allison continued, her tone mocking. “You only find that specific soil composition near Quantico. So unless you went hiking in a restricted military zone for fun...”

She stood up straight and slapped the roof of the car twice.

“Stop playing spy games in my town,” she sneered. “You suck at it.”

She turned around and walked away, posture relaxed, completely unbothered by the fact that she had just humiliated two highly trained operatives.

Pierce swallowed hard, his throat dry. “Who the hell is she? Is she an enemy asset?”

Graham stared at her retreating back. His blood was rushing in his ears. A dark, obsessive heat spread through his chest. “Spies don’t blow their cover to prove a point. She’s something else.”

Graham’s encrypted phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down at the screen.

It was the report from his intelligence division.

SUBJECT: PINE CREEK GARAGE OWNER.

STATUS: S-CLASS ENCRYPTION. ACCESS DENIED.

Graham stared at the flashing red warning. He slowly twisted the black ring on his pinky finger. A slow, dangerous smile spread across his face.

“Cancel the flight to Washington,” he ordered. “We’re staying.”