4

Jordan's black motorcycle tore through the dark streets, blowing past two red lights. The tires shrieked as she took a sharp corner.

She aggressively parked the heavy bike sideways, right in the middle of the red no-parking zone outside the NYPD's 75th Precinct in Brooklyn.

Jordan yanked the keys out of the ignition. She pulled off her helmet and spoke into the built-in mic, demanding Miles give her the exact details.

Through the encrypted channel, Miles spoke fast. Julian had been arrested because he tried to cover for a local street punk named Cody during a brawl.

Hearing that her brother stuck his neck out for a gangbanger, Jordan cursed him for being an absolute idiot under her breath.

She locked her helmet to the bike and pushed open the heavy glass doors of the precinct. The stale smell of cheap coffee and harsh bleach hit her nose immediately.

The lobby was pure chaos. Prostitutes, drug dealers, and angry victims packed the waiting area, screaming over each other.

Jordan ignored the noise. She walked straight past the crowd and stopped in front of the bulletproof glass of the duty desk.

A fat, exhausted white cop was staring down at a stack of paperwork. He didn't even bother to look up.

Jordan curled her knuckles and knocked hard on the marble counter. Three sharp, echoing cracks.

The fat cop snapped his head up, his face red with annoyance. He opened his mouth to yell, but the dead, freezing look in Jordan's eyes forced the words back down his throat.

Her voice was like ice. She gave him Julian Whitley's name and demanded the bail paperwork immediately.

The cop typed lazily on his keyboard. A mocking smirk spread across his face as he told her this was an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

He turned the monitor around. He pointed a thick finger at the bright red "BAIL DENIED" stamp on the screen, stating the case had already been transferred to Major Crimes.

Jordan's eyes narrowed dangerously. Her tactical brain spun. A basic street fight didn't get kicked up to Major Crimes this fast.

She instantly realized someone was using this case to set a trap, or Julian had stumbled into something much darker.

Without changing her expression, Jordan slipped her hand into her jacket pocket. She blind-typed an SOS command to Miles, ordering him to hack the precinct's intranet.

On the surface, she played the part of the arrogant rich girl. She leaned closer to the glass and coldly asked the cop if he was just looking for a bribe.

The fat cop slammed his hands on the desk and stood up. He pointed at her, warning her that this was a police precinct, not her daddy's country club.

Their argument drew the attention of the room. Several officers stopped what they were doing and started walking toward the duty desk.

Jordan's mind went to work. She calculated exactly how many seconds it would take to physically drop these cops and break her brother out of the holding cells.

Just as her muscles tensed for violence, the heavy electronic lock on the precinct's inner security door buzzed loudly.

A tall man wearing a dark grey trench coat walked out. He was flanked by two senior detectives who looked terrified of him.

The man's footsteps were slow, steady, and heavy. His leather shoes clicked against the terrazzo floor with a rhythm that commanded absolute submission.

Jordan's survival instincts screamed at her. She instantly abandoned her plan to attack the cops and turned her head toward the new arrival.

She recognized the imposing build and the overwhelming, predatory aura immediately. It was the exact same mysterious silhouette she had spotted watching her from the high-rise window near the manor earlier that night.

Blake Berry's deep, dark eyes cut through the crowded room. His gaze landed perfectly on Jordan's aggressive, tense face.

A brief flash of surprise crossed his eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by a bottomless, unreadable calm.

The fat cop saw Blake and instantly paled. His arrogant face morphed into pure submission as he stood at attention and nervously greeted, "Commander Berry."

Blake walked up to the duty desk. He didn't look at the cop. His eyes stayed locked on Jordan as his deep, low voice cut through the noise. "Are you having some trouble here?"

---

5

Facing Blake's sudden question, Jordan instantly pulled back her killing intent. She smoothed out her features, replacing her hostility with a cold, polite mask.

She looked straight into Blake's eyes. Her voice was perfectly steady as she stated she was just here to post bail for her younger brother, Julian Whitley.

Hearing the last name "Whitley," the corner of Blake's mouth twitched upward by a millimeter. It confirmed the intel Drew had just gathered.

Blake slowly turned his head to look at the fat cop. His eyes turned razor-sharp as he demanded to see Julian's case file.

Sweat dripped down the cop's forehead. His fingers shook over the keyboard as he stuttered out an excuse, explaining that Major Crimes had locked the file.

Blake let out a low, dismissive scoff. He reached right around the bulletproof glass and pulled the keyboard toward himself.

His long fingers flew across the keys, inputting a high-level security override code. The red "DENIED" on the screen instantly flashed to a green "APPROVED." The fat cop's jaw dropped.

Jordan watched Blake's hands closely. She memorized the complex rhythm of his keystrokes, silently calculating his security clearance level in her head.

Blake turned his back to the desk. He ordered the detectives behind him to bring Julian and the street punk named Cody out of holding immediately.

Jordan's eyes narrowed slightly. She was surprised that Blake was bailing out the gangbanger too. She studied the tall man with renewed suspicion.

Blake felt her gaze. He took a slow step forward, his massive frame casting a dark shadow over Jordan's body.

He leaned down. His breath brushed her ear as he whispered that Cody was his useless cousin, and bailing Julian out was just a convenient favor.

Alarm bells rang violently in Jordan's head. A high-ranking AEGIS Commander having a street thug cousin in Brooklyn? It was a blatant lie.

She kept her face completely blank. She took a small step back and offered a dry, emotionless, "Thank you for your generosity, Commander Berry."

Blake's eyes darkened when she used his exact title. He tilted his head slightly and asked how she knew his name.

Jordan pointed a slender finger at the body camera on the fat cop's chest. She lied smoothly, saying she heard the officer say it earlier.

Blake didn't expose her terrible lie. He just nodded slowly, a dark, knowing look swimming in his eyes.

The heavy iron door to the holding area buzzed open again. A bruised and battered Julian was shoved out, alongside a terrified-looking Cody.

Julian saw Jordan standing there. His shoulders slumped, and he looked down at his shoes like a guilty child. "Hey, Jordan," he mumbled.

Jordan closed the distance in three strides. She grabbed Julian's chin roughly, tilting his face to the light to inspect the purple bruises on his cheek. Her eyes turned freezing cold.

She slowly turned her head and shot a lethal glare at Cody. The street thug physically shrank back, terrified of the aura radiating from her.

Blake walked up to Cody. Without a word, he kicked the thug hard in the shin, harshly scolding him for causing trouble again.

Cody winced in pain but didn't dare fight back. He just kept his head down and mumbled, "Sorry, cousin."

Jordan watched this bizarre family dynamic play out. The knot of suspicion in her chest pulled tighter.

Blake turned back to Jordan. He reached into his dark trench coat and pulled out a thick, black cardstock business card. He held it out to her.

The card was completely blank except for his name, Blake Berry, and a private phone number. No agency logo. No rank.

Blake's voice was smooth as velvet. He told her that if Julian ran into any more trouble, she could call him directly.

Jordan hesitated for a fraction of a second. But refusing would draw more suspicion. She reached out and took the card.

As she pulled it from his grip, her fingertips brushed against his knuckles. A sharp jolt of static electricity snapped between their skin.

Both of them froze. They looked up at the exact same time, their eyes locking in a heavy, suffocating clash of tension.

Jordan quickly pulled her hand back. She shoved the card into her pocket, grabbed Julian by the arm, and walked out of the precinct without looking back.

---

6

After dropping a silent, guilty Julian off at his apartment near NYU, Jordan rode her motorcycle down to Lower Manhattan.

She walked down a dark, graffiti-covered alleyway. The air smelled of rotting garbage and damp brick. She stopped in front of a rusted door disguised as an abandoned dry cleaner.

Jordan punched a long, complex sequence of numbers into the hidden keypad on the brick wall. The heavy steel door slid open without a sound.

The heavy, vibrating bass of electronic music and the sharp stench of cheap alcohol swallowed her instantly. This was a speakeasy, strictly for the underground world.

Jordan ignored the sweaty bodies grinding on the dance floor. She walked straight to the back stairs and headed up to the deepest VIP room on the second floor.

She pushed the door open. Miles was sitting in the dark, surrounded by glowing monitors, his fingers flying across a mechanical keyboard.

Miles saw her walk in. He tossed his empty energy drink can into the trash and groaned, complaining that her stunt at the precinct almost gave him a heart attack.

Jordan walked over to the private bar. She poured herself three fingers of straight vodka and downed it in one burning gulp to suppress the irritation in her chest.

She slammed the empty glass down on the glass table. She cut straight to the point, demanding to know the location of the rare medical sample she needed.

Miles's face dropped. He turned one of his monitors around so Jordan could see the screen.

The screen displayed a highly encrypted dark web auction ledger. The transaction amount was in the tens of millions of dollars.

Miles swallowed hard. He reported that the R-7 sample-the exact compound Jordan needed to synthesize the neurotoxin antidote for the dying patient in her mother's ruby pendant-had just been bought out from under them.

The temperature in the room plummeted. Jordan's eyes turned as cold and precise as a surgical scalpel. A non-human, absolutely rational, and terrifyingly clinical aura flooded her veins.

Her voice was dangerously quiet. She asked who had the guts to outbid her on the dark web for something she had already claimed.

Miles pulled up a complex web of shell companies. He traced the money back to a massive corporate entity: The Prometheus Institute.

Hearing that name, Jordan's jaw tightened. Prometheus was globally respected in the medical field, but she knew they ran illegal human trials in the shadows.

She let out a cold laugh. She mocked the so-called geniuses at Prometheus, stating they wouldn't know how to stabilize the R-7 sample even if they had a hundred years.

Miles looked terrified. He warned Jordan that Prometheus had military-grade security backing them up. He begged her not to do anything crazy.

Jordan walked over to the tinted window, looking down at the dark alley below. Her brain was already mapping out tactical entry points for a breach.

She turned her head. She ordered Miles to get her the architectural blueprints and the guard rotation schedules for Prometheus's underground New York lab within forty-eight hours.

Miles let out a loud groan, claiming it was a suicide mission. But under Jordan's freezing stare, he slowly nodded and started typing.

With the mission set, a wave of pure exhaustion hit Jordan. The international flights, the family drama, and the precinct had drained her physical reserves.

She rubbed her temples. She picked up her leather jacket from the sofa, ready to go back to her apartment and crash.

Miles suddenly called her name. He tossed a tiny, encrypted earpiece across the room. Jordan caught it effortlessly.

He warned her that the handlers from her former, highly classified employers had been asking around the dark web for her. He told her to watch her back, knowing those people never let a rogue asset walk away easily.

Hearing the veiled threat regarding her old life, a complex shadow passed over Jordan's eyes-a mix of deep dread and buried pain.

She slipped the earpiece into her pocket. She gave Miles a tight nod, muttered "I know," and walked out of the room.

The cold night wind hit her face as she left the bar, clearing her head slightly. She hailed a yellow cab to take her back to the Upper East Side.

Sitting in the back of the cab, Jordan closed her eyes. But instead of sleep, her mind kept flashing back to the dark, bottomless look in Blake Berry's eyes at the precinct.

The cab pulled up smoothly to her luxury penthouse building next to Central Park. She paid the driver and stepped out, unaware of the new problem waiting for her upstairs.

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