The first sign that Max Fitzpatrick’s life was about to shatter wasn’t the late-night phone call, or the strange looks, or even the way the air in their Alexandria, Virginia kitchen suddenly felt staged—like a set built to convince him he was safe. It was the way his wife’s smile didn’t reach her eyes when she set his coffee down, fingertips brushing his shoulder with practiced warmth, the kind of affection that looked perfect from a distance and felt… almost measured up close.

Max had always trusted what he could build with his hands. That was the whole point of leaving Army intelligence behind. In the military, you learned to live inside doubt. You learned that certainty was a luxury, and that “normal” was something people pretended existed. Architecture was supposed to be cleaner. Honest lines. Honest loads. A structure either stood or it didn’t.

At thirty-five, Max was thriving—Alexandria address, a respected firm that specialized in adaptive reuse, a reputation for making old things useful again. He loved the poetry of it. You didn’t have to throw away the past; you could reinforce it, reframe it, turn it into something that held.

Across the breakfast table, his son Jay—eight years old, sharp as a tack, the kind of kid who asked questions that made adults pause—was stacking blocks into a lopsided tower that somehow refused to fall. Jay had Max’s eyes and Max’s mind, always testing the rules of the world like they were math problems waiting to be solved.

“Dad,” Jay said without looking up, “can buildings think?”

Max glanced over the rim of his mug, amused. “Think?”

“You always say they tell you things,” Jay insisted, pushing one more block into place. “Like what they want to be.”

Max smiled because that question was pure Jay, and because he could answer it without feeling like he was lying. “They don’t think the way people do,” he said. “But they do have memory. Every crack, every beam… it’s like a story written in wood and stone. You learn to listen.”

Kirstston—his wife of ten years—let out a soft laugh as she sat down, auburn hair catching the morning light like something out of a magazine spread. She was the kind of beautiful that made strangers assume she was kind, the kind of composed that made stress look like it bounced right off her.

“You two and your philosophical mornings,” she said, voice light, affectionate, perfect.

Perfect. That word came to Max without permission.

Everything about Kirstston had always been… perfect. He’d met her at a Georgetown fundraiser a decade ago, when his father was busy being his father—Greg Blevins, the CIA man who moved through life like he had classified files instead of feelings. Kirstston had been a paralegal then, ambitious, charming, a little mysterious in a way that felt exciting rather than threatening. She slipped into Max’s life with effortless grace. His colleagues liked her. His friends liked her. Even Greg, who never approved of anything quickly, had given a curt nod like he’d stamped a form.

Max had taken that nod like permission. Like a blessing.

Now, with Jay’s blocks clicking and Kirstston’s coffee pouring, it looked like the kind of American morning people paid good money to chase: Northern Virginia comfort, family stability, the promise that the worst was behind you.

Then Max’s phone buzzed.

A text from Lucas Hunt.

Drink soon. Been too long, brother.

Lucas. Old Army intelligence partner. The kind of friend you hadn’t seen in months but could call in the middle of the night and know he’d answer on the first ring.

Kirstston’s gaze flicked toward the phone. Too quick to be obvious. Too controlled to be innocent.

“Work?” she asked, casually, like she didn’t care.

“Just Lucas,” Max said. “He wants to catch up.”

Something crossed her face—so fast Max almost told himself he imagined it.

“You should,” she said. “You never see your old friends anymore.”

It sounded supportive. It landed like a suggestion placed carefully into position.

After breakfast Max drove Jay to school, the familiar streets of Alexandria rolling past like a map he knew by heart. He dropped Jay at the curb, watched him run toward the entrance with his backpack bouncing, then pulled away toward his office.

The commute usually gave him room to think about projects—like the 1920s bank conversion they were doing, balancing preservation with modern innovation. He’d been obsessing over the vault, which he wanted to turn into a conference room that felt like a secret hiding in plain sight. Teller windows becoming collaboration stations. Old marble meeting new glass. Memory transformed into function.

But today, his mind kept snagging on details.

His associate—Brick Chao—had asked strange questions the day before. Not about the project. About Max’s schedule. His habits. When he left the office. When he picked up Jay. Questions disguised as workplace chatter.

At lunch, Max had caught Suzanne Barry—Kirstston’s close friend—standing across the street from his office with a phone in her hand like she was waiting for someone. Suzanne was the kind of woman who slid into your home during birthday parties carrying cupcakes and gossip, someone Max had never once seen as a threat. Seeing her out there had felt like spotting a neighbor in the wrong movie.

And then, mid-afternoon, Greg called.

Greg never called during business hours unless something was wrong.

“Dad,” Max answered, already tense. “Can’t talk long.”

“How’s Jay?” Greg asked.

Max frowned. “He’s good. What’s going on?”

A pause. Too long.

“Just checking,” Greg said.

Greg Blevins didn’t do “just checking.”

Max waited, but Greg didn’t fill the silence with explanation. He said, “Watch out for each other,” and the line went dead.

Max stared at the phone like it might burn a hole through his palm.

For the rest of the day, he went through meetings and drafting sessions like he was pretending to be himself. But the old instincts—those survival mechanisms he’d thought he retired—started whispering.

Pattern recognition.

Observation.

The feeling that the world had shifted slightly off-axis, like a building settling in ways you couldn’t yet see but could definitely feel.

By evening, he was sure something was wrong.

He picked up Jay from soccer practice, scanning the parking lot without even meaning to—eyes sweeping cars, faces, movement. He hated that part of himself sometimes. He wanted to be a normal dad in suburban Virginia. He wanted to joke about snacks and shin guards, not calculate angles and exits.

At home, Kirstston had made lasagna—Jay’s favorite. They ate together, Jay talking with his mouth half full about a teammate’s failed bike trick, laughing so hard he nearly choked. Kirstston laughed too, wiping sauce from Jay’s chin, looking like every wholesome photo you’d ever seen attached to a “family values” caption.

Normal.

Perfect.

Too perfect.

After Jay went to bed, Max sat in his study, supposedly reviewing blueprints. Really he was thinking about that “too perfect” feeling, about the odd questions, about Greg’s call.

Kirstston drifted through the hallway, voice low as she took a call in another room. Lately she’d been taking more calls in other rooms. She’d been checking her phone more. Asking questions about Greg’s last visit. Small changes that didn’t mean anything by themselves.

But together?

Together they felt like cracks forming along a load-bearing wall.

At 2:47 a.m., Max’s phone erupted.

Greg.

Max answered on the first ring, voice rough from sleep. “Dad?”

“Are you home?” Greg snapped.

Max sat up so fast his body felt cold. “Yeah. Sleeping. What’s wrong?”

“Lock every door,” Greg said. “Turn off all lights. Take your son to the guest room. Now.”

Max’s heart hammered. “You’re scaring me.”

“Do it,” Greg barked. “And don’t let your wife know anything.”

The line stayed open. Max could hear Greg’s breathing, rapid but controlled, and the faint clicking of keys like he was working while he spoke.

Max moved on autopilot. Training overriding confusion.

He slid out of bed, careful not to shift the mattress too much. Kirstston’s breathing sounded steady. Too steady. Max told himself not to be paranoid. Told himself he was overreacting.

Then he remembered Greg didn’t overreact.

He crept into Jay’s room and scooped him up, Jay’s warm weight collapsing into Max’s arms.

“Dad?” Jay mumbled, half asleep.

“Shh,” Max whispered. “We’re playing a game. Stay quiet.”

Jay blinked, confused, trusting.

Max carried him downstairs, avoiding the creaky third step, and slipped into the guest room at the back of the house. He locked the door, set Jay on the bed, and moved toward the window.

Outside, the neighbor’s security light cast a pale wash across their yard and the back of Max’s house.

Max’s breath caught.

In the lit rectangle of the master bedroom window, Kirstston stood—not in pajamas, not sleepy, not confused.

She was dressed in black, fitted clothing that looked like it belonged to someone who moved for a living, someone who didn’t want fabric to snag or sway.

In her hand was something that made Max’s blood run cold. Not because he’d never seen it—he had, plenty of times in the Army—but because he had never seen it in the hands of the woman who used to tuck their son into bed.

She moved with professional precision, scanning the room like she was clearing it. One hand lifted to her ear, fingers pressing an earpiece as her lips moved in silent communication.

Then she turned toward the hallway.

Toward Jay’s room.

Max’s phone vibrated with a text from Greg.

Three hostiles outside. Two vehicles. Foreign operation. Kirstston is the primary asset planted ten years ago. Target was always me. You and Jay are loose ends. Stay hidden. Help coming.

Max read it twice, like repetition could turn it into something else.

Ten years.

Their entire marriage.

Jay’s entire life.

The math snapped into place with a clarity that felt like nausea.

Kirstston hadn’t just been lying.

She’d been living a mission.

Jay shifted behind him. “Dad,” he whispered, voice tiny. “Why are we hiding?”

Max crouched and pulled him close, covering Jay’s mouth gently with his palm—not hard, just enough to remind him of the game. Max forced his voice to stay calm.

“Remember the game about being secret agents?” he whispered.

Jay nodded, eyes wide.

“We’re doing that for real,” Max said. “You have to be the quietest agent in the world, okay?”

Jay nodded again, terrified but trusting.

Through the window, Max watched Kirstston slip out the back door, still armed, moving into the yard like a hunter. She angled toward the guest room.

Toward them.

Max’s mind exploded into scenarios: exits, timing, fences, neighbors, sight lines. The guest room had one door and one window. The fence beyond the yard. The neighbor’s property. The street.

He had maybe two minutes.

Greg’s text came again.

Vehicle approaching. White van. Northeast corner. Get ready to run.

Max silently unlatched the window.

Outside, he heard footsteps—more than one set. A low voice, commanding, clipped.

“Check the perimeter,” Kirstston said. “They’re here somewhere.”

It was the same voice that once whispered I love you into his neck. The same voice that sang along to the radio while Jay giggled in the backseat. The same voice that had said, a thousand times, that they were safe.

A van slid into view with its headlights off. The door opened.

Max saw the man reaching out—Lucas Hunt.

“Move!” Lucas hissed.

Max didn’t hesitate. He pushed the window open, helped Jay climb out, then dropped into the grass after him. They sprinted for the fence as shouts erupted behind them.

Jay’s sneakers slipped in damp grass. Max grabbed him, hauled him forward.

Gunfire cracked in the night—sharp, panicked—not close enough to hit, close enough to make Jay whimper.

Lucas grabbed Jay first, pulling him into the van. Max dove in after, twisting his body to shield Jay as the door slammed shut.

The van lurched forward.

A back window spiderwebbed from impact with something—Max didn’t look long enough to identify it.

Lucas drove like a man who had done this before, hands steady, jaw clenched.

Max’s voice came out rough. “What the hell, Lucas?”

“Your dad called me an hour ago,” Lucas said, eyes flicking between mirrors. “Gave me the briefing.”

Max swallowed against a throat that felt like sandpaper. “My wife—”

“Not your wife,” Lucas said, tight. “Kirstston Dean isn’t real. Real name Kadia Volkov. Russian SVR, deep cover.”

Jay made a small sound against Max’s side. “Is Mom… bad?”

Max’s chest cracked open. He wrapped his arm around Jay, pulled him closer, forced himself to tell the truth without shattering his son entirely.

“Yes, buddy,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. Yes.”

They reached a townhouse in Arlington—a safe house Greg maintained off the books, quiet street, nothing that screamed “government.” Inside, Lucas handed Max a phone.

Greg’s face appeared on screen, lit by harsh conference-room lighting, eyes tired in the way only men who lived on adrenaline could look tired.

“I’m sorry,” Greg said immediately. “I found out three hours ago. Pure luck. NSA intercepted communications about an extraction tonight. They mentioned your address.”

Max’s voice turned to ice. “How did you not vet her?”

Greg’s mouth tightened. “I did. Her identity was clean. Real background, real documentation. They built her legend for years. This was a long game.”

Max stared at his father, seeing the rare flicker of something like guilt. Greg didn’t do guilt publicly. But Max saw it.

“What do they want?” Max asked.

Greg’s eyes sharpened. “Information. Access. You were the bridge, even if you didn’t know it. Tonight was termination. They were extracting her and erasing loose ends.”

Max glanced toward the stairs, where Jay had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep. The words “erasing loose ends” echoed like something obscene.

“What now?” Max asked, voice low.

Greg leaned closer to the camera. “Now we burn them down. Every single one.”

Lucas stood beside Max like he used to in Baghdad, solid and familiar. But Max felt like a stranger in his own skin.

Greg continued, “This goes deeper. Kadia wasn’t alone. She had local support. Some of them might be people you know.”

Max’s mind flashed to Brick. Suzanne. The dinner parties. The smiling faces in his living room.

“I need everything,” Max said. “Every file. Every name. Give me what you have.”

Greg’s gaze sharpened, as if weighing whether his son could handle it.

“You’re not an operator anymore,” Greg said quietly.

Max’s lips pressed into a line. “No,” he said. “I’m something worse. I’m a betrayed husband with an intelligence background and absolutely nothing to lose.”

Greg stared for a beat, then nodded once, slow. “Lucas will coordinate. I’m sending what we have.”

He hesitated, then added, “But Max… this won’t be official. If you go after them outside legal channels, you’ll be on your own.”

Max’s voice didn’t shake. “Good,” he said. “I prefer it that way.”

The safe house turned into an operations center by sunrise.

While Jay slept upstairs, Max spread files across the dining table, the way he used to spread maps. Lucas brought coffee and sat across from him, eyes scanning photos, names, blurred surveillance shots.

“Kadia reported to Anton Romero,” Lucas said, tapping a file. “SVR handler based in New York under diplomatic cover. He’s been running her since insertion.”

Max’s stomach twisted as he flipped to the next pages.

There was Suzanne Barry—Kirstston’s best friend, the woman who hugged Jay at birthday parties, who brought wine to barbecues, who listened to Kirstston complain about school schedules and grocery lists.

Real name Svetlana Borisava.

Another operative.

Then Brick Chao—Max’s associate.

Lucas didn’t soften it. “Local asset,” he said. “Not trained like Kadia. But useful. Access to your projects. Your schedule.”

Max’s hands tightened around the edge of the table until his knuckles burned.

“It gets worse,” Lucas said, voice grim. “Your firm did renovations for government-connected buildings. Security layouts. Everything. Brick copied what he could. Kadia passed it to Romero.”

Max’s throat constricted. His work—his art—turned into a weapon against his own country.

Outside, the morning sun rose over Arlington like it didn’t know anything about betrayal.

“They’ll scramble now,” Lucas said. “The extraction went sideways. They’ll try to pull their people out or clean up. We’ve got a small window before they disappear.”

Max stared at the map on his laptop, seeing the DC area not as a home but as a chessboard.

“Then we move fast,” Max said.

He didn’t say it like a threat. He said it like a plan.

Jay woke around seven. Max made pancakes like he always did, keeping his voice gentle even as his mind ran calculations that felt brutal. Jay ate slowly, eyes darting like he was listening for danger even in the quiet kitchen.

“When can we go home?” Jay asked.

Max swallowed. “Not yet, buddy,” he said carefully. “But we’re working on it.”

Jay hesitated, then asked the question Max dreaded most.

“Is Mom going to jail?”

Max knelt so he was eye-level. “Yes,” he said. “What she did was very bad. She hurt a lot of people. Including us.”

Jay’s lips trembled. “Did she ever love us?”

Max felt his heart split. He could lie. He could give Jay something comforting to hold.

But Jay deserved truth, even if the truth came with scars.

“I don’t know,” Max said softly. “Maybe part of her did. But the person she really was… that person cared about her mission more than anything.”

Jay stared at him, processing like the analytical little boy he was.

“Are you going to stop her?” Jay asked.

Max nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I promise.”

By late morning, the surveillance updates started coming in.

Greg’s off-the-books resources were limited, but Max didn’t need an army. He needed eyes. He called a private investigator he’d used for background checks on contractors—a man named Horasio Brown who sounded like he drank espresso for sport.

“I need surveillance,” Max said. “Full package. Fast.”

Horasio chuckled into the phone. “How dirty, illegal, expensive, urgent—music to my ears,” he said.

Max didn’t laugh. “Just get it done,” he said.

Within hours, Horasio had teams watching Brick’s apartment, Romero’s Georgetown residence, and known safe houses connected to the network.

Max watched feeds across multiple screens, seeing panic unfold in real time.

Brick made frantic calls.

Suzanne fled her apartment with two suitcases.

And Romero—Anton Romero—moved.

Horasio’s voice came through a secure line. “Romero’s convoy is rolling. Two vehicles heading northwest.”

Max pulled up the tracking. The convoy was heading toward Dulles—toward an exit route.

“They’re pulling him out,” Lucas said, jaw tight. “Diplomatic cover makes him hard to touch.”

Max’s eyes stayed on the map. “I’m not touching him at the embassy,” he said. “I’m not touching him at the airport.”

Lucas stared. “Max—”

“I’m not doing anything that turns me into the headline they want,” Max said, voice calm and cold. “I’m going to do what I do best.”

“What’s that?” Lucas asked.

Max’s gaze flicked to an old set of project sketches—structural diagrams, load points, the way a system collapses when you remove the right support.

“I’m going to deconstruct,” Max said.

They tracked the convoy’s route and positioned themselves where Max knew control was possible—where traffic patterns, sight lines, and timing created inevitability. Max didn’t frame it as violence. He framed it as engineering. A chain of small, legal-looking misfortunes that could be explained away by chance.

When it was over, Romero survived—alive, but incapacitated, removed from the board like a king forced into the shadows. News would call it an unfortunate incident. A bad day. A freak combination of factors.

Max didn’t feel satisfaction.

He felt momentum.

Back at the safe house, he opened a new file.

Kirstston—Kadia—had disappeared after the failed extraction.

She was trained. Experienced. Dangerous.

And she knew Max was alive.

Which meant she would come for him, eventually.

The next weak point was Brick.

At 9:47 a.m. the following day, Brick made his first real mistake: he went home.

Max watched from across the street as Brick entered his Arlington apartment, nervous and sweating. Horasio’s surveillance showed him pacing, making calls, checking curtains like he expected ghosts.

“He’s scared,” Max said to Lucas. “He’s not an operative. He’s a paid helper who just realized he signed up for something that can’t be undone.”

“So we squeeze him?” Lucas asked.

Max nodded once.

Inside the building, Max moved quietly. Years ago he’d learned how to open doors without announcing himself. He didn’t enjoy using that skill now, but he didn’t hesitate either.

Brick was at the kitchen table with his head in his hands when Max stepped in.

Brick’s head snapped up, terror washing over his face.

“Mac—” he stammered. “I didn’t—”

“You’ve been feeding information for years,” Max said, voice conversational in a way that made Brick shake harder. “Schedules. Blueprints. Security layouts.”

Brick’s mouth opened, closed. “It wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone,” he whispered. “They said it was just information. Corporate stuff. Espionage, but like… business.”

“They were going to erase me and my eight-year-old son,” Max said. “Did they mention that?”

Brick’s face went bone-white. “No,” he said fast. “No. I swear.”

Max set a laptop on the table—files Brick had stolen, evidence of what he’d passed along. Then Max added something else: the idea that Brick had been skimming money, betraying the very handlers he’d been trying to please.

Brick shook his head violently. “That’s not true.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true,” Max said. “It matters what they believe.”

Brick’s breathing turned shallow. “What do you want?”

“Everything you know,” Max said. “Every contact. Every drop. Every safe location. Everything.”

Brick’s eyes filled with tears. “They’ll come for me.”

“They’re already coming,” Max said. “You’re a loose end.”

Brick looked like a man realizing he’d stepped onto a bridge that was burning behind him.

Max didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

Two hours later, Brick was empty of secrets.

Names, meeting places, methods of communication, the shape of the network throughout DC’s contractor ecosystem. People Max had met at dinners. People who shook hands and talked about mortgage rates and school districts.

Suzanne—Svetlana—was coordinating logistics. There was a safe house in Fairfax. There were burners, dead drops, a broader plan.

Max recorded everything.

Then he gave Brick one mercy, because Max wasn’t a monster even if he was furious.

“You have a few hours,” Max said. “Cash out. Leave. Disappear.”

Brick sobbed. “If I warn them—”

Max’s eyes hardened. “If you warn them,” he said softly, “you won’t have time to regret it.”

Brick ran like his life depended on it, because it did.

In the car, Lucas listened to the recordings, face tight.

“This is bigger than we thought,” Lucas said. “We should bring in the FBI.”

Max stared at the road ahead, hands steady on the wheel. “If we go too early,” he said, “lawyers and immunity and bureaucracy give them exits. I want the network collapsed, not rearranged.”

Lucas studied him. “You’ve changed.”

Max’s jaw flexed. “The man you knew had a wife who was real,” he said. “That man died in my backyard.”

They moved to the next phase: information warfare.

Horasio had technical contacts. One of them—a former analyst with a grudge and a conscience—helped them penetrate communications that weren’t supposed to be penetrated. Max didn’t need to understand every line of code. He needed the pattern. The structure.

Once inside, Max did what he’d always done with structures: he found their weak points.

He didn’t attack with brute force. He attacked with fear.

He sent messages through compromised channels that looked like internal orders, hinting at betrayal, suggesting emergency clean-up, implying someone was cooperating with authorities. He seeded doubt like termites in a frame.

The network panicked.

Operatives questioned each other. Contacts went silent. People ran.

Lucas watched it unfold and exhaled slowly. “You’re turning them against each other.”

Max didn’t look away from the screens. “They turned my life into theater,” he said. “Now I’m changing the script.”

Suzanne made a run for it, heading toward the Maryland border in a blue sedan, trying to disappear into safe countryside until extraction could be arranged.

Max tracked her.

He didn’t chase like a man in a movie. He anticipated like a man who understood routes, timing, failure points.

Suzanne’s car stopped on a remote stretch of road outside Baltimore—smoke curling from under the hood, an engine failure that felt like bad luck to anyone who didn’t understand how easily “bad luck” could be arranged by someone who knew where to push.

Her phone showed no signal. Another stroke of misfortune.

Suzanne stepped out, heels clicking on asphalt, looking around like she expected civilization to appear if she stared hard enough.

When a dark SUV rolled up, relief flashed across her face.

Then Max stepped out.

“Hello, Suzanne,” Max said, voice calm. “Or should I call you Svetlana?”

Suzanne’s composure cracked and she ran.

Lucas circled behind her, cutting off the road like he’d done this kind of work in places where consequences didn’t come with court dates.

Suzanne stopped, chest heaving, eyes wild.

Max didn’t scream. He didn’t dramatize.

He let the truth do the damage.

“You were in my home,” he said quietly. “You held my son. You laughed at my table.”

Suzanne’s lips trembled. “I followed orders.”

“You executed them,” Max said. “That’s enough.”

He showed her a tablet with financial records—accounts, offshore holdings, the money trail. Then he showed her something else: evidence suggesting she’d been skimming money from her own side.

Her face drained. “That’s not—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Max said again, echoing what he’d told Brick. “It matters what your bosses believe.”

Suzanne stared at him, realizing the trap: if she didn’t cooperate, she’d be hunted by both sides—by the network that suspected betrayal and by the law that would eventually catch up.

Max offered her one path that looked like survival.

“You cooperate with federal investigators,” he said. “You tell them everything. You burn the network down from the inside. And I don’t hand this to the people who would treat you like a problem to be erased.”

Suzanne’s jaw clenched, tears forming. She hated him for forcing her hand.

But she chose survival.

By nightfall, she was in custody, talking fast, spilling names, places, methods—her confession turning into a domino effect that law enforcement could finally capitalize on.

Agents moved quietly, quickly, picking up pieces before they could scatter.

But Max’s real target remained free.

Kirstston—Kadia—had vanished into the city like smoke.

Max knew she’d come for him eventually, because operatives like her didn’t accept failure. And because she couldn’t leave a loose end alive who knew her face.

So Max did something that felt insane and inevitable: he went back to his own home.

Not because he thought it was safe.

Because he wanted it to be bait.

Jay stayed with Greg in a secure location. Lucas waited nearby, ready. Horasio’s team helped wire the house—cameras, motion alerts, everything hidden cleanly enough that a casual glance wouldn’t notice.

Max sat in the living room where he’d once watched cartoons with Jay on lazy Sundays. On the coffee table were divorce papers and a laptop.

He waited like a man who’d stopped pretending patience was a virtue.

At 11:43 p.m., a sensor triggered.

The back door lock clicked softly, defeated with professional skill.

Kirstston entered the kitchen like she belonged there, silent, controlled, weapon in hand, her presence changing the temperature of the house.

Max didn’t move.

He sat where she could see him, apparently unarmed, like he was tired or stupid or broken enough to surrender.

Kirstston appeared in the doorway, framed by the light like a portrait from a different life. Even now, she was beautiful. Composed. Only her eyes betrayed what she really was: calculation wrapped in human skin.

“Hello, Mac,” she said softly.

“Kadia Volkov,” Max answered. “That’s your real name.”

Her lips curved faintly. “Does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” Max said. “Because for ten years I called you my wife.”

Something flickered across her face—so fast it could’ve been a trick of light.

“I know,” she said.

Max’s voice stayed even. “Did you ever feel anything real? Or was it all performance?”

Her gaze lowered for half a heartbeat, then lifted. “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said, almost like an admission.

“What wasn’t?” Max asked.

“Feelings,” she said, and the word sounded foreign in her mouth. “This was a mission. But life is… messy.”

Max stared at her, the woman who had made his son pancakes, the woman who had kissed him goodbye before meetings, the woman who now stood in his home holding a weapon like it was an extension of her arm.

She lifted the weapon slightly. “Sign the papers,” she said. “Give me the laptop.”

Max let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh, but didn’t. “And if I don’t?”

“I take it,” she said. “And I walk away.”

Max’s eyes hardened. “You hunted my son,” he said. “You moved toward his room.”

Her jaw tightened. “Because I had orders,” she snapped quietly. “Orders I didn’t like.”

Max leaned forward just enough to make her tense. “You want me to believe you didn’t want to hurt him?”

Kirstston’s hand trembled once—tiny, but real. “He wasn’t part of the mission,” she said. “He was… a loose end.”

Max’s stomach turned. “Do you hear yourself?”

Her eyes flashed. “I’m trying to give you a chance,” she said. “Let me go, and you and Jay can have a normal life.”

Max held her gaze. Ten years. A decade of memories he couldn’t separate from lies.

“I can’t do that,” Max said.

Her weapon lifted, a fraction. “Then you die.”

Max didn’t flinch. He gestured slightly toward the windows.

Red laser dots appeared on her chest from different angles.

Kirstston froze.

Max’s voice was calm, almost clinical. “You’re surrounded,” he said. “Law enforcement is close. And before you decide to gamble, understand this: you might get a shot off, but you don’t get out.”

Kirstston’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”

Max stood slowly, hands visible, movements deliberate. “I’m an architect,” he said. “I design systems. Predict stress. Calculate collapse. For the last few days, I’ve been designing yours.”

Her expression shifted, a brief flash of something like respect mixed with fury.

“You think I care about redemption?” she hissed.

“I think you care about winning,” Max said. “And right now, staying alive is the only win left.”

For a moment, she looked like she might fight anyway, driven by pride more than logic.

Then, slowly, she lowered the weapon.

The door burst open.

Agents flooded in, voices sharp, commands fast, hands forcing her down, restraints clicking into place.

As they hauled her up, she looked at Max over their shoulders.

“I did love you,” she said, voice rawer than he’d ever heard it. “Some part of me did.”

Max’s face stayed still, but something inside him shifted—not toward forgiveness, not toward softness, just toward a colder clarity.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Love without truth is just another lie.”

They took her away.

Max stood in the living room, surrounded by the ghost of the life he’d thought he built, and waited for the hollow feeling to turn into relief.

It didn’t.

Greg called the next day.

“It’s over,” Max said before Greg could speak.

Greg’s face on screen looked grim. “Not quite,” he said. “Suzanne’s intel gave us something else.”

Max’s body went tight again. “What?”

“A financier,” Greg said. “American citizen. No obvious foreign ties. But he funded the network. Laundered money. Provided cover. Name’s Willard Schaefer.”

Max recognized the name like a punch.

Schaefer was a polished DC businessman—real estate, development, a familiar face at industry events where men in tailored suits talked about “opportunity” and “growth” while pretending morality was someone else’s problem.

“Why would an American fund it?” Max asked.

“Money,” Greg said. “And insider advantage. He profited from espionage like it was just another investment strategy.”

“Where is he?” Max asked.

Greg hesitated. “He knows pressure is coming. He’s liquidating and preparing to flee. Accounts are being frozen, but he has ways around it. If he leaves the country, he could vanish.”

Max’s voice went flat. “Give me his address.”

Greg’s eyes narrowed. “Max, this isn’t like the others. He’s a US citizen with connections.”

“I’m just going to talk,” Max said.

Lucas drove Max to Georgetown, past the Potomac, past the clean facades of power that always looked prettier than the truth. Schaefer’s office was on the top floor of a high-rise overlooking the city like he owned it.

The receptionist was packing boxes, avoiding eye contact, pretending not to know what was happening.

Schaefer sat in a corner office shredding papers with the calm of a man who thought he’d always outsmart consequences. Silver hair, expensive suit, the face of respectability.

He looked up as Max entered, expression measured.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick,” Schaefer said smoothly. “I’ve been expecting someone.”

Max didn’t sit. “You funded the people who tried to erase my son,” he said.

Schaefer’s mouth curved into a small smile. “I funded a business arrangement,” he said. “What my partners chose to do is not my concern.”

Max felt something cold move through him. “You knew,” he said. “You took money knowing where it came from and what it supported.”

Schaefer spread his hands. “Prove it,” he said. “I have excellent attorneys and no direct ties to any intelligence service. By tomorrow I’ll be somewhere comfortable.”

Max walked to the window, looking out over Washington like he could see every lie stitched into its skyline.

“You’re right,” Max said. “I can’t touch you the way you deserve—legally, quickly.”

Schaefer’s smile widened. “Exactly.”

Max turned, holding up his phone.

On the screen were financial records—real ones, traced through shells and transfers by people who knew how to follow money the way others followed bloodlines.

“Here are your transactions,” Max said. “And here are your debts.”

Schaefer’s smile faltered.

“You owe a lot to people who don’t treat failure as a paperwork problem,” Max said. “And they will not be pleased to learn their money funded an operation that collapsed.”

Schaefer’s composure cracked for the first time. “How did you—”

“I’m an architect,” Max said quietly. “I follow structure. And yours is built on sand.”

Schaefer’s hands trembled, just slightly.

Max leaned closer, voice low enough to feel like a secret. “Here’s what happens next,” he said. “I’m handing this to federal investigators. You won’t fly anywhere. But I’m also ensuring your creditors understand exactly where their money went. You can cooperate and hope protective custody buys you time. Or you can run and find out what happens when men like you finally meet consequences that aren’t negotiable.”

Schaefer stared at him, pale, the mask of power slipping.

“You’re condemning me either way,” Schaefer whispered.

“No,” Max said. “You condemned yourself the moment you treated an eight-year-old boy like acceptable collateral.”

Max left.

Fifteen minutes later, Willard Schaefer walked into federal headquarters and asked for protection in exchange for testimony.

Max should have felt satisfied.

He felt empty.

Six months later, Max sat in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, watching Kirstston in prison orange, still composed but thinner, eyes hollowed by confinement. Prosecutors laid out charges—espionage, conspiracy, identity fraud, attempted violence. Evidence stacked high: testimony, documents, recordings. The story of Max’s life played back like a nightmare the jury had to believe because it was real.

Max attended every day, not for closure—because closure was a fairy tale—but because one day Jay would ask, and Max wanted to answer with truth.

When Max took the stand, he didn’t talk about himself.

He talked about Jay.

“My son wakes up screaming,” Max said, voice steady. “He asks if his mother is coming back. He’s eight years old. He should be worried about homework and soccer, not whether the woman who tucked him in was real.”

Kirstston wouldn’t look at him.

Max forced her to.

“You could have been his mother,” Max said. “Truly. But you chose a mission instead.”

The jury returned guilty verdicts fast.

At sentencing, the judge’s voice was cold as winter. No mercy. No softness for a woman who had exploited an American family as an access point.

As guards led Kirstston away, she looked back once, eyes shining with something that might have been regret.

Max didn’t move.

He’d learned the hard way that regret didn’t rebuild what lies destroyed.

After the trial, Max sold the Alexandria house. Too many ghosts. He bought a smaller place in Arlington near Jay’s new school—one with staff trained to help children who’d lived through trauma. Jay improved slowly. Nightmares faded from nightly to occasional. Smiles came easier. He started sleeping with the lights off again.

Max threw himself into architecture again, but not the same way. He started focusing on protective design—safe houses, secure facilities, spaces meant to shelter people instead of impress them. He partnered quietly with the right people, refusing publicity. He wanted to help without turning his pain into a brand.

Lucas became family in the ways that mattered, showing up with pizza and bad jokes and the steady presence Jay needed. Greg visited when he could, the CIA work still pulling him away like gravity, but something between father and son had shifted—less distance, more honesty, forged in crisis.

Two years after that 2:47 a.m. call, Max stood in front of a community center in DC designed for families affected by trauma—open, light-filled, built with care, a building meant to hold healing instead of secrets. Jay, now ten, ran up with a grin.

“Dad,” Jay said, “Lucas is here. He brought pizza.”

Max laughed, the sound surprising him with how real it felt. “Of course he did,” he said.

Inside, the celebration was warm, full of people who had survived things they shouldn’t have had to survive.

Later, as guests filtered out, Max’s phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.

I’m sorry. For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.

Even from a cell, Kirstston found ways to reach.

Max deleted the message without responding.

Not because he felt triumphant.

Because he finally understood something simple and brutal: some foundations, once broken, can’t be restored to what they were. You don’t go back. You build forward.

When Jay appeared at his side, sleepy-eyed, Max tucked an arm around him.

“Can we go home now?” Jay asked.

Max looked at the building behind them, then at his son—the only thing that mattered.

“Yeah,” Max said softly. “Let’s go home.”

They walked into the evening together, father and son, into a future they had fought for. Max had been an architect before the crisis, designing spaces for others. Now he was an architect of his own life, carefully constructing something real—something that didn’t rely on perfect smiles or rehearsed warmth, but on truth, resilience, and the quiet promise he’d made in the dark: that he would protect his child at any cost.

And this time, the foundation was real.

Max thought deleting Kirstston’s message would feel like slamming a door.

Instead it felt like walking past a room in a house you no longer owned—recognizing the shape of your old life, refusing to step inside, and still hearing the echo of your own footsteps from years ago.

He didn’t tell Jay about the text. He didn’t tell Lucas either. He wasn’t hiding it out of shame; he was protecting the fragile peace they’d built from the kind of poison that seeped in slowly, the kind that didn’t explode but corroded.

That night, after the community center’s lights went dark and the last car pulled away, Max drove home through Washington’s quiet streets with Jay humming along to the radio in the backseat. The city looked calm from behind a windshield—monuments gleaming, intersections empty, the Potomac reflecting streetlamps like a ribbon of glass. But Max had learned the hard way that calm was often a costume, and cities were experts at wearing it.

Jay’s school backpack lay on the seat beside him, stuffed with worksheets and small, ordinary problems. Max felt the familiar ache of gratitude that his son’s worries were finally returning to kid-sized proportions.

At home, Jay brushed his teeth and padded down the hallway in socks, pausing in the doorway of Max’s room the way he always did now. Two years ago, he had slept through the night without hesitation. After everything, he’d developed a habit of checking—quietly confirming that Max was there, that the world hadn’t shifted again while he wasn’t looking.

“Dad?” Jay whispered.

Max sat up a little, setting his laptop aside. “Hey, buddy.”

Jay’s eyes, still too alert for bedtime, flicked around the room like they were scanning for shadows. “You’re okay?”

Max’s throat tightened. “I’m okay,” he said. “You’re okay too.”

Jay nodded like he was filing that information away for later. Then, unexpectedly, he stepped forward and climbed into Max’s lap for a quick, fierce hug.

For a second, Max closed his eyes.

This—this was the only thing that mattered.

Jay pulled back and cleared his throat with the seriousness of a tiny judge. “Can we have pancakes tomorrow?”

Max laughed softly. “We can have pancakes tomorrow.”

“Chocolate chips?” Jay asked, hopeful.

“Chocolate chips,” Max agreed, and Jay’s face relaxed like a knot untying.

When Jay finally went to bed, Max walked the house the way he always did now, checking locks without thinking about it, scanning windows without meaning to. He hated that he did it. He hated that he couldn’t stop.

In the kitchen, he poured a glass of water and leaned against the counter, listening to the silence.

Then his phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

For a heartbeat, his entire body tensed. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. His mind ran through the list of possibilities like a weapon being assembled.

Another message.

This one wasn’t an apology.

It was a single sentence that made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

You don’t know how many of us got away.

Max stared at it until the screen dimmed.

He didn’t need to ask who sent it. He didn’t need a signature. It had the same smell as the rest of it—cold confidence, that particular kind of threat that didn’t scream because it didn’t need to.

For a long moment he just stood there, holding the phone, feeling the old anger try to rise again like a familiar drug.

Then he did something different.

He didn’t throw the phone.

He didn’t smash anything.

He didn’t spiral.

He took a slow breath, opened a secure app Greg had insisted he keep installed, and sent the screenshot to two contacts: Lucas Hunt and Special Agent Rose Rosha.

No drama. No commentary.

Just proof.

Then he turned the phone face down and finished his water.

The next morning, Max made pancakes with chocolate chips. He kept his smile steady while Jay talked about a math quiz. He kept his tone light while his brain tracked the timestamp on the message and replayed every briefing he’d ever received about deep cover networks.

When Jay left for school, backpack bouncing, Max waited until the car disappeared down the street—then he called Lucas.

Lucas answered on the second ring, voice already awake like he’d never fully stopped being on duty. “Tell me you didn’t call to discuss pancake toppings.”

Max’s voice was calm, which meant Lucas would know it was serious. “I got a message last night.”

There was a pause. “From who?”

“Unknown number,” Max said. “But it’s not random. It said, ‘You don’t know how many of us got away.’”

Silence thickened on the line.

Then Lucas exhaled slowly. “Send it.”

“Already did,” Max said. “You and Rosha.”

Lucas didn’t joke this time. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’m coming by.”

Max should have felt fear. He felt… clarity.

Because the truth was, he’d been waiting for this.

Not consciously. Not in the way you waited for a package. But in the way your body stayed braced even after the storm passed, because it remembered what lightning felt like.

Within an hour, Lucas was at Max’s house, standing in the kitchen like it was Baghdad again and they were about to plan something nobody would ever talk about.

Lucas looked the same—lean, focused—but there was a new hardness around his eyes that Max recognized. It was the look of a man who’d learned that “over” was a word people used when they wanted to sleep.

“You show Agent Rosha?” Lucas asked.

“She’s already texting,” Max said, nodding at the phone. “She wants to meet.”

Lucas grimaced. “Of course she does.”

Max poured coffee, hands steady. “This is bigger than one operative trying to scare me,” he said. “It’s either a leftover asset trying to reassert control or someone trying to lure me into something.”

Lucas leaned against the counter. “Or someone testing whether you’re still connected. Whether you still have access.”

Max’s jaw flexed. “I don’t,” he said. “Not like before.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Not officially,” he corrected.

Max didn’t answer that.

Because he knew what Lucas meant.

Even without official clearance, Max had become a pattern-reader that certain people quietly relied on. The kind of consultant you didn’t put in press releases. The kind of man who could look at a network and see the stress points.

It wasn’t a title. It was a scar.

His phone buzzed again.

Agent Rosha: Meet today. Noon. Arlington field office. Quiet entrance. Bring Lucas.

Lucas read the text over Max’s shoulder and snorted. “She doesn’t waste time.”

At noon, they entered the field office through a side entrance that smelled like disinfectant and bureaucracy. The building looked boring on purpose. That was the point. Inside, everything was beige and quiet, as if violence and betrayal were things that happened on other floors, in other cities, to other people.

Agent Rose Rosha met them in a small conference room with no windows. She was younger than Greg, older than Max, and carried herself like someone who didn’t need to raise her voice to control a room.

She slid a printed screenshot across the table.

“This message was routed through a chain of burner services,” she said. “But the origin pings are interesting.”

Max kept his expression neutral. “Interesting how?”

Rosha tapped the paper with a pen. “Northern Virginia,” she said. “Not overseas. Not even out of state. Whoever sent it was close enough to want you to know they’re close.”

Lucas’s mouth tightened. “Or close enough to be sloppy.”

Rosha’s eyes flicked to him. “Or close enough to not care,” she corrected.

Max leaned forward slightly. “What else do you have?”

Rosha opened a file—photos, names, transit records, the kind of information that looked ordinary until you knew how to read it.

“We’ve been tracking residual contacts from the network you helped dismantle,” she said. “Most are contained. Some fled. Some were never identified.”

Max didn’t like the word “residual.” It made people sound like dust.

“Last week,” Rosha continued, “we flagged a series of financial moves tied to shell structures that match the same pattern used by Schaefer.”

Max’s throat tightened at the name.

Rosha watched him carefully. “You don’t need to like it,” she said, almost gently. “But you understand it. That’s why you’re here.”

Lucas shifted. “So the message is a warning,” he said. “Or a threat.”

“Or an invitation,” Rosha said.

Max’s gaze lifted. “To what?”

Rosha slid another photo across the table.

A man in a suit exiting a building near Tyson’s Corner. Mid-forties. Clean-cut. The type who could blend into a corporate hallway without leaving a ripple.

Rosha’s voice was flat. “We believe he’s part of a new structure. Not SVR. Different service. Different goals. But the same kind of playbook.”

Max stared at the photo, feeling that old, sick sense of recognition—the way predators often looked ordinary.

“Name?” Max asked.

Rosha hesitated just long enough to tell Max it mattered.

“Ethan Kline,” she said. “Publicly, he’s a compliance executive for a defense-adjacent contractor. Privately… we don’t have enough yet.”

Lucas leaned closer. “Why show us?”

Rosha met Max’s eyes. “Because he’s connected to an address you’ll recognize,” she said.

She slid a printout across the table.

The address belonged to the building Max’s firm had renovated years ago—the one with the vault-turned-conference-room. The one Max had poured his creativity into, never imagining it could be used as an access route.

Max’s stomach tightened like a fist.

Rosha continued, “We think Kline is using architectural access as a vulnerability. Renovation, maintenance, after-hours service—things people don’t question. It’s the perfect entry point.”

Max’s voice was quiet. “So you want me to look at his structure,” he said.

“Yes,” Rosha replied. “I want you to tell me where the load-bearing points are.”

Lucas watched Max carefully, like he was trying to read whether Max was about to step off a cliff.

Max looked down at the photo again.

The man didn’t look dangerous.

That was the point.

Max sat back slowly. “If he’s reaching out to me,” Max said, “then he wants something.”

Rosha nodded. “And if he wants something,” she said, “then he’s going to create an opening. A moment where you can see him clearly.”

Lucas frowned. “Or he’ll try to pull Max into a trap.”

Rosha didn’t argue. She just said, “That’s why we’re doing this controlled.”

Max’s voice hardened. “Controlled,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Like my home was controlled?”

Rosha held his gaze, unflinching. “No,” she said. “Not like that. But you don’t get to dismantle a network in days and walk away untouched. People remember humiliation. They remember loss.”

Max’s fingers curled, then relaxed.

He exhaled. “What do you need from me,” he asked, “right now?”

Rosha slid a folder closer.

Inside were building plans, schedules, contractor logs—paperwork that looked dull until it became a weapon.

“You designed the adaptive reuse,” she said. “You understand how someone could hide access inside structure. We need you to identify vulnerabilities Kline could exploit. We need you to anticipate his moves.”

Lucas’s voice was low. “And what about Max’s kid?”

Rosha’s expression softened a fraction. “Jay is not part of this,” she said firmly. “We can put protection measures in place. Quiet ones. No uniforms outside school. No drama.”

Max swallowed. Quiet protection had its own cost. But it was better than being blind.

Rosha leaned forward. “One more thing,” she said.

Max’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

Rosha turned her laptop so Max could see the screen.

A list of names.

Some were familiar from the old network.

Some were new.

And then Max saw a name that made his blood feel like ice.

Kirstston Dean.

Not Kadia Volkov—Kirstston Dean.

Listed as a “communication anomaly.”

Max stared. “She’s in federal custody,” he said, voice sharp. “Life sentence. She’s not running anything.”

Rosha’s tone stayed measured. “We know where her body is,” she said. “We don’t know where all her influence is.”

Lucas’s face darkened. “You think she’s still connected?”

Rosha shrugged slightly. “We think someone connected to her is reaching outward,” she said. “Prison communications get monitored, but people have ways. And sometimes…” She paused. “Sometimes messages aren’t instructions. Sometimes they’re signals.”

Max’s mind flashed to the apology text.

I’m sorry.

A signal.

He felt a surge of anger, then forced it down.

Rosha continued, “We’re not accusing her of running an operation from a cell. But we are acknowledging that her story is still a beacon to certain people.”

Max’s jaw tightened. “So the message I received could be tied to her,” he said.

“Or to someone who wants you to think it is,” Rosha replied.

Lucas looked between them. “So what’s the play?”

Rosha’s eyes settled on Max again. “We let them think you’re unsettled,” she said. “We let them think you’re still reachable. And we watch who moves.”

Max sat very still.

He knew what that meant.

It meant bait.

It meant playing the same kind of game that had destroyed his old life—except this time, he’d be holding the blueprint.

Max’s voice was controlled. “No one goes near my son,” he said.

Rosha nodded immediately. “Agreed,” she said. “Jay stays insulated. This is about you.”

Lucas muttered, “It’s always about the access point.”

Max ignored that.

Rosha stood. “Take the folder,” she said. “Study. Note vulnerabilities. Think like Kline. Think like an organization using contractors the way Kadia used you.”

Max slid the folder toward himself and felt the old part of his brain awaken—cold, analytical, built for breaking systems down to their bones.

Lucas followed him out of the office. In the parking lot, winter air hit Max’s face and made him feel briefly awake.

Lucas spoke first. “This isn’t just consulting anymore,” he said.

Max didn’t deny it. “It never really was,” he replied.

Lucas studied him. “You okay with that?”

Max looked toward the road, toward the normal world where people went to work and argued about coffee orders and didn’t check their mirrors like they were expecting ghosts.

“I’m not okay with any of this,” Max said. “But I’m not letting someone else do to another kid what Kadia did to Jay.”

Lucas nodded slowly. “Then we do it right,” he said. “We do it smart.”

That evening, after Jay was asleep, Max spread the new building plans across his dining table the way he used to spread project drafts. The paper smelled like ink and memory. Lines and measurements. Doors, corridors, service access. Places you could hide.

He didn’t romanticize it. He didn’t call it “poetry” the way he used to.

He called it what it was: a structure that could either protect people or expose them, depending on who held the keys.

He marked vulnerabilities with a pencil: loading docks, maintenance tunnels, utility shafts. He circled a particular stairwell that connected to a supposedly restricted floor—an architectural quirk that looked innocent in design meetings and looked like an open vein in counterintelligence.

His phone buzzed again.

Another message.

Unknown number.

Different tone.

You’re still good at listening to buildings, Max.

Max stared at the screen, pulse steady.

They knew him.

They knew what he did, what he loved, how his mind worked.

This wasn’t a random leftover operative.

This was someone who had studied him.

Someone who wanted him to feel seen.

Max didn’t respond. He didn’t throw the phone. He didn’t panic.

He took a screenshot and sent it to Rosha and Lucas.

Then he set the phone down and went back to the blueprints.

Because the truth was, he was still good at listening.

And right now, the building was telling him something loud and clear:

This wasn’t over.

It was just changing shape.

By the end of the week, Max had his analysis ready. He didn’t dress it up with fancy language. He didn’t treat it like an architectural critique. He treated it like a threat assessment, because that was what it was now.

Rosha met him again—same quiet entrance, same windowless room.

Max slid his marked plans across the table. “If Kline is using this site,” Max said, “he’s using maintenance access. He’s using the assumption that service people are invisible.”

Rosha nodded. “Everyone sees suits,” she said. “No one sees the guy with a toolbox.”

Max tapped his pencil against a circled section. “This stairwell,” he said. “It looks like a dead end. But it connects to a mechanical corridor behind the vault conversion. If someone knows it’s there, they can move between floors without hitting the main cameras.”

Rosha’s eyes sharpened. “We didn’t flag that,” she admitted.

“You wouldn’t,” Max said. “It’s not obvious unless you’ve lived inside the drawings.”

Lucas folded his arms. “So what’s the move?”

Max’s gaze stayed on the plan. “If he wants to test whether I’m reachable,” Max said, “he’ll pull me toward something I can’t ignore.”

Rosha’s mouth tightened. “Like what?”

Max didn’t answer immediately.

Because he already knew.

He could feel it in his bones the way you felt pressure changes before a storm.

“He’ll use my work,” Max said finally. “He’ll use something tied to my name. A project. A client. A callback request. Something that looks legitimate enough to lure me into the building.”

Lucas’s eyes darkened. “And you’ll go?”

Max lifted his gaze. “Not alone,” he said.

Rosha’s expression stayed neutral, but her eyes showed approval. “No,” she agreed. “Not alone. We’ll set surveillance. Controlled entry. Coverage.”

Max nodded once.

Then Rosha slid a printout across the table—an email screenshot from a client account.

Subject: Urgent structural issue – immediate consultation requested.

The sender name was a contractor Max had used years ago.

The wording felt familiar.

Too familiar.

Max stared at it, a cold weight settling in his chest.

“They’re already moving,” Lucas murmured.

Rosha watched Max carefully. “We can ignore it,” she said.

Max shook his head slowly. “If we ignore it,” he said, “they’ll move differently. Somewhere we can’t see. Somewhere we can’t predict.”

Lucas leaned closer to Max, voice low. “Max,” he said, “say the word and we pull you out of this. You’ve done enough.”

Max’s face stayed calm, but inside, something fierce tightened like a cable under tension.

“I’m not doing this because I want to,” Max said quietly. “I’m doing it because I know what happens when good people look away.”

Rosha exhaled. “Okay,” she said. “Then we do it on our terms.”

Max looked at the email again.

It was bait.

And he could already feel the trap’s outline forming around it, like scaffolding rising quietly in the dark.

But he also knew something else now—something he didn’t know the night he ran barefoot across his yard with his son in his arms:

He wasn’t walking into a life built on someone else’s lies anymore.

This time, he was walking in with the blueprint.

And if Ethan Kline wanted to play games in the shadows of Washington, if he wanted to test Max Fitzpatrick the way Kadia Volkov once had—

Then Max would show him what happened when you tried to tear down a man who had already survived collapse.

Because some people rebuilt stronger.

And some people learned how to bring the whole structure down—quietly, precisely, without leaving a single crack unexplained.