Chapter 852 - 854
The bookstore they had been hiding in was compromised. After the news broadcast, it was only a matter of time before the wrong people traced Jude’s presence to the area. So Elias had split the group, scattering operatives to different points in the city. Jude had taken the most dangerous route, toward the heart of the web they were trying to dismantle. Lynx had made her presence known. She wasn’t afraid to go public. That meant she wanted to draw him in, manipulate the board until he had no choice but to move where she wanted him. But Jude had been taught by people far colder than Clarissa Vale. He’d learned how to play a game without rules, and more importantly, how to change the board completely.
He approached a small diner on the edge of the industrial zone, a place open all night and empty of anything but silence and old memories. It was the kind of place where people disappeared, and secrets waited under cracked tiles and dusty corners. He stepped inside and found an old man behind the counter, polishing a glass with the same piece of cloth for the last hour. Jude gave him a nod, and the man returned it without a word, disappearing through the back door and locking it behind him. The place was theirs now.
Elias was already at a booth near the back, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him and a folded map spread across the table. The lines were drawn in red, circled and crisscrossed in ways that only meant one thing, every safehouse they had relied on, every contact, was being systematically eliminated.
"We’re being boxed in," Elias said as Jude slid into the booth. "Three of our outer safe zones went dark this morning. No communications. No backup."
"They’re purging the past," Jude muttered. "Tying up loose ends. Lynx isn’t just cleaning house, she’s trying to erase every trace of what we used to be."
Elias nodded. "And we’re next."
Jude reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive. "There’s something in here we missed. Something she wants hidden."
They plugged the drive into a burner laptop and scrolled through the files again. Coordinates, operation codes, supply manifests. Most were data points Jude recognized. But one file stood out now, hidden behind a double-encrypted firewall. It had no label, no origin. Just a date.
Two weeks from today.
He leaned back. "She’s planning something. Big."
Elias frowned, tapping a few keys. "It’s an execution schedule. No names, just numbers. Dozens of numbers."