anian woods-stark walls, cold steel ga

a containment unit sweep. This was Bright Light, a real CIA black site known in rare declassified accounts to have been located in Bucha

approached and retreated. Someone shouted in Romanian. She didn't understand. She raised her hands. Her stomach churned-faint tremors of adrenaline. After software crashes and frozen seconds, she realized one of Isa's single-use phones still worked, deep within the locker in her coat. She hit video. Walkie. Interrupt. They'd know she wasn't authorized. She heard then the first real hail: Open fire-and bullets ripped across the wall near her head. A bullet grazed her shoulder. Warm blood blossomed. Pain felt thick and final. She staggered backward. Scratched the concrete. A second shot cracked the lamp behind her. It collapsed. The darkness swallowed her. She didn't see him. She didn't feel him until a hand yanked her coat inside a narrow corridor. Her vision swarmed with angles and panic and an engine roar. An

She woke up gasping. The smell of antiseptic and aviation film. Her shirt open at the collar, hair clinging damp to her neck. The leather seat folded behind her. She turned her head. White, cream, a private jet's interior. Lucien sat across, half turned, his hand closed over a medical kit. He leaned in, eyes wild in the cavernous quiet. "Catalina," he began, voice low, trembling. She blinked. "God, you scared me," he said, almost to himself. She placed a hand against her face. The crack where shrapnel had slashed. Blood felt warm. Sharp pain logged in her jaw. He rose then, as if detecting every breath she took. He walked to her side and the jets roared overhead. He looked younger than she'd ever seen him-running on rage and fear and no sleep. His voice was ragged, high with disbelief. "You almost died, Catalina, he said softly. "Our child almost lost you." She s*ck*d in air. "I didn't know," she said. Her own voice felt distant. Hollow. He laid a hand across her stomach. The airplane tilted. Turbulence. The world shook. He breathed. "If you were dead," he whispered into her hair, "the empire would-"
 He swallowed. His voice cracked.
 He leaned back and slammed his fist against the wall. "I don't know what I would've done," he admitted in a slump."If I lost you." His eyes glossed. He raised a hand and pressed it again to the window like he wanted out. "You think you were careful enough? You risked everything. Every person who died at Don Esteban's order. You took it into Europe. You didn't tell me. You risked our future." She reached for his sleeve. "How did you find me?" she asked, voice trembling. He squeezed her hand. "You never were gone," he said. That made her heart hit roof. "Oh," she said. He paused, then disclosed-"You were wearing the bracelet," he said. "The one I gave you when...when it felt like you might walk out of my life. I never meant to track everything, but I put a sensor inside. My gesture-what was meant to be a symbol-became a beacon. You blinked out of my world." His voice came back like broken glass. "I should've told you. Maybe I should've let you go." He closed his eyes. "But I couldn't. Voyagers don't abandon signals." The overhead lamp buzzed. Catalina looked again at her wrist-now a bloody bandage-where the tracker had been. Cold realization washed over her. She placed her own hand over the bracelet. "So, every time I walked away," she whispered. "You'd know." He nodded. "And you didn't come until I almost died." He kissed her hair. "I followed the beacon," he said softly. "And when you vanished, my empire trembled. I was terrified I'd find you-or just find your remains." He exhaled. "I became paranoid and brutal. I executed men who should've knocked, not died. But I didn't care who died. Not until you came back." She pressed her thumb onto the red rust of her wrist and felt tears burning her cheeks. He placed his hand gently on her cheek. "Shhh," he said. And for a moment, the whole world seemed tiny inside that bird-thick silence.

trace his tattoos-one scorpion nibbling across his forearm. He looked at her then, and she thought she saw regret. When she awoke next, the jet had landed. Sunlight slipped through shades. She felt dizzy, the room small. Her stomach rounded under the robe,

d. "I didn't mean to vanish." She tilted her head. "I was trying to rescue my father." He stiffened. "You didn't say." She looked away. "I was halfway gone by the time I realized that I wasn't just fighting for revenge anymore. I was fighting for someone to come back to."

tagena morning, she