Vex grabbed it. As he was hauled aboard, a final shot grazed his calf. He didn’t feel it. Adrenaline is a liar, but sometimes it tells the truth: you are still alive.

Twenty meters. Ten. A hand reached down. His handler, disobeying direct orders, leaning over the gunwale.

Vex didn’t have a plan. He had a principle.

But Koval was paranoid. He ran background checks on Julian Ashford that went back to elementary school. Vex had prepared for that. What he hadn’t prepared for was the dead drop. One morning, he found a photograph slipped under his safehouse door: a candid shot of his real sister, taken that week. She lived in Arizona. No one was supposed to know she existed.

Koval, impressed by the audacity, promoted him to the inner circle.

Never back down.