Chapter 8 - The Fallen AgentThe world seemed to tilt on its axis.
I stumbled half a step backward, my hand gripping the pepper spray so hard my knuckles turned white. All the carefully constructed walls I had built over the past three years—the dyed hair, the cheap clothes, the fake name—shattered into a million pieces in less than five seconds.
"How..." I choked out, my voice trembling. "How do you know that name?"
"Because I'm the one who ordered the hit on the safehouse you were guarding four years ago," Marcus said, his voice devoid of emotion, yet heavy with a strange, dark weight.
My vision swam. Four years ago, I was an elite federal investigator working for the Department of Justice, tracking a massive international arms syndicate. My unit was ambushed in a secure safehouse in New York. Every single member of my team was slaughtered in cold blood. I barely escaped alive, carrying classified files that proved high-ranking federal officials were in bed with the Chicago mob. Realizing the corruption went all the way to the top, I went rogue, faked my death, and vanished into the labyrinth of Chicago's working class.
I raised my hand, my fingers flying toward my coat pocket to draw my weapon, but before I could blink, Marcus’s guard was standing directly in front of me, a heavy silver pistol pressed firmly against my ribs.
"Don't," Marcus commanded softly.
May you like
He stepped closer, looking down at me not with the fury of an enemy, but with a strange, unsettling curiosity.
"If I wanted you dead, Agent Miller, you wouldn't have made it out of the restaurant tonight," Marcus said. "In fact, you would have been buried in a shallow grave three years ago when you first dropped off the grid."
