Part 39
Two hours later, we found a small, abandoned hunter's cabin nestled deep within a ravine, completely hidden from aerial surveillance.
Inside, I found some dry firewood and a rusted iron stove, using a flint striker from the operative’s tactical vest to start a small, shielded fire.
I stripped Elena out of her wet clothes, wrapping her in an old, dusty wool blanket I found on a cot, placing her close to the warmth of the stove.
As the heat slowly brought the color back to her cheeks, she looked up at me, her large eyes filled with a wisdom no child her age should possess.
"Mommy... are they going to keep coming?" she asked quietly, her voice small and trembling.
I knelt beside her, taking her small, warm hands in mine, looking directly into her eyes with absolute honesty.
"They will try, Elena," I said softly, but with a steel-hard conviction. "But I am going to stop them. I am going to make sure they can never look at us again."
"How?" she whispered.
"By showing them what happens when you try to take a child from her mother," I replied, kissing her forehead gently until she finally drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Once she was asleep, I walked over to the cabin's dusty wooden table, laying out the operative's tactical gear I had stripped from his body.
Among the equipment was a encrypted military-grade satellite communicator.
It was buzzing softly, a single encrypted text message flashing on the small, green screen.
I used the decryption key I had memorized from Victor’s personal files during my initial hack, typing the code into the device with steady fingers.
The message unblurred, revealing a short, chilling text from an unknown number:
Target not found at safehouse. Eliminate the asset and the child on sight. The Architect has authorized full termination.
The Architect. The true shadow leader of Vanguard, the man Victor Sterling answered to.
I smiled, a cold, humorless expression that would have terrified Victor more than any federal warrant.
May you like
I pressed the reply button, typing a single sentence back to the unknown number.
I'm coming for you next.
