Elias stared at the photo long after the chopper lifted them off the tower. The city below blurred into amber streaks of light, but his mind was locked on two things: Zera's smile… and the child.
A child with his eyes.
Magritte, watching from across the cabin, finally spoke. "She's alive."
He nodded once. "And she had my child."
"You didn't know?"
"No."
"Do you believe it's real?"
He looked at her. "If it's a trap, it's the best one yet. But if it's real…"
Magritte didn't press. But her fingers curled tighter on the seat's edge.
Back at Draxon, Jude worked through firewalls like a man possessed. The Hydra Crescent hadn't been active in years, they had supposedly died with the collapse of the Oman Revolt, a war Elias had a silent hand in ending.
But Jude found fragments.
Redacted logs.
Encrypted shipments.
Untraceable bank transfers routed through fictional charities all leading to the same symbol.
"It's not just Hydra," Jude said over comms. "They've evolved. Someone's bankrolling a new rise. And whoever sent that photo wants you in the middle of it."
Elias's voice came through cold. "Then I'm already too late."
At a neon-lit alley bar in Lisbon, Elias met an old contact.
Codename, Whisper.
Face: genderless under the cloak, voice like smoke.
"You want Zera? You want the child?" Whisper asked. "Then you follow the blood trail back to Genesis Port. That's where she disappeared. Where the Crescent was reborn."
"What's the catch?"
Whisper held out a hand.
Elias dropped a briefcase full of crypto-bonds into it.
Whisper grinned. "The catch? You'll find out when they start hunting you."
As Elias turned to leave, Whisper added, "And Thorne? Don't trust Magritte. Not completely. She's hiding more than just loyalty."
Later, in the penthouse, Magritte walked in on Elias examining surveillance photos.
"You have something to tell me?" he asked, voice casual.
She didn't flinch. "I worked with Zera once. Before I knew who she was to you."
"For who?"
"The Vanguard Initiative."
Silence.
"That black ops network was shut down."
She walked closer. "No. It went dark. And now it's aligning with the Hydra Crescent."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"I didn't know until I saw the child."
Elias studied her. Then he said, "If you ever lie to me again"
"I won't."
A pause. Then he sighed.
"Pack your bags. We're heading to Genesis Port."
Genesis Port wasn't just a city. It was a wound.
A place where every shadow had ears, and every alley smelled like secrets.
Elias, Magritte, and Lewis moved through the crowd like ghosts. Jude operated remote systems from their safehouse, guiding their every step.
As they moved through a market square, a group of street kids bumped into them.
Pickpockets, surely.
Except Elias felt a slip into his coat not out.
Inside, a slip of paper.
"Meet me under the old church. Midnight. Come alone. Z."
At midnight, Elias entered the ruins of the old cathedral, long abandoned since the Crescent bombed it twelve years ago.
He descended into the crypt and there she was.
Zera.
Older. Hardened. Beautiful. Holding a child at her side.
He froze.
"Elias," she whispered.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because if they knew he was yours… they'd kill him."
Behind her, candlelight flickered over ancient carvings.
And then: gunshots. The echo of war.
The Crescent had followed them.
Zera screamed, pushing the child toward Elias.
"RUN!"
Elias didn't hesitate. He grabbed the boy his son and bolted through the arched tunnels beneath the cathedral. Gunfire ricocheted behind him, each echo a scream in stone. Zera's voice called out once more. Then silence.
He didn't turn back.
He couldn't.
The child, no older than six, clung to his arm without question, his small face eerily calm as if he'd been running his whole life.
A hidden exit burst open beneath a rusted trapdoor. Elias emerged into the cold night, heart pounding, lungs burning.
Lewis and Magritte were already waiting in the getaway car.
Magritte's eyes fell on the boy. "Is that?"
Elias didn't answer. "Drive."
Inside the safehouse, chaos reigned.
Jude was on every screen, surveillance feeds from Genesis lighting up the walls.
"They're tracking us," Jude said. "The Crescent's using face-ID triangulation and infrared drones. We've got less than an hour before this place becomes a grave."
Magritte checked the boy for injuries. "He's been trained," she whispered. "Military instincts. Reflexive silence. That's not normal."
Elias looked out the window. "They were grooming him. Maybe as leverage. Maybe as legacy."
Jude's face popped up again. "More than that. I ran a DNA scan. His file was locked behind Draxon's black archives. Codenamed: Project Z-11."
Elias turned slowly. "My son… was a project?"
That night, Elias sat alone with the boy. The child drew on a napkin with a piece of charcoal.
Stick figures.
A tall man.
A woman with long hair.
A broken boat.
Flames.
And at the bottom, in jagged lines: a triangle with three dots.
Elias froze.
That was the symbol of the Crescent.
The child looked up. "Mom said not to draw that. But I dream about it."
"What's your name?" Elias asked gently.
"Zeth."
Elias whispered the name again, stunned. "Zeth Thorne."
"No," the boy said. "Just Zeth. No father."
The words hit harder than gunfire.
The triangle with three dots wasn't just a symbol.
It was a map.
A reference to three Crescent sanctuaries that Elias had helped dismantle twenty-five years ago.
Except they were still active.
Jude's data bursts confirmed it one was hidden beneath an old oil refinery in Romania. Another beneath a government-funded orphanage in Lagos. The third?
Underground. Right beneath Draxon's old Westward headquarters.
They weren't just using Zera.
They were using him.
The next morning, Elias called a meeting of his inner circle.
Magritte. Lewis. Jude.
"I'm not just cleaning up enemies anymore," he said. "I'm unraveling my own company."
Jude showed the evidence. "Draxon's Westward division funneled resources to Project Z-11. Not for research for training children. Zeth wasn't the only one."
Magritte looked ill. "Weaponized orphans?"
"Exactly," Elias said. "The Crescent doesn't want to destroy Draxon. They want to *inherit* it."
"So what do we do?" Lewis asked.
"We go public," Elias said. "Not everything. Just enough. We leak data. Cause fear. And when they strike back we strike first."
Later, when the others were gone, Magritte confronted Elias.
"You knew they would use your son. You knew it the moment you saw that symbol."
"I suspected."
"And you kept it quiet?"
He turned. "Would you have done anything differently?"
She stepped closer. "Yes. I would've told you the truth *first.*"
Their breath mingled in the silence.
She leaned in.
And then they kissed.
Not fire, but thunder. Raw, uncertain, real.
When they pulled back, she whispered, "We're in this together."
"Until the end."
Neither noticed Zeth watching quietly from the hallway.
Across the ocean, inside the Crescent's war room, masked leaders watched Elias's leak with cold fury.
"Thorne remembers," one hissed.
A taller figure a woman in gold robes stepped forward.
"Then we move to Phase Two."
"Even with the boy in his hands?"
"Especially because of the boy."
The woman removed her hood.
It was Zera.
Alive. Betrayed. But unbroken.
"Elias took my son," she said. "Now I'll take his kingdom."