ZARA — OLD KINGS WHARF, 02:10 AM.
The pier smelled like salt and secrets. Old Kings Wharf was the kind of place that collected lost things — lost shipments, lost men, lost promises. Tonight it held the thinnest thing that still mattered to us: a sliver of proof that might stop Project Origin.
My boots hit the boards light and loud. The folder from Dubai sat heavy in my bag like a heart. Sleep had left my face three days ago. Adrenaline had moved in and made itself comfortable.
Leo moved beside me, quiet and steady. He wore that look that tried to be casual and failed: eyes always counting exits, hands never idle. He had a bruise at his jaw, a reminder the night before had been generous with pain. He flashed me a crooked grin that did exactly what it always did — make all the complicated things ache less.
A courier waited beneath a lamp, his shoulders hunched as if the night were a cold animal he didn't trust. He pushed the envelope across the crate like a man who wanted to be done.
Noor stepped from the shadows with a limp I'd seen in Dubai. He smelled like expensive cologne and arrogance. "You have the drive?" he asked as if we were old friends remaking an old sin.
"We have the folder," I said. "You have the manifest. We trade — clean, quick."
He smiled and his smile was a contract. "We prefer clean. Bring the proof and show good faith."
I set the folder down on the crate and opened it halfway, letting the light catch the edge of the thumb drive. Noor's eyes darted. The courier's hand twitched like a rodent.
"Now," Leo said, flat, and we slid the drive closer.
Noor's phone buzzed. He glanced at it and his smile shuddered. "Always business," he said. "Someone wants to check the goods."
The pier felt suddenly too small. Someone moved on the rooftop, a long figure cutting the night. I didn't need to be told twice. My fingers hovered over my gun. This was the part of the world that smells like betrayal.
<<<<<
LEO — SIDE OF THE WHARF, SAME NIGHT.
Negotiation is theater. You present the props, the right timing, a joke to make the other man blink. Tonight I was the stagehand and the punchline hurt. The courier reached for the folder. His thumb brushed the plastic, and in that split second I saw the twitch of a gun under his jacket. Not ours. Not Noor's. Different grip, different heat.
"Now," I repeated. It wasn't a prompt. It was a promise.
He moved too fast — and Noor's men moved faster. Rifles rose like weeds from the dark. A man in a cheap mask lunged, and the pier exploded. The world became movement: metal, shouts, wood cracked under boots. I shoved Zara behind a barrel and found a rifle to return a note in kind. I smelled smoke, and the sound of a bullet whizzing by made my teeth ache.
We'd rehearsed ten versions of this in the van. None of them included men who looked like they'd rather be somewhere else, shooting like professionals. Ambush. Classic. Dirty. Effective.
"Go!" I snarled at Zara when a masked figure came at us with a knife. She moved like someone who'd slept on gunpowder her whole life — ducked, kicked, and the blade clattered into the wood. I took two men with a controlled burst and watched one fall like a puppet with its strings cut.
Noor dove toward the folder. He was not a broker in the clean sense — he was an opportunist. He'd brought a deal and a double.
Then the flare up there — a light lit the far roof—and a voice cut through the night, honey and venom together. "Bravo," Aria purred, and the world burned in a different way.
<<<<<
ZARA — MID-FIGHT.
Aria's laugh was the sound of someone clapping slowly while you try not to drown. She stepped from the shadow with her hair tucked under a cap, eyes glittering. If she wanted drama, she'd come to the right theater.
"Noir," she said to Noor, like she'd been saving a pet name. "You know better than to play both sides. Choose."
Noor faltered. I saw it — the math of someone who'd counted wrong. The courier — the man who'd handed off the drive — unmasked in the chaos. My breath hitched. I recognized the jaw: the same face from our Dubai rooftop run. He was not Noor's man. He'd been Aria's all along.
"Betrayal, then?" Noor barked. "You bastard—"
That was the second I realized the trade had never been about money. It had been about power, leverage, who took the file and who sold the lie. Noor lunged for the drive, and the courier—Aria's courier—turned his gun to us.
The moment slowed: metal, the tilt of a body, the way Leo and I breathe when we both know the same thing. We moved together like muscle memory. I rolled, got to my knees, and kicked the courier hard. He staggered. Leo's fist knocked a rifle from a man's hands. We were a bad rumor that would not die.
But betrayal is an efficient animal. Noor grabbed the folder in the scuffle — the drive slid into his palm — and he ran. He sprinted down the pier with the ease of a man who believed in his own luck.
"Noor!" he shouted. Aria's voice was quiet but it cut. "You coward."
Noor didn't stop. His boots slapped the boards. He dove into a waiting skiff and the motor roared him away like a hideous victory. We chased. I slipped, the boards wet with spray. Leo's arm brushed me — just a fraction of a second when he reached for me and then for the rail.
There was the ridiculous, dangerous instinct to go after him; instead we pulled back. We were wounded and outnumbered and the pier gives to men who know how to take it. When the skiff cut the water, Aria watched like a conductor watching the final bow. Then she disappeared into the night as if she had never been there at all.
<<<<<
LEO — AFTER THE WHARF.
Adrenaline kept me steady enough to breathe. My chest hummed. I found Zara by the crates, panting, a smear of salt on her cheek. The drive was gone. Noor had it. Aria had wanted it. The courier had been a puppet.
And then my phone lit with a message that felt like a punch: an encrypted transfer of Noor's last hide — and a time stamp. But the message came with a tag I did not expect.
FROM: RINA_FROST_BURNER
Message: We needed a test. You passed. Stand down. Deliver the package to HANGER B. HQ will handle from there.
My stomach went hollow. Rina. The woman who fed Zara instructions from a thousand miles of burner phones. The impossible constancy of her voice in Zara's ear. The woman we'd followed without question.
"Did you get that?" I asked.
Zara's fingers shook as she scrolled. Her face moved through shock to something harder, like granite. "She told Noor where to pick it up."
"No," I said. I wanted that to be wrong. I wanted that more than the drive.
The phone beeped again, a second message: Compromise. We had to stage a drop to flush traitors. Noor bought it. Trust me. It read like a plea. It read like a command. I did not know which was worse: the idea that Rina had sold us, or that she'd forced this as a way to force a greater plan.
Zara's laugh was brittle. "We are the only things we can trust."
"You're not alone," I told her. It sounded small and foolish, but it was honest.
She pressed her forehead to mine. For a moment the sirens and the water and the missing drive melted away. "If she did this on purpose," she whispered, "we'll make her pay."
"I'll make her explain it," I promised. "And if she lied—if she set us up—no agency in the world will forgive her."
We looked ridiculous: two ragged people shaking with the decision to move, to not explode into the night. Then we moved. We had to.
<<<<<
ZARA — ESCAPE & PLAN.
We walked back to the van like people leaving a fire. Hands burned from the rail, eyes still stinging. Noor had the drive. Aria had the show. Rina had a burner that said things that might be the truth… or very good lies.
"Options," Leo muttered. He listed them like a man drawing up battle plans over a battlefield map: track Noor, flip Noor's buyer, intercept the transfer in London, or get Rina on the line and demand answers.
"You're missing one," I said. "We go to Noor's buyer and we make him show his face. Whoever buys Project Origin gets greedy. Greed makes them sloppy."
He smiled, the kind that promised fireworks. "Then we make greed regret."
We drove. The city blurred into a smear of lights and the van smelled like secrets and stale coffee. On the back seat, the folder felt heavier than ever — not with metal, but with consequence.
At a red light, my phone buzzed once more. This time it was a message from an unknown number. One line. You should have listened, Zara. Some things cost more than proof. — A.
I didn't need to be told who A was. Aria had sent a warning. Or a promise. I slid the phone into my pocket. Leo's hand found mine on the folder between us. He squeezed. A small, human thing.
"Whatever's next," he said, "we do it together."
I wanted to say all the things that felt like fire and fear. Instead I whispered, "Then let's burn their plans."
We were bleeding. We were furious. We were alive. And we were only getting started.