San Francisco, California — The Donovan Corporation Headquarters
The elevator doors opened with a whisper, revealing a corridor designed not just to impress—but to intimidate. All steel, smoked glass, and shadows polished to perfection. Power thrummed beneath the floor like a low current.
Sebastian Donovan stepped out without a word, tablet in one hand, espresso in the other. The coffee was untouched, unnecessary. His stride was unhurried. Intentional. Controlled.
Everyone noticed.
Women at sleek reception desks adjusted their posture or reapplied lipstick with veiled glances. Men fell quiet, sharpened by proximity. He wasn't just the heir anymore—he was the mind behind the curtain, the man who had re-forged Donovan Security into something leaner, faster, quieter. Global.
Predatory.
He didn't indulge attention. Flattery bored him. Performance didn't.
Control. Execution. Precision. That was where he lived.
Inside his private office—floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking San Francisco's pulse—he shut the door and locked it with a metallic click. Noise stayed out. Most things did.
The phone rang.
Private line.
He didn't move immediately. He stared out the glass instead, expression unreadable, as the city blurred below—motion without meaning. Only when the fourth ring sounded, slower than the rest, did he pick up.
"Go," he said.
Static. Then a voice—Russian-accented, smooth but weathered. "She's moving."
His eyes flicked. "France?"
"Marseille. File opened yesterday. She didn't hesitate."
He exhaled once, barely audible. "Reaction?"
"None. Not even a call."
That pulled something close to a smile. "Typical. Audrey never wastes breath when a silence will wound deeper."
"She's not just smart," the voice added. "She's dangerous. Independent. If she finds out—"
"She won't." His voice hardened. "That's why she was chosen."
He ended the call without another word.
Stillness returned—but it wasn't peace.
From the bottom drawer, he pulled out a photo.
Faded at the corners. Edges soft from time.
Audrey Rousseau, in uniform. Sharper than truth. Her eyes held that fractured stillness only the truly broken ever wore—like a sniper waiting through stormlight. There were lines at her mouth from all the things she never said. And something behind her stare he'd never fully learned how to name.
She hadn't just haunted him.
She'd changed him.
Sebastian turned the photo over. On the back, scribbled in pen, were six digits. A date. A place.
A regret.
This wasn't nostalgia. It was strategy. Audrey didn't know it yet, but she'd just been dropped into a game wired to detonate from every angle. She thought she'd been called back in for answers.
But this was about something far older than revenge or duty.
This was about unfinished consequences.
And she was already in the crosshairs.
Another knock broke the silence.
"Sir?" A voice filtered through. "Your eleven o'clock with the MI6 liaison—"
"Cancel it."
A pause. "They flew in from London—"
"Then let them enjoy the view. I said cancel."
He hung up, then stepped closer to the glass. Outside, the sun carved pale gold through the city's concrete maze, illuminating everything but the truth.
He could feel it now. The shift.
Audrey had opened the file. She'd taken the bait.
But she didn't know what she was walking into.
Not yet.
Because Sebastian Donovan didn't just want her back in the field.
He wanted her under control.
And if she couldn't be?
Well… he'd always planned for that too.
His eyes drifted down to the city. But his thoughts were already across the ocean, in Marseille, where the first match had been struck.
The flame was coming.
And this time, he wouldn't be the one to burn.