"We let her come back," Mr. Stack said again, slower this time, as if the words themselves were a mechanism that needed careful assembly.
Nicky looked at him sideways.
"You just spent almost a week breaking the world in half to pull her into the open. Now you're saying we do nothing?"
Mr. Stack's fingers hovered over the glass of the darkened monitor, not touching it. He never touched when he was explaining something important.
"Chasing someone like Lena turns you into noise," he said. "She survives noise. She expects it. But absence—" He lowered his hand. "Absence creates gravity."
Nicky frowned. "Meaning?"
"She came tonight," he replied. "Not to Sela's room. Not past our guards. But close enough to confirm two things: her sister is alive, and the threat is real. That's the peak of her panic."
He finally turned to her.
"Now she will retreat. Re-plan. Adjust her routines. She will convince herself she has time."
A faint, cold smile.
"And that's when people make mistakes."
Nicky's irritation eased, replaced by anticipation. "So we don't pull her in."
"No," Mr. Stack said. "We shape the terrain so that when she returns, it's on our terms."
"And again, she's protected."
"Meaning? Andy questioned.
"Meaning, we all need to be careful, nothing should mess us. Those goons protecting her, aren't just simple men, they look dangerous, as you've seen them."
No one dared to add a thing, they both went silent and moved again once he continued talking.
--------
Sela knew Lena's footsteps.
Not the sound—hospitals swallowed sound—but the rhythm. The pause outside the door. The breath taken before entering, as if courage had to be rationed.
Lena slipped in just before dawn, hair tucked under a cap, jacket zipped too high for the weather. Her eyes scanned corners, exits, reflections. Only then did she move to the bed.
"You shouldn't be here for fuck sake Lena," Sela whispered fiercely.
"I know," Lena said, already checking the IV, the monitors. "I won't stay."
"They're watching," Sela insisted, fingers tightening around Lena's sleeve. "Not just here. Everywhere. The way this happened—it wasn't random. Someone's looking for you. They are using me to get to you."
Lena's jaw tightened, a microsecond of truth slipping through.
"I know".
"Lena, please! You don't know them. I'm fine. I even told Bena and Mom not to allow you because your life is in danger. They seem like good guys at first but when I refused to talk, they had to do this. Please siz, your safety is important.
"Sela! Iisten to me, nothing will go wrong, trust me. Despite that, Mr Brine can't allow me to walk out by myself. I have Jarvis and Tam by my side. I'm already safe."
"But Leee!!
"Shush! No buts. Have you eaten? Fuck! I don't know why I'm asking you that stupid question, wait here I'm gonna buy you some food we feast together, I'm hungry too." She said with a smile.
Fear sharpened in Sela's eyes.
"You have to leave. Please. Don't come back."
Lena leaned in, forehead touching her sister's.
"I will," she said softly. "But not yet."
That was the mistake.
------
Nicky Stack hated complications.
Lena had them in bulk.
Within hours, Nicky's team confirmed what irritated her most: Lena didn't move alone. Two rotating bodyguards, civilian-clean but professionally tight. No obvious comms. No predictable spacing. They moved like people who'd survived ambushes.
"Snatching her quietly is a nightmare," Nicky snapped, watching live feeds. "Too many variables."
Mr. Stack didn't look up.
"Then don't be the variable."
She paused.
"You're saying… outsource?"
"I'm saying," he replied, "that when everyone expects us, someone else becomes invisible."
Nicky smiled slowly. "Unknown men."
"Unknown to everyone," Mr. Stack corrected. "Including us, on paper."
-------
Across the city, Finley stood very still while Mr. Rafferty finished breaking a glass against the wall.
"Nothing," he said coldly. "You went in, stirred the pot, and came back with nothing."
"It didn't fail," Finley said carefully. "It shifted. Someone else is moving. Quietly."
Rafferty turned, eyes sharp. "Then adapt."
He stepped closer. "You're getting hired into that company. I don't care how—consultant, analyst, assistant. You get inside. And you find out who owns Hellfire."
Finley swallowed. "And if it's protected? And if I'm marked?."
"Everything is protected. And Everyone is marked," Rafferty snapped.
"That's what makes it valuable."
He paused, anger bleeding into focus.
"This city doesn't burn without someone holding the match."
" You're going back in like you came back to me. I want to see that boldness in you the first time you came here. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir! She lowered her head slowly hiding her tears from falling. She has to do this, she has to show her worth, whether she likes it or not. She has to for what Mr Luke had promised her before she agreed on the Mission. She has to.
---------
Lena was taken the next afternoon.
Not outside the hospital. Too obvious.
Not near Sela. Too sentimental.
It happened three blocks away, in a narrow stretch between a closed café and a delivery bay. She had food in her hands. Soup containers. Tea. Something warm for Sela. It appeared that before she could be released from the hospital bed, she wanted to eat something good. Worse of it Lena decided to go alone.
The men were efficient. Not Stack's faces. Not anyone on record. A stumble. A vehicle door. No screams. No witnesses worth remembering.
By the time alarms rippled outward, Lena was gone.
Mr. Brine's rage burned hot—and then, abruptly, cooled when Tam informed him through the call.
"Where the heck were you when this happened?" he questioned anger in his voice.
"We were at the hospital sir. She just went out to pick some food for her sister. She insisted on going by herself. "
"Shut up Tam, what am I paying you for? I gave you simple directions yet....shit where's Jarvis?"
"Tracking her."
"Give me all the information immediately you find something. "
"Okay sir." Tam cut the call and rushed outside.
Anger required direction. This had none.
Brine vented what remained on Moody, cornering him with accusations sharp enough to draw blood. He had to drove all the way from his voice to Moody's hide outside. The door from his office banged loudly scaring the hellbout of Moody.
"Yooh! What is wrong with you, have some respects in my office man." He said emotions filled in his face walking towards Brine.
"Where the heck you took her?" He yelled.
"Who?What are you talking about?" He asked in surprise."
"Moo! For the last time, where the hell is she? I know you took her," Brine said clenching his hands into a fist ready to strike.
"Waiit.....what? You mean lena is....shit!"
You were supposed to be watching her." Moody snapped his eyes not leaving his.
" Just tell me where she is or else..?
"Or else what Brine? Or else what? You gonna pinned me down like last time? You gonna hit my jaw till it breaks? This is my office. You don't have any rights to burge in here and start a ruckus. Damn! What did l do?
" Are you trying to mess with me Moo? Are you?"
"And why would I? I don't know where she is. I, myself been trying to track her down ever since you took her under your protection but I couldn't. And now she's been taken on your watch you think it's me? For fuck sake Brine you got alot of enemies."
"You being one of them."
"Yet you promised Dad to keep her safe. What happened now?"
"I was," Brine said, angrily. I was keeping her safe till...wait. "These means someone else wanted her more."
"Yap, there's another Hyena in the jungle. And let me tell you Brine, if i get the chance to rescued her before you, I swear on my mother's name, I will snatch her from you. I will surely do right Infront of your eyes. Keep watching."
"You won't. Not on my watch Moo."
" Let's wait and see who gets to her first. "
They both arrived at the same conclusion within minutes.
"The Silver Mark Group," Brine said slowly.
"They've got the reach," Moody agreed with a little smirk.
"And the silence."
They moved. Hard. Fast. Too fast.
And found nothing.
No chatter. No transfers. No shadows bending the wrong way.
Because the Silver Mark Group hadn't taken Lena.
Mr Stack had.
And somewhere, far from hospitals and false leads, Lena woke to a room designed not to frighten her—
—but to make her understand exactly how carefully she had been brought back.