Revelstoke looked harmless from the train window.
Too quiet. Too clean. Too postcard-perfect for a place with a hidden lab doing human experiments.
Delilah or Marie Chevalier, as she would be known by for the duration of this mission—stepped down onto the platform with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder and a neutral expression that revealed nothing. Her hair was a soft chestnut brown now, cropped just slightly differently from her usual cut. Her eyes, once a sharp icy blue, were hidden under warm brown contacts. A fake identity could be forged in an afternoon; the body language took longer. She'd had some practice before during her assassin days.
The station air bit at her cheeks. Clean. Thin. Canadian cold, 'Good. It keeps people indoors and out of my way.'
She walked with purposeful anonymity—just another traveler returning home, or maybe a woman seeking the quiet life after something painful she didn't want to explain. People rarely questioned the quiet ones with soft expressions. They projected their own stories onto her while ignoring her.
This Marie persona was good at letting them.
She moved through town first—not toward the safehouse but toward the streets, looking at the direction of the Facility's perimeter. Ethan had given her a map of the general area, but she would need to find the Facilities' location, patrol schedules, and satellite images.
The information would be useful, sure. But static intel meant nothing without texture. Without knowing the people of the facility or their rhythm.
The real world breathed differently.
She walked the same three streets twice. Once, like a passerby. The other as a predator hunting prey.
Patrol car every twenty minutes. Private security, not local police—clean boots, mirrored sunglasses, rifles held like props rather than weapons.
Amateurs compared to what she had read on the Weapon X veterans, which only meant one thing: they weren't meant to stop threats. They were meant to slow them down.
Her eyes tracked cargo trucks. Three that morning. Two unmarked, one with a fake meat distribution logo. Tires carried forest mud—south route, not the highway. They brought something in recently. Equipment? Supplies?
She watched a truck back toward the hidden access ramp carved into the side of the treeline. It disappeared with a hydraulic groan.
With snow falling, it would be hard to track the truck. The worst part was that she could not be sure the direction they headed in led to the facility…
As a precaution, they could head in one direction before turning to another.
The Facility itself was buried beneath the mountain, old Weapon X architecture reinforced with new money and cruelty. Luc's voice echoed in her mind from their last conversation.
"Do not underestimate her. She is dangerous and has been conditioned to attack certain individuals. If you are marked with the wrong scent, she will try to kill you. So plan wisely. I want to save them while killing those who run the facility. The order is essential as saving them is the most important part of this. The killing of the people running the facilities, not so much, but you must kill the man named Zander Rice, and you must do so from afar."
Delilah's jaw tightened. She remembered her young days being taught as an assassin. The pain, beatings, and mental conditioning.
Children shouldn't have been born into laboratories or raised by assassins. She knew that far too well.
She moved on.
By noon, she entered Revelstoke proper—a cozy mountain town with a ski-lodge aesthetic, friendly locals, and enough tourist turnover to hide a ghost like her. She walked into a grocery store and pushed a cart, as if she belonged there. Bread. Eggs. Soup. Fresh fruit. A bottle of wine.
No one questioned her American accent. Canadians were polite like that.
She made small talk with an old cashier, smiling softly when the woman said, "You settling in, dear? Haven't seen you before."
"Just moved in," Delilah replied, gentle and warm in a way she hadn't been in years. "Things got a little hectic back home, so now I'm trying to make a life here."
The cashier patted her hand. "Revelstoke's a good place for new beginnings."
Delilah doubted that, but she nodded anyway. Delilah pretended to smile while noting the woman's pulse, as she clocked the cameras in the shop.
When she left the shop, her smile vanished like a coat she no longer needed.
She walked the two blocks toward the safehouse Luc prepared for this operation—a large six-bedroom home on the outskirts of town. Ordinary on the outside. Reinforced inside. A quiet suburban façade hiding a war room beneath the basement floor.
The interior was surprisingly warm—soft lights, polished floors, a faint lavender scent that clung to the walls like a ghost. Luc must have paid quite a bit to have the place cleaned thoroughly before she arrived. She locked the door behind her and carried the groceries down the stairs.
The basement wasn't a real basement.
Two bedrooms. A compact kitchen. Emergency medical cabinet. Dual-locked weapon safe. Hidden routes. Reinforced doors.
'I wonder how he got all this done in a short time?'
Delilah set the groceries down and peeled off her coat. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Softer face.
Marie Chevalier indeed looked harmless.
Delilah, however, wasn't.
A burner phone buzzed.
She answered without greeting. "Yeah."
"Evening, miss. This is Mack the handler," Mack's gravelly voice rasped through the line.
She leaned against the counter. "You're calling early."
"I'm trying to get this over with as quickly as possible," he shot back. "I'm pissed, but working with that asshole, you probably already know that."
She smirked faintly. Luc brought out the worst in people. "Timeline?"
"I'll be on the ground tomorrow evening," Mack said. "Taskmaster and Domino land in three days. Silver Sable and her team will take four—she's finishing a government contract. We move once she's in place."
Four days.
Delilah nodded. More time to map escape routes, scout the Facility's weak points, and prepare for the massive fallout that will happen soon.
"Anything else?" she asked.
"Yeah," Mack growled. "Luc said you're in charge of this job, and that is non-negotiable. I assume you already knew that."
She rolled her eyes. "Luc says a lot of things. Ignore his theatrics. Just get here, and we'll figure this out."
"So, how'd you get roped into this by that bastard? Me he threatened my kid."
Her voice was cool. "Did he?"
"You sound surprised."
"No," she said. "I sound more annoyed."
A beat of silence—Mack processing whether she meant annoyed at Luc, or annoyed by him.
She didn't clarify.
"Well, like I said, you'll be running point on this." he said.
"Got it," Delilah confirmed. "Then I'll leave handling the logistics to you. I spend most of tomorrow mapping out the town and seeing if there are any possible spies hidden in town. I'd like to get them routed out before the others arrive."
Mack grunted. "Good. I hate when merc teams argue about the chain of command. As least Luc is paying enough for them to shut up about. Thirty million for Taskmaster and Domino, while Sable's team get fifty."
"How much do you get?" she said simply.
Another pause. Then, begrudging respect, "Luc leaving me the fuck alone. Twenty plus… an extra five million for equipment costs. I get to pocket what we don't spend."
"Well, try not to be cheap to pocket more. You've got to be alive to spend the money after all," she murmured.
Luc promised her a kingdom. Ethan Kane—behind that mask—intended to give it to her, not that she was aware of it. By the time she finished this mission and returned to New York with Sarah Kinney and her daughter, Laura, Madam Masque would be ready to help her start.
"Well enough of that," Mack said. "Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."
She hung up.
The house went silent again.
Delilah opened the fridge, pulled out vegetables and a chicken breast, and began slicing mechanically. Cooking was never comforting for her, but it passed the time.
Her mind replayed Mack's words. 'Me he threatened my kid.'
She set the knife down.
Luc didn't like to negotiate. Luc didn't ask; he manipulated. He moved you like you were already on his board. She wondered if she had refused his offer, what means would he have used to twist her arm.
Delilah stirred the pan, listening to it sizzle, and whispered to the empty safehouse, "Well, it doesn't matter in the end. He made an offer, and I agreed after weighing the benefits. I shouldn't be too surprised by what a deal with the devil comes with."
The hiss of food cooking, the hum of the refrigerator, and the quiet heartbeat of a woman cooking filled the quiet house.
She plated her meal, took a seat at the small basement table, and ate slowly—methodically—like a soldier, 'Four days until the team es assembled. Five days until we struck.'