The roar of the 6.2-liter HEMI engine was the only thing that drowned out the storm raging inside Devin's head. He sat behind the wheel of Black Ghost 7, a modified Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat finished in a pitch-black matte that seemed to drink the light of the passing streetlamps. On the dashboard, a glowing holographic interface projected a web of city maps and thermal signatures.

  "I've got her, Dev," Wesley's voice came through the car's integrated comms. "Sarah Miller's transponder just pinged a satellite relay near the old naval shipyard. She's moving in a convoy—two armored SUVs and a lead scout. They know you're coming."

  "Let them know," Devin rasped, his gloved hands tightening on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. "Aegis status?"

  "They're trying to lock your signature, but the Challenger's internal scramblers are holding... for now. Devin, your blood pressure is red-lining. You need to breathe."

  "I'll breathe when she's in the dirt." Devin floored the accelerator.

  The Hellcat screamed, the supercharger's whine harmonizing with the thunder overhead as he tore toward the shipyard. As he rounded a sharp bend, three sets of headlights swung into view, blocking the narrow access road.

  "Ambush!" Wesley shouted.

  Automatic fire erupted from the SUVs, lead slugs peppering the Challenger's reinforced windshield. Devin didn't flinch. He reached out and thumbed a concealed toggle on the center console.

  "Deploying Primary," he commanded.

  On the left side of the hood, a seamless panel retracted. A blackened M240 machine gun rose from its housing, its belt-fed mechanism clicking into place. Devin tapped the firing stud on his steering wheel. The M240 spat a rhythmic stream of 7.62mm rounds, the muzzle flashes illuminating the cabin in strobe-like bursts. The lead SUV's engine block disintegrated under the barrage, sending the vehicle spinning into a ditch.

  "Ghost 7, take the wheel," Devin barked. "Voice authorization: Stone-Alpha-Niner."

  "Autopilot engaged," the car's synthetic voice responded.

  As the Hellcat maintained its high-speed pursuit, weaving through the return fire with inhuman precision, Devin kicked the door open. He rolled out of the moving vehicle at forty miles per hour, his exoskeleton absorbing the shock as he hit the pavement. He was a shadow in motion, rising into a sprint before the RKG operatives even realized the driver's seat was empty.

  Two Knights lunged from the second SUV. Devin met the first with a bone-shattering palm strike to the throat and used the man's falling body as a shield against his partner's fire. He drew a combat knife, the blade a dark streak as it found the gaps in the second Knight's armor.

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  "Target eliminated," Devin muttered, his breath coming in jagged hitches. He didn't wait. He moved toward the shipyard's main hangar, where Sarah Miller's thermal signature pulsed a cold, defiant red.

  The hangar was a graveyard of rusting hulls and heavy chains. At the center of the floor, illuminated by a single flickering floodlight, stood Sarah Miller. She wasn't hiding. She held a customized submachine gun with the relaxed posture of a woman who had killed enough people to lose her fear of death.

  "I wondered how long it would take for the nephew to show up," she said, her voice echoing off the corrugated steel. "James talked about you at the end. Said you were a good boy. Said you'd understand why he had to die."

  The Black Ghost stepped into the light, the white eyes of his mask fixed on her. "He was a man of God. You hung him on a cross."

  "I delivered a message," Miller shrugged, her eyes cold. "Jones wanted the Harborline. Your uncle was the static on the line. I just cleared the frequency."

  Devin didn't roar. He didn't scream. He moved with a silent, terrifying speed that even Miller wasn't prepared for. He cleared the thirty-foot gap in seconds. Miller opened fire, but Devin leaned into the pain of a grazing shoulder hit, closing the distance to bat the weapon from her hands.

  The fight was a brutal, technical display of two Tier 1 operators at their limits. Miller was fast—viciously so. She used a pair of tactical batons to deflect Devin's strikes, aiming for his weakened right knee. She landed a heavy blow that sent a spike of agony through Devin's leg, forcing the exoskeleton to hiss as it overcompensated.

  "You're broken, Sailor," she hissed, swinging for his temple.

  Devin caught the baton mid-air, his armored fingers crushing the reinforced plastic. He drove his forehead into her face, the impact cracking her nose. He followed up with a series of rapid-fire body blows, each one fueled by three years of suppressed grief.

  He didn't stop until she was pinned against a rusting ship hull, his forearm pressed against her throat, his other hand cocked back in a fist that could have crushed her skull.

  "Give me one reason," Devin growled, his voice-modulator vibrating with rage.

  Miller coughed, blood bubbling at the corner of her mouth, but she started to laugh—a wet, rattling sound. "You think I'm the end of the chain? You think killing me stops the 'Project'?"

  Devin increased the pressure. "Talk."

  "Jones... he isn't the one in charge," she wheezed, her eyes wide with a frantic, dying light. "He's a puppet. Look at the Carlax offshore accounts... look for the name 'Aegis Prime'. The Red Knights... we weren't building a new world. We were building a cage. And the key... the key is in the cathedral."

  Her head slumped forward. Whether from the trauma of the fight or a final, jagged realization of her own expendability, the life drained out of her.

  "Wes," Devin said, his voice hollowing out. "She's down. Fatal trauma."

  "I heard it all, Dev," Wesley replied, his voice shaking. "I'm already digging. If Jones is a puppet, then we haven't even seen the real monster yet."

  Devin looked down at the woman who had murdered his family. The vengeance he had craved felt like ash in his mouth. He stood up, his knee brace grinding as he turned away from the body. Outside, the Hellcat's engine purred in the dark, its white headlights cutting through the rain like the eyes of another ghost.

  "Ghost 7, extraction," Devin said into the cold air.

  The Challenger rolled toward him, its doors opening like a beckoning shadow. Devin climbed in, the M240 sliding back under the hood as the car turned toward the glowing heart of Sumlin. The killer was dead, but the war had just shifted into a territory he didn't recognize.

  "The cathedral," Devin whispered, looking at the city skyline. "What is in the cathedral, Wes?"

  "I don't know," Wesley whispered back. "But the Aegis scanners just tripled their sweep. Whoever is above Jones... they know you're getting close."