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Jude’s lips parted, then closed again. Her throat worked as she swallowed hard.

And then she nodded.

“I think… I think he was at the site. The black site in Syria. I don’t remember his name—he never gave one. But there was a man. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. Someone who—”

She trailed off, eyes flicking toward the trees like the memory lived out there.

“He watched,” she whispered. “He didn’t interrogate. Didn’t speak. Just watched. Every day.”

Her voice cracked.

“And when it was over… when we exfiltrated… someone gave the kill order. But it never went through.”

I stood slowly. “He was meant to be silenced.”

She nodded.

“But he wasn’t.”

River blew out a breath. “Which means this isn’t just about old ghosts. This is a man who survived being erased.”

And now he was writing himself back into Jude’s life—letter by letter, step by step.

“This ends now,” I said.

I turned to Jude, gently gripping her shoulders.

“You’re not leaving this house without me. Not until we find him. Not until I end this.”

She didn’t argue.

Didn’t fight me.

She just leaned into me, her forehead pressing into my chest, and whispered, “Okay.”

But I felt the tremor in her bones.

And I knew—

This man hadn’t just come back to haunt her.

He’d come to finish what someone else started.

Not if I had anything to say about it.

43

Unknown Man

He sat in the back of a nondescript rental sedan, engine off, parked beneath a canopy of trees three miles out from town.

The woods around him were still, damp with morning rain, mist curling through the underbrush like ghosts too stubborn to leave.

Fitting.

He rolled the message slip between his fingers—another one already printed and waiting in the passenger seat.

Not a threat.