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“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me,” he said, voice smooth and patient.

“I didn’t,” I said calmly.

“You always were the smart one.”

I didn’t reply.

Didn’t give him anything else.

Let the silence work againsthimfor once.

He circled me slightly, eyes dragging across my face, my shoulders, like he was trying to dissect me with nothing but a glance.

“Interesting choice,” he mused. “Coming here alone. No weapon. No backup. Brave.”

I tilted my head, letting just a trace of ice slip into my voice. “Or bait.”

That smile twitched.

But his eyes stayed on mine.

“I studied you,” he said. “Watched how you moved, how you lied, how you broke people down. But I never got to finish my report.”

I took a step forward. Controlled. Steady.

“You don’t get to define me.”

“I already did,” he whispered. “In that bunker. Youlooked at me first.That meant something.”

“It didn’t.”

He blinked.

The smallest flicker of somethinghuman.

Then it was gone.

And in that moment, I realized something.

I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

He wasn’t a ghost or a shadow or a monster under my bed.

He was just a man.

Broken. Obsessed. Alone.

I took another step forward, forcing him to flinch.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “You’re going to try something. And you’re going to fail. Because you were never in control.”

He opened his mouth.

But before he could speak—

“Down!”

Cyclone’s voice cut through the trees like thunder.