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Story: Vicious Doll

My feet know these streets though I've never walked them. My mind catalogs escape routes through alleys centuries old. My body moves with the liquid grace of someone who's spent a lifetime in the shadows. Muscle memory. Operationalconditioning. The ghost of Nova Cross rising from Landry James's ashes.
The cold realization settles in my gut like lead: I've been playing someone else's game from the start. Landry James never existed except as camouflage for a weapon someone wanted to keep hidden. Nova was real. Is real.
But whoever the fuck I am now? I'm nobody's asset anymore.
As I disappear into Vienna's labyrinthine heart, a new purpose crystallizes in my mind. Find Vahnya. Recover my past. Decide my future—not as Landry, not as Nova, but as whatever hybrid monster they've created in their arrogance. And then make everyone who used me pay, one bullet at a time.
The game is no longer theirs. It's mine. And I'm changing the rules.
Has Landry survived the trap…only to become the weapon they fear most?
The Dollhouse is burning, enemies are watching from the shadows, and loyalties are a luxury no one can afford. In this war of masks and monsters, only the ruthless survive.
* * *
Somewhere out there, Volkov is bleeding.
Good.
Let him.
Because I’m coming—and this time, I’m not playing by anyone’s rules.
Not Killion’s.
Not theirs.
Only mine.