Page 11

T he phone weighs heavy in my palm, pre-dialed number glowing like a time bomb. Around us, Vienna burns in winter twilight, the Hotel Imperial belching smoke while sirens scream through ancient streets.

Civilians scatter like frightened pigeons, emergency responders pushing against the flow of human panic. The air stinks of cordite and fear, that unmistakable cocktail that follows violence like a faithful dog.

Killion watches me, that glacier-eyed focus never wavering. Behind him, his extraction team awaits —my golden ticket back to the Dollhouse's concrete embrace. If I choose it. If I trust him.

Fat fucking chance.

I press the phone to my ear, keeping my eyes locked on Killion's face.

Trust is a luxury I stopped being able to afford somewhere between the first time someone tried to kill me and the third time I killed to survive.

The connection takes its sweet time, encryption protocols buzzing like angry wasps.

"Identify yourself," a woman answers, voice like polished steel with Eastern European edges. The kind of voice that's seen too much shit to be impressed by anything short of the apocalypse.

"You first," I counter, watching Killion's face for any hint of reaction. His jaw tightens a fraction, pupils dilating slightly—tells so small most people would miss them, but I'm not most people. "If you're really Vahnya Orlova, prove it."

"I do not prove myself to anyone Agent Nova," the voice is cool, clipped with that accent that made her sound hard and refined at the same time. "I am Vahnya Orlova, codename: Red Angel — and you are wasting time."

"Yeah, well it's my time to waste. Why's everyone so hell bent on getting their hands on you? What's so special about you that you've got people blowing shit up and stacking up the body count whenever your name gets mentioned?"

Around us, Vienna quakes with aftershocks of the explosion. A woman stumbles past, designer coat smeared with ash, mascara painting black rivers down her cheeks. The world is ending for the civilians caught in our crossfire, but for people like us, it's just Tuesday.

"Because I know too much," Vahnya answers simply. "About the program. About what they've been doing to assets like us."

"Assets like us?" I repeat, catching the plural. Something cold slithers up my spine—not fear exactly, more like recognition of a truth my body knows before my brain catches up.

"Nova," her voice takes on a different urgency, almost...familiar? "Nothing about your life is what you think. The club, the extraction, the training – it wasn't recruitment. It was recovery."

A cold feeling creeps up my spine. "What are you talking about?"

"You weren't recruited from Malvagio," she says carefully. "You were already one of us. Before."

What.The.Fuck? "Are you on drugs, lady? What are you talking about?" I look to Killion, my expression screwing into an incredulous mask of irritation and uncertainty. "This chick is saying some crazy shit."

But Killion just stares, something in his expression sending a chill down my back. There's no surprise there, no confusion—just calculation. Like he's watching a chess piece make exactly the move he anticipated.

The world tilts around me, reality fragmenting like a mirror struck with a hammer.

Flashes of memory that never felt quite right suddenly parade through my mind—the way I knew exactly how to dismantle a pistol the first time Killion handed me one.

The way I could read people's private thoughts through subtle tells like they were billboard-sized confessions.

The way I could pick up different languages without breaking a sweat.

"The butterfly tattoo on your left ribcage," the woman continues without hesitation. "It's not decorative. It's a mission marker—the ink contains compounds that trigger specific physiological responses during certain interrogation protocols. You didn't choose it — it was chosen for you."

My hand involuntarily moves to my side, knowing the outline of the tattoo through silk blouse—the one I'd always believed was a drunken mistake after graduation.

The one Isaac always claimed to hate. I'd always wondered why I couldn't remember getting it, why the memory was fuzzy at best. I'd chalked it up to too many tequila shots, but now. ..

"How would you know that?" I demand, voice steady despite the earthquake reshaping my internal landscape. My mind races, cataloging every inconsistency in my memories, every dream that felt too vivid, every inexplicable skill that came too naturally.

"Because I designed it, Nova. We were on the same team before Budapest. Before you were taken and rewritten into Landry James."

I'm scanning not just Killion but the street around us now, hyperaware that this call is either the first honest thing I've heard in months or the most elaborate trap yet. The burning hotel casts hellish shadows across the ancient streets, turning Vienna into a Bosch painting of chaos and flames.

Somewhere in the distance, a secondary explosion rocks the foundations, and I wonder if that's Volkov's handiwork or just the universe's way of adding percussion to my personal breakdown.

Still my head is spinning even as something about what she's laying down feels true. Too true. The kind of truth that lives in your bones before it reaches your brain.

"If we were on the same team, what was my extraction phrase?" I throw out, testing, fishing—knowing there won't be an answer because I just made that shit up.

Except Vahnya doesn't hesitate: "Blackbirds fly at midnight, but ravens own the dawn."

The phrase hits like a physical blow—meaningless, yet sending shivers of recognition through my body that make no rational sense. My muscle memory responds before my conscious mind can process why.

My shoulders straighten, my breathing evens out, my stance morphs to something more balanced, more lethal. Combat-ready, without a single conscious command.

Jesus fucking Christ.

"Who am I?" I whisper, the question stripped of everything but raw need. Three words that contain every existential crisis in human history, distilled into one desperate plea.

"You were Nova Cross before you were Landry James," Vahnya says. "Asset classification Vixen-09. Deep cover specialist. You died in Budapest three years ago. Or so it was made to believe."

My eyes snap to Killion, searching for confirmation or denial.

He remains statue-still, face unreadable.

But there's something in his eyes—a watchfulness, an intensity that speaks volumes.

He's waiting to see if I remember, if the shell he built around me cracks entirely or just enough to let the truth seep in.

"The Vahnya Initiative," I press, stepping further from Killion, though not far enough to lose sight of his hands. "What is it?"

"A perversion of the Resurrection program," she says, each word precise as a bullet. "Reclaiming operatives believed killed in action. Wiping. Reprogramming. That night at Malvagio? The club? The extraction? All theater for your benefit. You weren't recruited, Nova. You were recovered."

The words land like body blows, each one finding vulnerable tissue. But with each hit comes clarity—pieces clicking into place with sickening precision.

The strange comfort I felt in the Dollhouse despite its brutality. The way Killion's training methods seemed tailor-made for my responses. The way three months turned me from suburban housewife to efficient killer.

Because I wasn't learning. I was remembering.

My fingers tighten around the phone until my knuckles bleach white. "Isaac," I whisper, the name suddenly foreign on my tongue. "Is he even real?"

"He's one of ours," Vahnya says, her tone matter-of-fact.

"A handler disguised as a husband. Assigned to monitor you while your memories stabilized.

The Landry identity needed anchoring—a domestic environment was ideal for our purposes.

" She pauses. "The original programming is designed to resurface gradually during training.

Notice how naturally you took to killing? "

The observation lands like a sledgehammer to the sternum. The way combat training felt like remembering rather than learning. The way my body responded to danger without conscious thought. The way death came so easily to my hands.

I think back to the first man I killed in the safehouse—how I didn't hesitate, didn't falter, my body moving with the mechanical precision of someone who'd done it a hundred times before.

Because I had.

Now I feel bad for being such a bitch to my fake husband. Babysitting a sleeper assassin while she cheated and treated him like wallpaper had to be the worst assignment ever.

He probably breathed a sigh of relief when I disappeared. Although, now it made perfect sense why he never pitched a fit when I told him I was going on an extended girls' trip.

No, actually, that’s a lie, I don’t feel bad at all. I’m pissed.

Who was I before? What happened in Budapest? Why did they need to put me on ice for three years? Why thaw me out now?

"Where are you?" I demand. "I need?—"

“Go with Killion. Now.”

The line goes dead, connection severed. Whether by Vahnya's choice or someone else's, I can't tell.

I stare at the screen, willing it to reconnect, to provide the answers that will stitch my fractured identity back together.

But there's nothing. Just deafening silence and the distant wail of sirens.

I lower the phone, mind racing through implications faster than I can process them. Killion watches me with the careful attention of someone monitoring an unstable explosive.

Which, let's be honest, is exactly what I've become—a ticking bomb of conflicting identities and unleashed muscle memory.

"She's telling the truth, isn't she?" I ask, though it's not really a question. The answer is written in the tense set of Killion's shoulders, in the calculated distance he maintains, in the way his hand hovers near his concealed weapon.