Chapter 18 – Bloodlines and Bayonets part 1

The sky above the Incheon coast was a smoky charcoal, moonlight barely cutting through the thick shroud of sea fog. The shipyard, once bustling with commerce, now stood eerily still its cranes frozen mid-air like skeletal sentinels. At the edge of the pier, a modified tanker loomed like a waiting leviathan, its deck crawling with Sable operatives armed to the teeth. Inside, beneath layers of reinforced steel and encrypted security, Project Phoenix pulsed in a chamber of glass and chrome.

Lucien Ricci stood inside a decommissioned cargo container, flanked by Min-Jae and three handpicked Syndicate enforcers. He adjusted the earpiece in his left ear and studied the flickering digital schematic on a tablet.

"Front hatch is fortified," Min-Jae said quietly. "Thermal confirms twenty hostiles on deck. Five more inside the control room. No civilians."

"And Drevin?" Lucien asked, voice like a blade unsheathed.

Min-Jae hesitated. "No eyes on him yet. But Kazuo's here. Heat signature matches his profile."

Lucien's jaw flexed. The ghost of Tokyo's underground, back from the dead and now guarding the woman who'd become more than leverage. Yuna wasn't just a variable anymore. She was a target. A trigger. And his.

Across the yard, hidden behind a stack of shipping containers, Yuna Kim crouched with a sidearm in her grip. It wasn't her weapon of choice she preferred numbers, balance sheets, logic but tonight, logic didn't apply.

She took a slow breath, heart pounding as she watched the tanker's side door open. Two guards stepped out. Then a third. And behind them Kazuo Shin.

"Yuna Kim," he called out in flawless Korean, his voice amplified through a small comm unit. "Your ride's here. Don't make me drag you in."

Yuna's hand shook.

She'd seen the footage of Kazuo slaughtering five men in Milan with nothing but a wrench. And yet here he was, grinning like a predator on vacation.

"Do it clean," Min-Jae's voice buzzed in her earpiece. "Lucien's moving. You just have to stall."

She whispered back, "I know what I have to do."

And then she stood.

(Inside the Ship – Command Deck)

Aleksei Drevin stood in front of the Phoenix Core, watching the serum pulse in a vial the size of a child's forearm. His right arm was still in a brace. His face bore three stitched gashes from Lucien's last ambush in Prague. But he smiled, despite the pain.

"She's here," he murmured to the silent chamber. "Lucien brought her to me."

He turned to the technician beside him. "Prep the genome trigger. Begin the blood scan. If her DNA matches the marker… inject."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Inject anyway. Let's see what bleeds."

-Back on the Docks-

Lucien moved like a ghost through the fog, every step precise, his Glock silenced and held low. He took down the first guard with a swift strike to the throat. The second crumpled from a suppressed shot to the knee, then temple. No alarms. No mistakes.

He reached Yuna just as she backed toward the shadows again, Kazuo's voice ringing louder.

"You know what you are, don't you?" Kazuo called out. "You think he loves you? You think he *can*? You're not a woman to him. You're a button waiting to be pushed."

Lucien stepped behind her.

"Then let's show him what happens when the wrong person pushes it."

Yuna spun, startled. "You shouldn't be here."

Lucien's eyes locked with hers. "Neither should you."

A crash echoed from the tanker as the first breach charge went off. The ship lit up with red strobes.

Min-Jae's voice cut through the comms: "Go, go, go!"

Lucien grabbed Yuna's hand and pulled her forward.

The game had just gone live.

(Inside the Phoenix Chamber)

Kazuo met Lucien on the mid-deck, fists raised, grinning like a devil unleashed.

"I always wanted a second round," he said.

Lucien didn't hesitate. He dropped his pistol and charged.

They collided like thunder, trading blows that rattled metal walkways and left streaks of blood across the bulkhead. Kazuo moved with brutal elegance elbows, knees, fists honed in death. Lucien answered with cold precision, his every strike fueled by fury born of betrayal.

Down below, Yuna followed Min-Jae into the Phoenix chamber where the techs had fled and the serum glowed in its cryo-chamber.

She froze at the sight of her mother's face on the lab monitor.

A profile. A subject. A test rat.

"Asset K-000," the header read.

Below it: "Offspring match K-001 confirmed."

Her knees almost buckled.

"She wasn't just involved," Yuna whispered. "She was the origin."

Min-Jae pulled her back. "We have to destroy it now."

But Yuna couldn't look away. Not yet. Not before she knew what made her so dangerous.

The screen blinked. A new file loaded.

"To be continued..."