Chapter 13: Echoes Behind the Mask

Tavara – Capital City, Aramore Heights, 10th District Hospital, Private Wing

The sterile hallway was filled with a chilling silence, broken only by the rhythmic beeping of machines. Nora adjusted her white coat, concealing the faint crimson stain on her cuff. Another emergency surgery. Another life saved. But her mind wasn't at peace.

Not today.

A mysterious patient had been rushed in earlier—a foreign intelligence agent wounded in a classified explosion at the edge of Tavara's border. And the symbol tattooed on his neck? It wasn't military.

It was Umbra Helix.

Her eyes had gone cold the moment she saw it.

"Nora," Dr. Levin called gently as he entered. "You've been requested for a special operation. International. High risk. They only want you."

She barely blinked. "Who's the client?"

He hesitated. "They didn't give names. Only credentials—and a blank check."

Outside the hospital, Damien's black Maybach waited, the window slightly rolled down as he scanned the building. His fingers tapped lightly on the steering wheel, the expression on his face unreadable. He had tracked a smuggled document to this very hospital—sealed in the surgical case of a recent patient. The trail led straight to one name: Dr. Nora Whitlock.

But how could a renowned doctor get entangled in international espionage?

Still, there was something about her… that haunted him. A sense of familiarity buried in mystery. Her voice in his memory. Her eyes from his dream.

Later that night, in a dim-lit lounge atop his private estate in Aramore Heights, Damien hacked into the Tavara medical database with precision that would make most cyber units tremble.

He found her record.

Most of it was classified.

A cold smile crept to his lips.

"Who are you, Dr. Whitlock?"

---

Across the city, Nora stood in her high-rise apartment, eyes locked on her encrypted laptop. The name Damien Lancaster flashed on the screen. A target? A threat? Or something deeper?

She clenched her fist.

She didn't believe in fate.

But someone—somewhere—was stitching their paths together with invisible thread. And whoever it was, they had just made a fatal mistake.