Chapter 19: Smoke and Steel

Tavara – Inner City District, Rooftop of the ValenTech Building, 10:32 PM

The night air crackled with tension atop the ValenTech skyscraper. Tavara's skyline glittered beneath the moonlight, but Damien's focus was solely on the shadows moving two rooftops away.

"Three targets. Military-grade tech. They're not amateurs," he muttered into his earpiece.

From her hidden vantage point behind a ventilation unit, Nora listened in through a mirrored channel. She hadn't expected company during her own covert mission. ValenTech's top floor held encrypted files on Project Horizon—classified experiments tied to missing persons across several countries. Rumor said they were backed by one of the world's most powerful underground syndicates: The Obsidian Reach.

Neither she nor Damien knew they were both on the same trail.

Damien shifted his grip on the carbon-threaded grapple gun. His instincts screamed that something was off. Too smooth. Too quiet. He aimed his scope across the adjacent building—and froze.

A female silhouette crouched near the glass dome, her every move precise, almost... poetic.

Nora.

But he couldn't recognize her—not in the all-black suit, masked, silent, ghostlike. The same was true for Nora. The tall man surveying the perimeter was no ordinary merc. His stance, reaction time, even the subtle roll of his shoulder—she'd seen that kind of control only in elite-level martial artists.

Their missions clashed.

Nora moved swiftly, overriding the biometric lock on the dome entrance. Damien raised his own weapon, not to attack—but to scan. Facial recognition faltered. Whoever she was, her encryption scrambled all data.

Inside the dome, lasers lined the interior. Nora danced between them with grace, slipping past beams and sensors. Damien followed, scaling down a service hatch from the rooftop.

The moment his boots hit the floor, the pressure changed.

Both paused.

Opposite ends of the room. Bodies half-concealed by shadows.

And then the voice came—through the overhead speaker. Cold, metallic, and devoid of any human warmth.

"Welcome, Agents. We've been expecting you."

An ambush.

Within seconds, hatches opened across the walls. Black-clad operatives flooded in. Nora launched into motion—her kicks fast, precise, powerful. Damien followed, dispatching enemies with a brutal mix of hand-to-hand combat and tactical weaponry.

For the first time, they fought side-by-side, unaware of each other's true identity. But their synergy was unmistakable.

By the time the last assailant fell, alarms were blaring across the building.

They stood in silence, breathing heavy.

Damien stared at her masked face. "You move like someone I've seen before."

"You don't want to know who I am," she replied coolly, backing toward the escape shaft.

He stepped forward. "You're not working for them, are you?"

"No," she said. "But I'm not working for you either."

And with that, she vanished into the shaft.

Damien clenched his fists. Whoever she was… she just might be the key to everything.

And for the first time in years, Damien Blackmore felt something he didn't expect.

Intrigued.