CHAPTER 8 –
Istanbul
Istanbul shimmered beneath a veil of twilight, the Bosphorus carved in silver as ferries drifted like ghosts across the water. The city had always been a crossroads of secrets — the perfect place for a man who preferred to remain dead.
In a narrow café near Karaköy, a man in his forties stirred his tea without drinking it. His shoulders were broad, movements economical, eyes the color of cold steel.
His passport identified him as **Dragan Vuković**, Serbian-born, Turkish-naturalized.
But ten years earlier, in a morgue in Belgrade, a body had been tagged with his name.
Meaning this man should not be alive.
He wasn't waiting for tea. He was waiting for a call.
At precisely 19:04, his encrypted phone vibrated once — the signal.
He answered.
A heavily distorted voice said, "She's in Geneva. The Moretti girl."
Dragan leaned back, expression unreadable. "Alive?"
"For now."
He set down the spoon. "Who else is moving?"
"All of them."
A slow, dark smile tugged at his mouth.
"All of them," he repeated, as if savoring the chaos.
"And Dragan," the voice added, "your objective has changed. New orders."
He straightened. "Go on."
There was a pause — the kind that suggested the speaker was deciding whether Dragan deserved the truth.
"Find her," the voice said. "But don't kill her. Bring her to us."
"And the others?"
"Dispose of them. Quietly."
The call ended.
Dragan pocketed the phone, stood, and left a hundred-lira note on the table. Outside, the air smelled of sea salt and diesel. The streetlights flickered to life, one by one.
He pulled up his hood and blended into the crowd.
He had always excelled at finding people who didn't want to be found.
But Lena Moretti…
She was something else.
He could feel it, even from thousands of miles away — a magnetic pull, the kind that came from people whose lives would shatter nations.
He walked toward the waterfront, boarding a small private boat without speaking to the captain.
"Where to?" the man asked.
Dragan lit a cigarette.
"Geneva," he said.
The captain blinked. "By boat?"
Dragan inhaled slowly, the smoke curling around the scar on his jaw.
"No. Take me to the airport. And don't look at my face again."
The captain nodded quickly and turned away.
Dragan smiled. He loved fear. It made everything easier.
---
### **Geneva — same night**
Lena stepped into her hotel room and locked the door twice. Her fingers trembled as she placed the folder on the bed — everything she had pulled from the archives.
She barely had time to sit before her phone buzzed.
A number she didn't recognize.
A country code she didn't expect.
**Spain.**
She froze.
Should she answer?
It buzzed again.
She pressed the green button.
Silence.
Then a calm, low voice said, "Lena Moretti. You don't know me. Yet. But listen carefully. Three different hunters are already in motion. One wants you alive. One wants you dead. The third…"
A pause.
"…hasn't decided."
Her heart slammed against her ribs. "Who is this?"
"You'll meet me soon enough. But not if you stay there."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't," the voice replied. "Trust no one. Not even me. Especially not me."
The line went dead.
Her pulse throbbed in her ears.
She sat still for several seconds, then pulled the curtains shut.
Whoever the caller was, he knew about the hunters.
He knew about her.
He had her number.
And he was in Spain — which meant he could be one of the two people on their way to Geneva.
She grabbed her bag, her mother's necklace, and the thin knife she kept tucked in her boot.
She could not afford to be slow.
She would move. Now.
---
### **Madrid — 37,000 feet**
Luis Alcázar closed his eyes as the plane glided through a pocket of turbulence.
Beside him, María-Lyn Grant was reviewing drone footage sent from a contact in Geneva.
"Someone else is moving," she said.
Luis opened one eye. "Vague."
"No. Look at this."
She handed him the tablet.
The footage showed a grainy silhouette stepping out of the Geneva train station, shoulders heavy, walk predatory.
Luis stiffened.
"Vuković."
"So the rumors were true," she said softly. "He's alive."
Luis rubbed a hand over his mouth. "This just became complicated."
"Do we turn back?"
He lowered the tablet.
"No," he said.
"We get there before he reaches her. And if he's working for the client I think he is… then we're running out of time."
María-Lyn studied him. "Who's the third hunter?"
Luis hesitated.
Then he whispered a name she hadn't heard in years — a name that made even her, a woman trained by MI6, go still.
"You think *he* is involved?"
Luis nodded once.
"If he is… then none of us are ready."
---
### **Geneva — same night**
Lena stepped out of the hotel into the cold night air, unaware that:
**One man was flying toward her.**
**One man had already arrived.**
**And the third was watching from much, much closer than she could imagine.**
She pulled her coat tight and vanished into the crowd.
Her mother had always told her:
*If you run toward the truth, it will run toward you twice as fast.*
Lena had no idea how fast the truth was coming.
Or how many bodies it would leave behind.