Amelia Vance (The Unknown Series)

Chapter 9

Leo Pov

Leo realized the gravity of the situation. This wasn't a skirmish; it was a war. He saw the cold logic in her eyes. The quiet safety they had built was an illusion, and the real world had just shattered it.

"My car is a marked vehicle," she said, her voice a low murmur. "We can't use it. We're going to need to get off the grid. The first thing we do is disappear."

She looked at Leo, a hint of the soft, caring woman he knew flickering through her determined facade. "I know this is terrifying, but you're not a liability, Leo. You're my anchor. He called my love for you a weakness, but it's what's going to make me win. And I need you to fight with me. Your weapon is information. We're going to use everything we can to understand him, to predict his moves. We're going to fight fire with fire."

She took his hand and led him out of the compromised apartment, leaving behind the wreckage of her past and the defeated ghost of her former handler. As they stepped out into the night, Amelia made a new vow. She wouldn't just survive; she would avenge every stolen memory and every life the Architect had broken. She was no longer just an operative or a scared woman; she was a force of nature fighting for her freedom.

Amelia's head snapped up. She looked at Leo, her eyes no longer filled with the quiet, placid light he had grown to love. They were hard, focused, and terrifyingly clear. "We're not running," she said, her voice a cold whisper. "If we run, we're always looking over our shoulder. We're a liability, a loose end he'll keep trying to tie up. The only way to win is to cut the strings ourselves."

Leo’s mind was still reeling from the hologram's revelation, the chilling words "family friend" echoing in his ears. He looked at the chaos around them—the downed men, the splintered door—and then at Amelia, a woman who had just fought for her life with a frying pan. He saw the cold logic in her eyes and knew a safe house, as a journalist, was a place to hide. But for her, it would be a cage.

"So, what do we do?" he asked, his own fear giving way to a strange, journalistic curiosity. "We go after him?"

"He's a ghost," she replied, picking up the small, inert Echo device from the floor. "But he left breadcrumbs. He gave me this." She held up the device. "He thought it would control me, but it's a key. A key to his network."