ONE LAST CHANCE

THE ENEMY INSIDE IV

The shrill sound of the intruder alert blared through the dimly lit safe house, bathing the walls in a stuttering red glow. Ava's breath hitched, her fingers tightening around the edge of the kitchen island. Julian was already moving, gun in hand, a tight expression set on his face.

"Secure the back entrance," he barked, already halfway to the main hallway. "We don’t know if this is a breach or a bluff."

Ava nodded, adrenaline spiking through her veins. She wasn't just a polished PR executive now—weeks of threats and games had sharpened her instincts. She slipped into the narrow hallway, past the guest room where files from Julian’s investigation were stacked high, and locked down the rear entrance.

A thud echoed from upstairs.

She froze.

"Julian," she whispered into the comm clipped to her shirt. "Someone's upstairs."

His voice came back low, tense. "On my way."

They met at the base of the staircase. Ava motioned toward the sound—slow, deliberate footsteps moving above them. Not frantic. Not careless. Whoever had entered was either confident or reckless. Or both.

Julian mouthed three… two… one, and they moved.

The door to the guest bedroom was ajar.

Julian shoved it open—and Ava’s breath caught.

A man stood by the open window, the wind rustling through dark clothes that blended with the shadows. His face was partially obscured by a hood, but Ava could make out the glint of a scar slicing down his jaw.

"Who the hell are you?" Julian demanded.

The intruder turned slowly. "You’re asking the wrong question," he said in a gravelly voice. "The real question is: how long have you been compromised?"

Julian didn’t hesitate. "Hands where I can see them."

But the man raised a device—a sleek, black cube—and pressed a button. The lights flickered violently. A screech of static burst through their comms before it cut to silence.

Ava lunged to disarm him just as Julian tackled him to the ground. They fought hard—messy, brutal—until the stranger was pinned.

Julian ripped the hood down.

Ava stared.

"Is that—"

"Damien Shaw," Julian said grimly. "Evelyn’s brother."

Ava’s heart pounded. Evelyn Shaw—the woman they’d suspected of pulling strings behind the scandal. If her brother was here, this was no coincidence.

Damien coughed, blood at the corner of his mouth. "I came to warn you."

Julian scowled. "Sure you did."

"She’s going to burn it all," Damien said. "The Basilisk Project isn’t about secrets anymore. It’s about erasure. She’s erasing people."

Ava exchanged a glance with Julian. "Then you better start talking."

---

Meanwhile…

Aria crouched beneath a flickering streetlamp, her hoodie pulled tight against the cold wind sweeping through Brooklyn’s industrial district. The coordinates had led her here—an old textile factory that hadn’t seen life in over a decade. But someone was inside. She could see the dim pulse of electronic light bleeding from a boarded-up window.

She slipped inside through a broken side door, silent as breath.

Inside, the air was heavy with dust and the faint scent of scorched metal. A series of monitors lit the far side of the room, illuminating blueprints, encryption keys, and... names.

Aria crept closer.

At the top of the screen was the Basilisk emblem—an ouroboros twisted with a serpent-headed circuit line.

She scanned the names:

Dr. Mara Yeng

Deputy Director Hale

Evelyn Shaw

Julian Cross

Ava Sinclair

Aria Sinclair

Her blood went cold.

Why the hell was she on the list?

Behind her, the floorboard creaked.

She whirled—too late.

A cloth was pressed to her mouth.

Darkness swallowed her.

---

Back at the safe house, Damien’s voice was low, urgent, as he pulled something from his coat. A thumb drive.

"I stole this from Evelyn’s vault. It has partial files—codes, lab locations, intel on how deep Basilisk runs. But there’s one file she’s hunting harder than the rest."

He looked directly at Ava.

"It’s the one tied to you."

Julian stepped closer. "What do you mean?"

Damien’s lips twisted into something between regret and resolve. "You were never supposed to find out. But your father—Ava—he was one of the architects. Basilisk was his idea. And someone wants to make sure his daughters don't dig too deep."The silence that followed Damien's revelation was crushing.

Ava stared at him, the blood draining from her face. Her voice, when it came, was hollow. “That’s not possible. My father was a diplomat. He... he brokered peace deals, he wasn’t…”

Damien’s gaze didn’t waver. “He wasn’t just a diplomat. That was the cover. He was a systems architect, a brilliant strategist, and one of the original minds behind Basilisk when it was still a classified intelligence initiative—long before it turned into this weaponized black project.”

Julian’s jaw clenched. “You’re saying Ava’s father built the foundation for something that’s now being used to blackmail, erase, and destroy people?”

Damien nodded once. “And someone at the top wants the last of that knowledge buried with Ava.”

Ava sat down slowly on the arm of the worn couch, her eyes distant. "He died after I left you Julian".

“His death wasn’t random,” Damien said gently. “It was staged. Evelyn’s team took him out after he tried to pull out of the project and go public. Your mother knew—she ran. Changed identities. Hid you and Aria.”

Julian’s eyes flicked to Ava, pain tightening his features. “You didn’t know any of this?”

Ava shook her head, stunned. “No. Nothing. My mother never told us. She just… she just got sick and died two years later. Aria and I thought it was bad luck, a cursed run of years.”

“It wasn’t,” Damien said. “It was calculated. She was poisoned.”

Julian’s fists tightened at his sides, his voice laced with fury. “Why are you telling us all of this now?”

“Because I defected,” Damien replied. “I thought Basilisk was supposed to protect us—until I saw what Evelyn was doing with it. You need to know what you’re really up against. She’s using AI-enhanced surveillance, behavioral data models, and deepfake identities. She’s planning to wipe anyone who can tie her to the old system.”

“And Aria?” Ava said, her voice trembling.

Damien’s expression darkened. “She’s already been flagged. Evelyn knows she’s poking around the outer edges of the project. If she gets any closer, she’ll disappear like the others.”

Julian turned to Ava, taking her hands. “We get out. We go underground until we can figure out a counter-strategy. We bring in only who we trust.”

“No,” Ava said, fire rising in her voice. “We don’t run. I’m done being in the dark. My whole life has been built on lies, shadows, people telling me what’s best. That ends now.”

She looked at Damien. “What’s on that drive? What does Evelyn want erased?”

Damien plugged it into Julian’s encrypted laptop. The screen flickered.

Lines of code filled the monitor, followed by video footage—some grainy, others shockingly clear. Names. Wire transfers. A hidden lab offshore tagged Orpheus. Test logs. Experimental biotech. A file titled “SCP/Basilisk_Gen_Origin: Sinclair Protocol.”

Julian leaned in, jaw tight. “She wasn’t lying.”

The screen blinked again—and suddenly, it froze.

A message appeared in red:

“TRACE DETECTED. EXTERNAL EYES WATCHING.”

Julian yanked the drive out.

But it was too late.

Ava’s phone lit up with an incoming message.

One she hadn’t seen in years.

UNKNOWN:

You were never supposed to find the truth.

Now you’ve inherited the war.

She stared at it, heart hammering.

And then the safe house lights went out.

Complete blackout.

Julian grabbed her hand. “Move. We’re compromised.”

Damien already had his gun drawn. “They’re here.”

In the sudden darkness, Ava’s voice was calm, chilling in its clarity.

“Then let them come.”

----

Evelyn Shaw stood at the heart of her sanctum, fingers steepled beneath her chin, eyes cold as the security feed blinked red on the holographic display.

“They’ve activated the drive,” she murmured.

A silent ripple moved through the operatives seated at workstations around her. The air in the sleek room pulsed with the hush of calculated fear. Evelyn didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to.

“They accessed Sinclair Protocol.” Her words were a whisper, but they cracked like thunder.

Across the room, a man in a tailored charcoal suit cleared his throat. “They triggered the trace fail-safe, but the signal broke when Julian pulled the drive. We lost visual.”

“And?” Evelyn asked softly, tilting her head.

“The blackout engaged the safe house countermeasures. We’ve got no drones, no heat signatures. Nothing.”

Evelyn smiled faintly, and everyone in the room stiffened.

“No heat signatures just means we can stop pretending this isn’t war,” she said. “Activate Specter units four through eight. I want them converging on the last known quadrant within twenty minutes. And patch me through to Bishop.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As the command went out, Evelyn moved to her private terminal and tapped in a separate sequence.

The screen shifted to a secure encrypted feed. A shadowed face flickered into view. The voice was male, British, and utterly calm.

“Evelyn.”

“I need containment. We have a breach in Lineage Assets. Both Sinclair girls are now active. Ava accessed the protocol.”

A pause.

“Then it’s time, isn’t it?” the man replied. “Do you want her eliminated?”

Evelyn’s lips curved, but it wasn’t a smile.

“No,” she said. “I want her to lead us to the rest. To the last copy of the ledger. And when she does…” Evelyn’s eyes gleamed like cut ice. “Burn everything else.”

The line went dead.

She turned back to the room.

“Send the order to scramble Aria Sinclair’s record. Make her a ghost. Then leak a falsified Black Lotus communique suggesting she’s alive and defected. That’ll draw out whoever’s been protecting her.”

“And Ava?” someone asked.

Evelyn ran a manicured finger across a digital file marked “Asset: Julian Cross” and whispered, almost affectionately, “We let Julian get her out. Let her trust him. Love him again, even. Because once she does…”

Her voice dropped to a purr.

“…he’ll lead her straight to the vault.”

---

—Back at the Safe House—

The emergency lights flickered on—dim red strips casting eerie shadows across the walls.

Julian had a gun in one hand, Ava’s wrist gripped tightly in the other. Damien moved ahead, his steps silent, scanning corners.

“We go down,” he said. “There’s a reinforced escape tunnel. Thirty meters, low-profile. It’ll spit us out near the abandoned west rail station.”

“Cameras?” Julian asked.

“Gone. Whole system’s fried. Either Evelyn blew the tech with a virus, or she’s jamming it remotely.”

Ava said nothing. Her mind was spinning too fast. Her body felt electric—half panic, half clarity. She was done being afraid.

They reached the sub-level corridor. Julian paused to yank open a security panel, revealing a biometric scanner and keypad.

Ava stepped forward and pressed her hand to the scanner.

It hissed open.

Damien blinked. “You memorized the encryption protocols?”

“I designed half of them,” she replied coolly. “Julian just didn’t know.”

Julian turned toward her, a flicker of admiration—or maybe something more—flashing in his eyes.

Before he could speak, an echo rang out.

Footsteps.

Not theirs.

Then a second sound—mechanical. Rhythmic.

Ava’s breath caught.

“Are those drones?”

“No,” Damien muttered. “Specters.”

Julian swore. “Those things are only used in wet ops—elimination missions.”

Ava stared at him.

“Then Evelyn’s not just trying to stop us,” she said. “She’s trying to erase us.”