**KANE**
Miss Carie stood silhouetted against the storm-lashed sky, her black coat billowing like the wings of some great carrion bird. The guards flanking her were no ordinary mercenaries—they were hers, cold-eyed and still as statues, rifles locked onto our center mass. No twitch. No wasted movement. Professionals.
And behind her—
Nina.
Tied to that damned chair, her bare feet dangling over the abyss. The rope around her wrists had bitten into her skin, leaving angry red marks. Her dress—the same soft blue one she’d worn the morning they took her—fluttered in the gale, the fabric snapping like a flag in the wind. But it was her eyes that cut deepest. The way they found mine, not with fear, but with a quiet, furious promise.
I’m still here—alive.
And that was all I needed.
