SHADOWS OF THE FORGOTTEN

The face behind the chains

Next day

The command hall was colder than usual, its walls humming with the static of surveillance screens. Liora stood at attention, dossier tucked under her arm, her body rigid, her face unreadable.

Commander Veyr paced before her, boots echoing against steel. “Your next assignment,” he said, sliding a new file across the table.

She opened it.

Her breath caught.

The photograph stared back at her—a man with sharp striking features, eyes that burned with ambition and arrogance. She knew that face anywhere. Not from training. Not from missions. From before,her past.

From the night of the quarrel. From her father’s decree.

Her fiancé.

The file revealed more than just a name.

Kaelen Drax.

Business magnate. Political strategist. A man whose alliances stretched across borders, whose influence threatened the military program itself ruthless in handling his empire.

But to her family, he had been something else: a promise. A chain. A husband chosen not for love, but for power.

The dossier painted him as dangerous, a man whose ambitions could unravel the very system that had forged her.

And now, he was her target .

Her chest tightened, memories clawing their way back. The ring pressed into her palm . Her father’s voice: You will marry him . Her mother’s silence . The storm . The headlights . The accident .

And now—this .

The man she had been forced to marry was the man she was ordered to kill . Seem her week has become more crazier than she anticipated .

“Neutralize him,” Veyr ordered, his tone devoid of hesitation. “He is a threat to our interests. His alliances compromise the program. You will eliminate him before dawn.”

Her fingers clenched around the file. The assassin in her demanded obedience. The girl she once was screamed in protest.Her mind was seathing in pain and a headache threatening to explode.

She forced herself retaining her expression,voice steady. “Understood.”

But inside, her heart fractured into pieces.

She left the command hall, the heavy rain outside washing over her like judgment bestowed by the heavens. The paper from the man in the shadows still burned in her pocket: The marriage is the key.

Now she understood. The arranged marriage was not just family politics—it was a chain forged by the same hands that had molded her into a weapon.

Kaelen Drax was not just her arranged fiancé. He was part of the conspiracy between her parents and the government.

And killing him would mean severing the last thread of her past—or confronting it head-on.

She stood at the edge of the camp, dossier clutched in her hand, the violent storm raging above the camp .

Her next mission was not just an assignment . It was a reckoning .

The assassin. The bride. The daughter. The rebel.

All of her identities collided in that single face .

And the outcome would decide who she truly was .