HE SPOKE HINDI TO BREAK HER… SO SHE ANSWERED LIKE A CIA GHOST AND BROKE THE ROOM INSTEAD

The black Suburban moved through the rainy grid of Manhattan like a wraith, tires hissing against wet asphalt.

Harper sat in the rear leather seat, staring at the small screen of her disposable burner phone. On it, a live feed from a private camera showed a small hospital room. Penny was asleep, her bald little head resting against a pile of pink pillows, the steady green pulse of the heart monitor tracing a slow, rhythmic mountain range across the darkness.

Beside Harper, Kian worked silently on an encrypted laptop, the blue light accentuating the jagged pale scar slicing across his cheekbone.

"My security detail is already outside her room," Kian said without glancing up from his screen. "Two men. Former Delta. Nobody gets onto the oncology floor without biometric clearance. Your sister is safe, Harper."

Harper swallowed the bitter knot in her throat. "Why are you doing this, Thorne? Men like you don't spend fifty grand and put private security on pediatric cancer patients out of Christian charity."

Kian shut the laptop with a quiet thud. He turned his head, his cold gray eyes locking onto hers.

"I don't do charity," he agreed. "Rajesh Malhotra was supposed to sell me the shipping manifests for the Atlantic corridor tonight. Instead, he spent the evening stalling, trying to figure out if I knew he’d already sold those same routes to the Russian syndicate in Brighton Beach. When you broke him, you confirmed my suspicion. You saved me a three-hundred-million-dollar ambush."

"Then we're even," Harper said. "Drop me off at the hospital."

"We're not even close to even," Kian replied softly. "Because Rajesh knows you spoke intelligence-grade Hindi. And Rajesh reports to a man named Kabir Dev."

The name hit Harper like a physical blow. The breath seized in her lungs. The car’s luxurious interior seemed to warp, the sound of the rain fading into the deafening roar of a past she had spent blood and tears trying to outrun.

Kabir Dev. The butcher of Kandahar. The arms broker who had ambushed her four-man reconnaissance unit six years ago, leaving three of her closest friends burning inside an armored humvee while she dragged herself through seven miles of desert sand with a shattered collarbone.

"You knew," Harper whispered, horror and fury warring in her chest. "You knew who he worked for before you even sat down at that table."

"I knew Kabir was looking for a ghost," Kian said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The operative who dismantled his supply chain in Helmand and vanished into thin air. 'The Sparrow.' That was your callsign, wasn't it?"

Harper lunged.

Her movement was instantaneous, a blur of motion honed by thousands of hours of hand-to-hand combat. Her left forearm locked against Kian’s throat, pinning him back against the headrest, while her right thumb dug viciously into the nerve cluster behind his ear.

In the front seat, the driver didn't even flinch, keeping his eyes glued to the rain-slicked FDR Drive.

Kian didn't struggle. He took the pain, his pulse throbbing hot and rapid beneath her arm, his eyes staring directly into hers without a flicker of panic.

"You brought the hunt to my door," she hissed through gritted teeth, her knuckles trembling with the urge to crush his windpipe. "You used me as bait."

"I didn't bring the hunt to you," Kian rasped, his voice strained against her forearm. "Kabir was already in New York. He traced your sister’s medical bills three weeks ago. He was waiting for the right moment to take her. I stepped in tonight to pull the fire onto us before he could strike her."

Harper froze. Her grip loosened by a fraction of an inch. "What?"

"Check your phone," Kian whispered.

Harper slowly pulled back, her eyes never leaving his face, and tapped the screen of her burner. A high-priority encrypted notification from an old handler blinked red: