The rotors of the black ops chopper screamed through the night sky, slicing the silence above Tavara's eastern skyline. Captain Damien Cross stared out through the scratched window as the city lights stretched below him — a chaos of beauty he hadn't seen in five years.
He was home. But home wasn't peace. It was the battlefield he could never leave behind.
As the chopper touched down at an undisclosed military helipad near Capital Base Alpha, Damien stepped onto the tarmac, the weight of war still etched into his shoulders. Medals couldn't carry what he'd buried. Orders couldn't silence what he'd seen.
He adjusted the cuff of his uniform, decorated but darkened by blood and secrets. Intelligence said the threat wasn't over — a shadow syndicate called The Helix Order had infiltrated Tavara's top health institutions, posing as philanthropists while experimenting on civilians. And someone had leaked a name to him. Dr. Nora Wren.
A name he hadn't heard since before his last deployment. The woman he never stopped dreaming of. The one he lost without a goodbye.
Now she was a world-renowned doctor, veiled in mystery, protected by her brilliance and haunted by a past no one dared to uncover. But Damien knew better. Nora didn't rise to the top without scars.
"Captain Cross," barked a deep voice.
He turned. General Marcus Reid stood beside a black SUV, arms crossed. "You ready to face Tavara's demons?"
"I am one of them," Damien replied coldly.
The SUV doors swung open. Inside was a manila file marked Eyes Only. Inside it, Nora's photograph. Her face hadn't changed — radiant, calm, but her eyes… her eyes held secrets.
And behind her was a city wrapped in lies.
Damien knew his mission was clear: uncover the truth, dismantle The Helix Order, and find the woman who once healed his soul — before the same shadows came for her life.
But what he didn't know yet... was that Nora had her own mission.
And it had started the day he left.
.....