The streets of Greystone City pulsed with secrets. Even in the quiet alleys where sunlight struggled to reach, the echoes of power plays and whispered betrayals hung thick in the air.
After our narrow escape, I knew Lucian's fall was just the beginning. The web he wove was too intricate to collapse with his arrest. No, the roots stretched deeper, and I needed to unearth them.
Leonard walked beside me, his jaw set, his posture stiff. He hadn't said much since our confrontation with Lucian. The revelation that our enemy might also be reborn haunted us both, though neither of us dared voice it out loud yet.
"You think he's telling the truth?" Leonard finally asked as we crossed an abandoned train yard.
"I don't know. But I can't afford to dismiss it."
I had lived through lifetimes to get here. If Lucian was like me, this war was far from over.
We set up a new base of operations in a forgotten warehouse Leonard had scouted weeks before. Marco joined us, still recovering but unwilling to sit on the sidelines.
"The power vacuum Lucian left won't stay empty for long," Marco warned, spreading new intel across the table. "We've got smaller syndicates moving in already."
"Let them," I said. "We can use the chaos."
Leonard frowned. "You're planning something."
"Always."
I laid out the map of Greystone City, my fingers tracing the shifting territories.
"We let them fight over Lucian's scraps while we dig deeper into his network. There were people funding him, protecting him. He was never working alone."
Marco nodded slowly. "You think there's a bigger player?"
"I know there is."
The days bled into weeks. We staged raids, intercepted coded messages, turned some of Lucian's former lieutenants to our side with promises or threats. Yet every lead pointed to the same name:
The Sovereign.
No face. No direct sightings. Just whispers in backrooms and the occasional encrypted signature on black-market deals.
It was as if they had orchestrated everything from the shadows, letting Lucian be the visible villain while they remained untouchable.
One night, I followed a lead to an underground auction rumored to be run by Sovereign's agents. Leonard insisted on coming with me, despite the danger.
"You keep acting like I'm the little brother you need to protect," he said as we prepared to infiltrate the event.
"You are."
"I'm not."
He met my gaze, steady and unflinching. The boy I once shielded had grown into a man who could hold his own.
"Fine," I conceded. "But if things go wrong, you run."
"Only if you run too."
The auction was a parade of the city's filthiest wealth—stolen art, forbidden weapons, even human lives.
We moved through the crowd in sharp suits and colder expressions. I felt the weight of my past life pressing against my skin like an ill-fitting mask.
As the auctioneer announced the next item, a small black box was placed on the stage.
"Lot 53: A dossier detailing the movements of the Graves cartel."
I stiffened.
Leonard whispered, "They're selling our files?"
"Not ours," I muttered, scanning the faces in the room. "Lucian's. Someone's cleaning house."
The bidding started. I slipped into a private backroom, using stolen credentials to access the auction's server.
Leonard covered me, his hand resting casually on the grip of his concealed weapon.
I broke through the encryption, pulling up the list of sellers. My heart stuttered as I saw the name tied to the sale.
Sovereign.
It was real.
A chill crawled down my spine.
Who sells out their own attack dog unless they're done using him?
"Gabriel, we've got company," Leonard hissed.
I disconnected quickly, just as two enforcers burst into the room.
We fought viciously—Leonard moving with a lethal grace that startled me. His punches were sharp, his footwork brutal. He was no longer the boy I remembered.
We fled the auction, sprinting through hidden passages as gunfire trailed behind us.
Back at the warehouse, Marco scowled as we explained what happened.
"So the Sovereign exists," he said, massaging his temples. "And they're smart enough to erase Lucian when he became a liability."
"Which means they're watching us too," Leonard added.
I exhaled slowly. "This changes the game."
I couldn't shake the feeling that Lucian's downfall was orchestrated long before we confronted him. Like we had been herded toward that ending.
Had the Sovereign known I would survive? Were they testing me just as Lucian had?
I scoured the files we recovered, digging deeper into the Sovereign's financial trails.
One name surfaced repeatedly: Evelyn Marek.
She was a philanthropist by day, but her offshore accounts painted a different picture. She funded mercenary groups, brokered illicit deals, and most importantly—she had met with Lucian multiple times before his fall.
"Looks like we have a new target," Marco said, reading over my shoulder.
"Evelyn Marek," I whispered. "The woman behind the Sovereign mask."
Our first attempt to get close to her failed. Her security was impenetrable, and our insider contact vanished without a trace.
Leonard's frustration simmered. "We're always one step behind."
"Then we change the pace."
I reached out to an old ghost from my past—someone I had clashed with in my first life. A woman named Selene, a master thief who owed me a debt.
Meeting her again in this life felt surreal. She hadn't aged a day from how I remembered her, though we had never met in this timeline.
"You know me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not yet."
She smirked, intrigued but didn't press. I offered her a deal—help us get to Evelyn Marek, and I would erase her debt to the cartel.
She accepted.
Selene was a storm. Where we used caution, she used chaos. Within days, she slipped into Marek's outer circle, feeding us critical security details.
"Your target likes to play with masks," Selene told me during one of our covert exchanges. "But sometimes the best way to break a mask is to make them take it off themselves."
Her words lingered as we built our plan.
We staged a heist—not to steal, but to expose. A charity gala hosted by Evelyn Marek became our battlefield.
Leonard and I infiltrated the event, dressed as elite donors. Marco coordinated from outside, monitoring security feeds hacked by Selene.
As Evelyn Marek took the stage, I couldn't help but marvel at her control—the effortless grace, the polished charm. But I saw through it now.
When the lights cut out and the emergency systems triggered, we struck.
I cornered her in a secured hallway as chaos erupted outside.
"Gabriel Vance," she said, unshaken. "I've been waiting for you."
"You're Sovereign."
"One of them."
My pulse quickened. "How many are there?"
"Enough to rewrite this city's future."
Her calmness rattled me more than Lucian's fury ever had.
"Why Lucian? Why me?"
She stepped closer, her voice low. "Because you remember, Gabriel. You see the patterns others miss. You resist the script."
"And you—do you remember too?"
Her smile was the only answer I needed.
She knew. She was like me.
"The real question is," Evelyn whispered, "how far will you go to break free of this loop?"
Before I could respond, smoke flooded the corridor. She vanished into the shadows, leaving only the chilling echo of her challenge.
Leonard found me minutes later, his face pale. "She escaped?"
"No," I said slowly, my mind racing. "She opened the next chapter."
Because this wasn't the end.
It was the beginning of a larger war—one that would stretch beyond Lucian, beyond Marek, beyond everything I thought I knew.
And I would be ready.