Treatment 231_Badass in Disguise

Chapter 231 

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 I woke up the next morning feeling strangely calm. I showered, dressed infortable jeans and a ck t–shirt, and tucked Lawrence’s medallion into my pocket. I stepped out into the Spanish sunshine, looking for all the world like an American tourist enjoying her vacation.

 The medallion worked exactly as Lawrence had promised. When I shed it at the entrance to a historic church that was closed for renovations, the security guard’s eyes widened slightly before he stepped aside with a respectful nod. When I wandered into areas marked with “residents only” signs, no one stopped me. I bought coffee from a small café, practiced my Spanish with the locals, and took photos of architecture like I didn’t have a care in the world.

 But I wasn’t careless. As I pretended to admire a centuries–old fountain in a small za, I caught the reflection of a man in dark clothing watching me from an alleyway. When I browsed handmade jewelry at an open–air market, I noticed a woman with amunication device discreetly tucked into her ear, tracking my movements. Shadow Organization was everywhere, but they were just watching. Waiting.

 Let them wait.

 I maintained my tourist charade for two full days. I didn’t actively search for Zach, didn’t hack into security cameras, didn’t do anything that screamed “desperate rescue mission.” I knew they had him somewhere in thisbyrinthine district, and I knew they’d eventually want to make contact. My job was to be patient.

 On the third night, I decided to change venues. I dressed in tight ck jeans and a deep red top, applied just enough makeup to blend with the nightlife crowd, and headed to a pulsing club near the edge of the district.

 The music hit me like a physical force when I stepped inside–bass so deep I could feel it in my chest cavity. Strobe lights cut through artificial fog, illuminating sweaty dancers packed shoulder to shoulder. I weaved through the crowd to the bar and ordered a martini, surveying the room with calcted casualness.

 That’s when I felt it—a gaze that carried lethal intent. Unlike the watchers from the previous days, this one wasn’t trying to be subtle. I turned slowly, scanning the second–floor balcony that ringed the dance floor.

 There he was. A man in a ck trench coat, his face half–hidden in shadow. When our eyes met, he held the gaze for three full seconds before turning and walking away from the railing.

 I sipped my martini, counting to ten in my head before setting the ss down and following. I moved with purpose but without hurry, like someone going to the bathroom, not pursuing a killer.

 The man led me through the back of the club, down an alley, and through a maze of narrow streets. I maintained a careful distance, never losing sight of him but never getting close enough to spook him. Finally, he entered what appeared to be an abandoned factory in one of the district’s lowest–ie areas.

 The factory’s interior was a cathedral of rust and decay. Moonlight filtered through broken windows, casting long shadows across concrete floors stained with decades of industrial grime. The air smelled of metal, dust, and–faintly but unmistakably–blood.

 “Shit,” I whispered.

 There, suspended from a rusted steel beam by nylon rope, hung Zach. His arms were stretched painfully above his head, and a tactical knife had been driven clean through his right forearm, pinning him in ce. Blood had dried in dark rivulets down his arm. His head hung forward, but the slight rise and fall of his chest told me he was alive.

 I moved forward, but a voice from the second–floor catwalk stopped me.

 “I wouldn’t if I were you,” a woman said, stepping into a shaft of moonlight. She wore a tactical bodysuit with the Shadow Organization insignia embroidered on the cor. Her tinum blonde hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, and her eyes were as cold and gray as gunmetal.

 Selene. The fourth highest–ranked operative in Shadow Organization.

 Beside her, a man with close–cropped dark hair and a face marred by a diagonal scar emerged from the shadows. Whisper. Fifth–ranked.

 “We’ve been waiting for you,” Selene said, her voice carrying easily in the cavernous space. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

 Whisper opened aptop and ced it on the railing. The screen flickered to life, showing a face obscured by digital pixtion. The voice that came through had been processed to disguise its natural tone.

 “We finally meet,” the disguised figure said. “Your eyes… they’re exactly like Shadow’s. That look in them–I’d recognize it anywhere.”

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Treatment 231