echoed. Through the front doors and onto the curb. Dom paused beside the unfamiliar car and bent to examine the figure in the driver’s seat, a cell half raised to their ear. The man had the look of ex-mil, and the file on the seat beside him was printed with Dominic’s name.

He looked back and up at his apartment, the glow of the TV a splash of light against the curtains. Then he turned and walked two blocks to the nearest subway. Halfway down the stairs, he stepped back out of the shadows and into the world, into light and color and time, and vanished into the evening commute.

* * *

“THEY’RE watching my place,” he said when Victor answered the phone.

He was jogging through a small park, his breath coming in short, even beats.

“I’d expect as much,” said Victor, unfazed.

Dom slowed to a walk. “Why am I doing this?”

“Because ignorance is only bliss if you want to get caught.”

With that, Victor hung up.

Dominic returned to EON the next day, via the black van, to find the initial group of six reduced to five. No Klinberg. By the third day, Matthews was gone too. Rios led them through exercises, drills, tests, and Dom did exactly as he was told. Tried to keep his head down and his expression blank. And still he expected to be cut.

Wanted to be cut.

He was heading back to the van on the third day when he was stopped by Rios.

“Director Stell would like a word.”

Dominic stiffened. He’d never met the man, but he knew Stell’s reputation. Knew he was the detective who sent Victor to prison back in college. The man who tracked Eli to Merit. And, of course, the man who’d started EON.

Run, said a voice in Dom’s head.

He looked from Rios to the compound’s entrance, the sliding doors

hissing closed.

Run before they shut.

But if he did, that would be the end of it. His identity would be known, his cover blown. And then Dom would have to keep running.

Always.

He forced himself to fall in line.

Rios led him to an office at the end of a long white hall. She knocked once, and opened the door.

Director Stell sat in a high-backed chair on the opposite side of a broad steel desk. He had black hair just starting to silver, his face reduced to angles as he stared down at a tablet.

“Mr. Rusher. Please sit down.”

“Sir.” Dominic sat.

The door closed behind him with a click.

“Something has been bothering me,” said Stell without looking up.