[Ethan’s POV]

The freezing rain finally stopped an hour before dawn, leaving behind a thick, suffocating fog that rolled off the Dâmbovița River and swallowed the streets of Bucharest.

We moved like ghosts through the gray mist. I kept us off the main roads, navigating through narrow service alleys and broken chain-link fences. Claire stayed right on my heels, her reinforced briefcase clutched tightly to her chest. She was exhausted, shivering in her damp tactical gear, but she didn’t complain once.

"Two blocks," Claire whispered, checking her encrypted phone under the cover of her jacket. "Strada Fierului. Iron Street."

"Keep your eyes open," I said, my hand resting on the grip of my Glock. "If Jake came this way bleeding, the Lupii might have tracked him here too."

We crossed a deserted intersection, the fog muffling the sound of our boots. Iron Street lived up to its name. It was a desolate stretch of abandoned foundries and metalworking shops, their towering smokestacks piercing the fog like dead trees.

Number 42 was a squat, concrete building with reinforced steel shutters over the windows. A faded, peeling sign above the door read Măcelărie—Butcher Shop.

"A butcher," Claire muttered, staring at the building. "Fitting for a black-market clinic."

"Stay behind me," I ordered.

I approached the heavy metal door. It was locked, but the locking mechanism was old. I drew a slim titanium pry bar from my tactical vest, wedged it into the doorframe, and applied pressure. With a sharp crack, the deadbolt gave way.

I pushed the door open, sweeping my flashlight and my weapon into the room. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The front of the shop was exactly what it claimed to be: a butcher’s storefront. Stainless steel counters, empty meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, and a faint smell of bleach and old blood. But the heavy plastic curtain leading to the back room was drawn shut, and a sliver of harsh, fluorescent light spilled out from underneath it.

I moved silently across the tiled floor, Claire right behind me. I reached the plastic curtain, took a breath, and ripped it aside, stepping through with my gun raised.

"Don’t move!" I barked in Romanian.

The back room was a makeshift operating theater. A stainless steel table sat in the center under a battery of bright surgical lights. Cabinets lined the walls, stuffed with gauze, IV bags, and stolen medical supplies.

Standing at a metal sink, scrubbing his hands with iodine, was a short, balding man in a blood-stained surgical apron. He froze, his eyes darting to the barrel of my Glock.

"I don’t want any trouble," the man said in heavily accented English, slowly raising his dripping hands. "Take the painkillers. Take the morphine. Just leave me be."

"We’re not here to rob you, Dr. Grigori," I said, keeping the gun leveled at his chest. I stepped fully into the room, allowing Claire to enter behind me.

Grigori’s eyes flicked to Claire, then to the briefcase, and finally back to me. He swallowed hard. "Who are you?"

"We’re looking for a patient," I said, my voice cold and flat. "An American. Tall, dark hair, probably wearing a filthy trench coat. He came in here a few hours ago with a severe laceration to his left side."

Grigori’s face went completely pale. The color drained from his cheeks so fast I thought he was going to pass out. He took a step back, pressing himself against the sink.

"No," Grigori whispered, shaking his head frantically. "No, no, no. I don’t know anything about an American. You need to leave."

"Don’t lie to me," I stepped forward, closing the distance between us. I grabbed him by the collar of his bloody apron and slammed him against the tiled wall. "He was here. I can smell the fresh blood on your table. Where did he go?"

"You don’t understand!" Grigori choked out, his eyes wide with absolute terror. "If I talk about him, he will know! He sees everything! He hears everything!"

"He’s a man, Grigori, not a god," I growled.

"He is not a man!" the doctor practically screamed, his voice cracking. "I have patched up cartel bosses! I have pulled bullets out of Russian mafia hitmen! But that... that thing that walked into my clinic tonight... it wasn’t human!"

I loosened my grip slightly, exchanging a quick glance with Claire.

Claire stepped forward, setting her briefcase on a metal counter. She popped the latches and opened it, revealing the neat stacks of untraceable euros.

"Doctor," Claire said, her voice calm, soothing, and perfectly measured. It was the same voice she used to negotiate multi-million dollar logistics contracts for Vanguard. "My associate is losing his patience. But I am a businesswoman. We are not with the Lupii. We are not the police. We are looking for our friend. Tell us what happened, tell us where he went, and you can take fifty thousand euros and disappear before the syndicate even knows we were here."

Grigori stared at the money. He looked at Claire, then at my gun, and finally let out a long, shuddering breath. He slumped against the wall, rubbing his face with his hands.

"He came in three hours ago," Grigori whispered, his voice trembling. "He kicked the back door off its hinges. He was bleeding heavily. A deep puncture wound to the lower abdomen, just missing the kidney. He should have been in shock. He should have been unconscious."

"But he wasn’t," I said.

"No," Grigori shook his head. "His eyes... they were completely dilated. He walked to the operating table, pulled off his coat, and told me to stitch the wound. I told him I needed to put him under. I reached for the propofol."

Grigori paused, a shudder running through his small frame.

"He grabbed my wrist," the doctor continued, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "He nearly broke my arm. He told me no anesthetics. No painkillers. He said... he said if he went to sleep, the Oracle would go quiet. He said the numbers would stop making sense, none of it made sense to me."

Claire gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth.

My stomach turned to ice. Jake’s mind was coupled with the Oracle. The sheer processing power required to run those predictive algorithms dampeners must have been agonizing. He was forcing himself to stay awake, forcing himself to endure the pain of surgery, just to keep the data flowing in his head.

"I stitched him up while he was fully conscious," Grigori said, staring blankly at the bloody operating table. "It took forty-five minutes. I dug into his muscle tissue. I pulled the torn fascia together. He didn’t scream. He didn’t even flinch. He just stared at the ceiling, muttering numbers and shipping routes under his breath. It was like his body didn’t matter to him anymore. Only the data mattered."

"Did he pay you?" Claire asked gently.

"He didn’t have money," Grigori said. "He paid me with a warning. He told me that at 6:00 AM, the Lupii syndicate was going to raid this clinic because their leader was dead, and they would be looking for medical supplies to treat their wounded. He told me to pack my bags and run."

I checked my watch. It was 5:45 AM.

"He was right," I said grimly. "The Lupii are sweeping the sector right now. Where did he go, Grigori? What was his next move?"

"He took a medical stapler, three rolls of gauze, and a bottle of iodine," Grigori said, moving toward the cabinets and frantically grabbing boxes of supplies. "Then he asked for my radio. The shortwave one I use to listen to the police bands."

"Why would he want a shortwave radio?" Claire asked, her brow furrowing.

"He didn’t want to listen to it," Grigori said, zipping up a duffel bag. "He wanted the parts. He ripped the transceiver out of the back. He said he needed to build a localized jammer."

"A jammer?" I asked. "For what?"

"I don’t know!" Grigori panicked, throwing the bag over his shoulder. He reached into Claire’s briefcase, grabbed two stacks of euros, and shoved them into his pockets. "He just kept muttering about the trains. He said the Iron Street rail yard was the only blind spot left in the city. That’s all I know! I swear to God!"

"The rail yard," Claire said, her eyes lighting up. She pulled out her phone, her thumbs flying across the screen. "Ethan, there’s an abandoned freight depot half a mile from here. If he’s building a jammer, he’s trying to block a specific signal. He’s setting a trap."

"For who?" I asked.

"Not for the Lupii," Claire said, looking up at me, her expression grim. "The Lupii don’t use high-end encrypted comms. They use burner phones. If Jake is building a localized jammer, he’s hunting someone with military-grade hardware."

Isabella Vane’s private military contractors.

Jake wasn’t just running. He was luring Isabella’s kill squads into a blind spot.

"Let’s go," I said, turning toward the door.

"Wait," Grigori called out, stopping us in our tracks. The doctor looked at us, his eyes filled with a haunting pity. "You are his friends. You want to save him."

"We’re going to bring him home," Claire said firmly.

"You can’t," Grigori whispered. "I looked into his eyes while I was sewing his flesh together. There is no man left in there, miss. Something ate him from the inside out. Whatever you think you are looking for... it died a long time ago."

I didn’t answer him. I just pushed the plastic curtain aside and walked out into the fog, Claire right beside me.

We had a rail yard to find. And a ghost to catch.