The folder dropped onto my desk with a thud—clean, black, and thick enough to matter.
Kade stood across from me, jaw locked, eyes like thunderclouds. He never liked delivering bad news, but he hated withholding it more. That's what I trusted him for. Not comfort—clarity.
"Everything we could get on him," he said. "Name. Background. Timeline. He's a ghost in half the records. Burned out of the other half."
I flipped it open, fingers sliding over the glossy pages. Surveillance photos. Military credentials—blurred, redacted. A history of deployments that didn't match any official map. A whisper of dishonorable discharge—then nothing.
"Nico Sloane," I murmured. "Doesn't sound like a man. Sounds like a problem."
A knock came at the door. Kade glanced that way, then nodded once.
Two of my men entered, faces pale but intact. Not dead. Not even bleeding. That alone made them lucky.
"We made contact," one of them said. "Didn't engage. We trailed him for two days."
"And?" I asked.
"He's slippery. Knows the streets like he's been here years. Keeps disappearing into blind spots. But we saw him go into an old church on the Eastside. Twice. Always alone. Doesn't speak to anyone. Just sits there. Watching."
"Watching what?" I asked.
They exchanged a look. No answer.
Kade dismissed them with a gesture, and I leaned back in my chair, mulling over the thought of Nico Sloane in a house of God. A contradiction in motion.
"We'll send a team," I said.
"Don't," Kade replied immediately, voice low. "He's waiting for us to do exactly that."
I arched a brow. "You think this is bait?"
"I think it's something worse. Whatever he's doing there, it's deliberate. Calculated."
I didn't blink. "So is this."
That night, I sent three men. Just three. Just enough.
Only smoke came back.
The explosion tore through the chapel like judgment. Flames climbed into the night sky. Stained glass shattered into fire-colored shards. What was once sacred became a crater of charred ruin.
No bodies were recovered.
No message was left.
Just a name.
Nico Sloane.
And the echo of something I hadn't felt in years.
Challenge.