Unknown Safehouse – 2:05 p.m.
Thorne was bleeding out slowly.
Not enough to die — not yet — but just enough to feel it. His wrists were zip-tied to a steel pipe. His shoulder was soaked in dark red. Juliana stood in front of him with a phone in one hand and a scalpel in the other.
Nael's voice came through the speaker.
// "The Widow feed is live. One million dark web viewers. Syndicate forums are watching. You want to do this?"
Juliana looked at Thorne, who managed a sneer despite the blood in his teeth.
// "Smile for the world," she whispered.
She turned the camera on.
*****
// "This man is Harlan Thorne," Juliana said, voice calm, eyes steady. "Billionaire. Arms trafficker. And the man behind Project Black Rose — the one who turned little girls into killers."
She paced slowly behind him.
// "He built Subject 10. Funded the Syndicate. Sold assassins to the highest bidder."
"He told the world I was a terrorist."
"He forgot to mention I was his product."
Juliana leaned in close to the lens.
"Today, we cut out the root." She stepped aside.
A second screen played next to her: Thorne's files, exposed in real time. Videos. Experiment logs. Government contracts. Even payoffs to federal agencies.
"He gave the world monsters. Now I give them the truth."
She stared at Thorne.
"Confess. Or bleed."
Thorne coughed. Then laughed.
"You think this changes anything?" he growled. "They'll erase you tomorrow. You'll be a ghost again."
"Then I'll haunt every corner of their world until they choke on my name."
"You're just a girl with a gun."
Juliana grabbed the scalpel and dragged it lightly across his shoulder wound. He screamed.
"I'm the girl who survived you," she said. "And that makes me the end of you."
She turned back to the camera.
"The Syndicate is bleeding. And for every body they bury, I'll burn another piece of their kingdom. You want war?"
"You've got it."
Nael ended the broadcast.
*****
2:38 p.m. – The Fallout
The dark web imploded.
Assassins began turning on their Syndicate handlers. Four contracts were pulled. Black Rose facilities went dark in London, Berlin, and Jakarta. An entire shipment of Syndicate weapons was intercepted in Morocco by a rebel splinter cell calling themselves The Widowed Sons. But the Syndicate wasn't silent. Within fifteen minutes, a coordinated digital retaliation began.
$10 million bounty on Juliana's head. Echo's face leaked
Nael's IP flagged in twelve countries
Damian Voss labeled an "international traitor"
Juliana watched it unfold on Nael's screen with a cold kind of satisfaction.
"We finally made them scream," she said.
Echo stood behind her, arms crossed. "They'll come hard now."
"Let them."
"And Thorne?"
Juliana looked over her shoulder at the unconscious man zip-tied to the pipe.
"We're not finished with him yet."
*****
3:05 p.m. – Damian's Room
Damian lay on the cot, chest bandaged, jaw bruised. Juliana stepped in quietly and sat beside him. He opened one eye.
"You always pick the most romantic spots to recover," he rasped.
She smirked. "Shut up and drink this."
He sipped the protein shake, then winced.
"Thorne still alive?"
"Barely."
"You leak the files?"
"Every last one."
He coughed. "Good. That's one empire gone."
"We've got four left."
"Then it's time you saw this."
He reached beneath the bed and pulled out a blood-stained leather notebook — small, battered, and unmistakably old.
"What is that?"
"Your father's second ledger."
*****
3:10 p.m. – The Second List
Juliana flipped the pages.
Inside were not just Syndicate names — but full project logs, government contracts, double-agents, and… a list titled:
"Untouchables"
Ten names. Most crossed out. One circled in red. "Who the hell is this?" she asked.
Damian's voice was low. "The one name your father could never kill. Because he thought it would start a world war."
Juliana traced the name with her finger. Director Marrow.
"He's real?" she whispered.
"He runs the real Syndicate. The invisible one. Global surveillance. Black funding. He created Thorne, then erased him when he got sloppy."
"Why didn't my father tell me?"
"Because this man was too dangerous. Because killing him doesn't collapse a building…"
Damian looked at her.
"…it collapses nations."
3:33 p.m. – Planning Room
Juliana gathered Nael, Echo, and Damian around a digital board.
Thorne groaned in the next room — still alive, still bleeding.
"We've taken out three names from the original list," Juliana began. "The last two are backed by this man — Marrow."
She circled the photo.
"He doesn't operate from a tower or a cartel. He lives inside the walls of world governments."
Nael leaned forward. "How do we find him?"
"We don't."
She looked at Damian.
"You do."
Damian nodded. "I used to work in his outer ring. One of his front operations — a digital intelligence firm called CalyxNet."
Echo narrowed her eyes. "The one that 'disappeared' after the Istanbul incident?"
"Exactly."
"You think he's still running it?"
"I know he is."
"Then we go there," Juliana said.
*****
4:05 p.m. – Final Move with Thorne
Juliana entered the holding room again. Thorne looked up through swollen eyes.
"You exposed me," he muttered. "But you won't survive Marrow."
"I don't need to," she said. "I just need to make sure you suffer first."
She knelt in front of him.
"Your blood bought my silence once."
"You think this makes you a queen?"
"No."
She stabbed the scalpel into the wall beside his head.
"It makes me the fire." He spat blood.
"So burn."
****
4:30 p.m. – Hidden Tarmac Outside Valebrook
The jet was fueled and waiting. Juliana, Echo, Nael, and Damian climbed aboard. Thorne was left behind — not dead. Just… ruined. Juliana stood at the window as the city shrank beneath them.
"We're going to find Marrow," she whispered. "And we're going to end
him."
Echo raised a glass. "To war."
"No," Juliana said.
She turned, eyes burning.
"To extinction."