Page 38 of Isaac

Isaac reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, folded sticky note. As he hands it to me, our fingers brush against each other, and suddenly, it feels like a bolt of electricity courses through my veins.

I quickly withdraw my hand, trying to shake off the strange sensation.

Unfolding the note, I see a name written in neat, block letters.

Marina Novikova.

"What's this?" I ask, shifting my gaze back to Isaac’s face.

"It’s the name on the document you’ll need to find," he whispers, his voice as soft as a lover's caress but carrying with it a weight that threatens to crush me. "A passport."

The wind picks up around us, its hot tendrils snaking through the night air, burning me to the very marrow. As if these gusts are trying to warn me away from whatever path I've just stumbled upon.

Isaac says nothing else as he turns on his heel to leave, both hands on the pockets of his slacks. And then his sleek silhouette disappears into the shadows of the buildings looming over the roof of Crown Tower.

I watch him go, the burden of the task ahead settling onto my shoulders. I feel as though I've been thrown headfirst into a maelstrom, helpless in the face of forces much larger than myself. And again, it’s my choice. And the thought of Isaac being mixed up with the Russians gnaws at the edges of my consciousness.

I'm standing alone on the rooftop, my thoughts swirling inside my head.

There's no turning back now.

Hawk is in.

And he needs to be ready for whatever comes next.

CHAPTER 13

DALLAS

I slink through the darkened alleyway somewhere on the outskirts of Las Vegas, my breath steady and measured despite the adrenaline coursing through my veins. This is a familiar territory, in a sense.

The storage facility looms ahead, a monolith of steel and concrete silhouetted against the vast night sky.

My pulse remains steady as I approach. I’ve got tunnel vision, focused solely on my goal. And the goal is to get this task done so it could bring me closer to Thoreau.

I’m careful to avoid any surveillance cameras or guards. The black bandana covering the lower half of my face is just an extra precaution. Anonymity is everything.

"Stay focused, Dallas," I whisper under my nose as I reach the facility’s wall.

Frankly, the sound of my name feels foreign to me now. No one has called me that in weeks. Except for Nicole. But our one meeting was too brief for me to get used to being myself.

Cody "Hawk" Smith, that's who I am in this world.

Scaling the wall in a convenient little nook I stumbled upon two days earlier when I was canvasing the area became as easy as slipping into one of my worn, comforting James Dean T-shirts.God. I miss those. Hawk likes solid colors. He’s fucking boring like that.

The industrial containers inside the facility are arranged like obedient school children in trim rows, their concrete flanks whispering secrets in hushed echoes as I pass by.

The gap running between them is narrow. Perhaps an SUV could slide through if its driver is ballsy enough to bet his paint job on it. It's claustrophobic yet somehow freeing at the same time—pure catnip for an adrenaline junkie like me.

As I move closer to the designated storage unit, I spot some goon in a guard’s uniform perched nonchalantly against the corner. This dude is as big as a mountain.

Could be a former military like me. But that doesn't intimidate me. No sir.

Sure, I’m not as impressive. I’m lean but quick. My hard-earned wisdom taught me that packing too much muscle mass is just about as useful in combat as bringing a serrated butter knife to a gunfight.

Speedsters like myself—they don't wear out quite as swiftly as these heavy-duty fellas.

I move closer, each footfall silent.

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