62. Sienna
Sienna
T he voice over the speakers pulls me straight backward through time.
Cold rooms.
Bright screens.
Needles sliding into my arm.
“Again, Sienna.”
“Faster.”
“You can do better than that.”
My stomach twists so hard I nearly lose balance.
Jonah’s hand closes around mine instantly.
Grounding.
Solid.
Real.
But the damage is already done.
Because I know that voice.
God help me, I know it.
Not just from ORACLE.
From nightmares.
From years of hearing it inside my head after I escaped, the first time.
Smooth.
Controlled.
Almost kind.
Which somehow makes it worse.
“No…” I whisper.
Vale hears me.
I see it in his face immediately.
The guilt.
The horror.
“Impossible,” he mutters.
The speaker crackles again.
Then—
A soft chuckle fills the room.
“You always were my greatest success, Sienna.”
My lungs stop working.
Jonah steps slightly in front of me without even thinking about it.
Protective.
Instant.
Lethal.
“Talk,” he growls toward the ceiling. “Now.”
The voice ignores him completely.
Of course it does.
Men like this never notice anyone except the people they think they own.
“I wondered how long it would take before you broke containment.”
Containment.
I hate that word.
I hate him.
My pulse pounds so hard my vision flickers.
Elizabeth makes a terrified sound behind me.
“Don’t answer him,” she whispers weakly. “Sienna, don’t—”
“I’m not hiding anymore,” I snap before I can stop myself.
Silence.
Then another amused chuckle drifts through the speakers.
“There she is.”
Every light in the corridor outside suddenly shifts red.
LOCKDOWN ACTIVE flashes across a nearby security panel.
Metal doors begin slamming shut somewhere deeper in the compound.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The sound echoes like prison bars closing.
Cal curses in my comm.
“They’re sealing sectors!”
Lance jerks Elizabeth fully out of the chair.
“We move now.”
But Vale doesn’t move.
He’s staring upward like a man watching his own execution.
Jonah notices too.
“You know who that is.”
Not a question.
Vale closes his eyes briefly.
When he opens them again—
Defeat sits there.
Heavy.
Ancient.
“Yes.”
My chest tightens instantly.
No.
No no no.
Because I already know what he’s about to say.
I just don’t want it to be true, and spoken out loud.
The speaker crackles softly.
Almost patiently.
Like he’s enjoying this.
“Tell them, Adrian.”
Vale looks at me instead.
Not Jonah.
Not the team.
Me.
Like maybe he owes me this much.
“The man speaking,” he says quietly, “is Elias Kade.”
The name detonates through the room.
Lance swears instantly.
Cal goes dead silent over comms.
Even Jonah stiffens beside me.
Because everybody knows that name.
Not publicly.
Never publicly.
But inside intelligence circles?
Elias Kade is a ghost story.
A whisper attached to cyber warfare, disappearances, psychological operations, black-site experimentation—
And ORACLE.
My mouth goes dry.
“No,” I whisper.
Because Elias Kade was never supposed to be real.
Just a codename buried in fragments of old files.
A myth people blamed when the truth was too ugly to understand.
But then the speaker hums softly again.
And the man himself answers me.
“Oh, Sienna.”
Warm amusement slides through the darkness.
“I’m very real.”
A violent explosion rocks the compound hard enough the floor jumps beneath us.
Dust rains from the ceiling.
Emergency lights flicker wildly.
Gunfire erupts closer now.
Screams echo somewhere outside the room.
The assault team.
We’re losing time fast.
Jonah grabs my arm.
“Sienna. Eyes on me.”
I force myself to look at him.
His expression is sharp.
Focused.
Steady enough to anchor me.
“We get Elizabeth out first,” he says firmly. “Everything else comes later.”
The certainty in his voice cuts through the panic clawing at my chest.
Protect first.
Survive first.
Fall apart later.
Another crackle overhead.
Then Kade speaks again.
And this time—
The warmth is gone.
“If you leave this compound,” he says calmly, “everyone you love dies.”