Kira didn't realize how tightly she'd been holding Donovan until he finally slowed down on a deserted rural road, bordered by tall grass and scattered storage lots. He pulled into an old service yard hidden behind rusted shipping containers and dismounted, breathing hard.

"Here," he said quietly. "No cameras. No company assets. No one comes here except me."

Kira slid off the bike, legs shaky, adrenaline still coursing through her bloodstream. She held the flash drive like it was a living creature capable of betraying or saving her.

The drive felt heavier now. Much heavier.

Donovan led her into an unused maintenance shed filled with old equipment, dusty shelves, and a portable generator. He kicked it on, filling the room with low, steady buzzing and enough power for a single lamp and an old laptop sitting on a wooden crate.

Kira hesitated.

The last time she'd opened this drive, her life had exploded.

Donovan noticed her expression and stepped closer. "We do this together. No surprises."

She nodded, swallowing her nerves.

He opened the laptop, its screen dim and scratched. "Let's see exactly what you stumbled into."

Kira plugged in the flash drive with trembling fingers.

The folder appeared immediately-CONFIDENTIAL - PROJECT HAWKFALL.

Her stomach twisted.

But when Donovan clicked it open, she realized there were far more files than she remembered. Dozens more. Hundreds, maybe.

"How... how did they get more?" she whispered.

"They didn't," Donovan said. "You didn't scroll down all the way before, did you?"

She shook her head. No, she hadn't. She'd barely scratched the surface.

Donovan exhaled deeply. "Alright. Let's go through them one by one."

They started with the spreadsheets.

Kira leaned in, scanning the numbers.

Her brain, built for patterns and consistency, recognized the irregularities instantly. Rows that didn't align. Columns labeled in misdirection. Transfers too large, too frequent, too deliberately masked.

Embezzlement on a scale she'd never imagined.

"Donovan," she whispered, pointing at a coded column, "this is money pulled from pension funds."

He stiffened. "My father would. He's always been able to live with consequences he never intends to face."

Kira clicked the next tab.

Bribery logs-thinly disguised as "consultation fees" or "expedited services." Names of officials. Government departments. Judges.

Her heart sank lower with each row.

"This is a whole... network," she whispered. "Not just a few dirty transactions."

"It's a web," Donovan said. "And my father is right at the center."

She scrolled further.

Emails.

Internal memos.

Documents labeled with chilling simplicity:

FIELD CLEANUP REPORTS

ASSET REMOVAL SUMMARIES

INCIDENT CORRECTIONS

Her hands trembled as she opened one:

Incident: Employee #73944 - Accountant

Issue: Attempted report of financial discrepancies

Correction Status: Completed

Kira clamped a hand over her mouth.

"The accountant," she whispered, voice cracking. "They... they killed him."

Donovan didn't respond at first. His jaw tightened, anger simmering just under the surface.

"You see now?" he said quietly. "My father doesn't run a corporation. He runs a crime dynasty with a marketing budget."

Kira kept scrolling even though every instinct begged her to stop.

The next file was a video thumbnail.

Donovan clicked it before she could protest.

The footage flickered to life-grainy, poorly lit, but clear enough to recognize the warehouse. Men in tactical gear. A bound man in a chair. Voices murmuring commands.

Kira flinched as a shot rang out on the screen.

She turned away, tears stinging her eyes.

"This isn't corporate crime," she whispered. "This is murder. Organized murder."

Donovan reached out-hesitated-and finally rested a steady hand on her shoulder. His touch was warm, grounding. She didn't pull away.

"Kira," he said softly, "you didn't do anything wrong. This landed on your desk because someone wanted it found. Someone inside."

She blinked. "You think someone tried to leak this?"

"There's no other explanation," Donovan said. "And if they chose an accountant instead of a director or a manager... they wanted someone clean. Someone honest. Someone who wouldn't be suspected."

Her chest tightened. "They chose me."

He gave a short nod.

"Then someone in your father's empire is trying to stop him," she murmured, "and I'm caught in the middle."

"You're not alone anymore," Donovan said.

She looked at him-really looked at him.

The rebellious son.

The black sheep.

The disappointment of the empire.

But also the only one standing between her and a death squad.

Kira clicked another file in silence.

A folder labeled:

PRIORITY TARGET LIST - ACTIVE

She froze.

Her name was third.

Third.

Highlighted.

With a red note:

APPROACH WITH LETHAL FORCE. DO NOT NEGOTIATE.

Her mouth went dry.

Donovan saw it. His face darkened. "We need to get moving. Now."

Kira stared numbly at the list.

The first name-a whistleblower. Marked eliminated.

The second-an investigator. Missing.

Her-active threat.

"I'm going to die," she whispered.

"No," Donovan said fiercely, grabbing her hands. "Not while I'm breathing."

His conviction settled something inside her-something trembling, terrified, suspended between panic and determination.

She closed the folder.

But one last icon caught her eye.

A red file.

Locked.

Encrypted.

Only accessible with two-factor authentication.

The label:

Hawking Protocol - Final Directive

Kira clicked it.

A password prompt appeared.

Donovan leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "That's new. I've never seen that."

Right as she started to ask what it meant-

The laptop screen glitched.

Then flickered.

Then a new line of text appeared:

USER ACTIVITY DETECTED. LOCATION LOGGED. RESPONSE TEAM DEPLOYED.

Kira's blood turned cold.

"Donovan..."

He was already closing the laptop, already grabbing the drive, already pulling her toward the exit.

"We have to leave," he said sharply. "They found us."

"But how-?"

"The drive is tracked," he said. "We awakened a geotag the moment we opened certain files."

Her pulse thundered. "How long do we have?"

He didn't even slow.

"Two minutes."

Part I Cliffhanger:

Before Kira could breathe, a low rumble shook the ground outside-

the sound of multiple engines closing in.

Then a voice through a megaphone:

"Kira Hale. Donovan Hale. Step out. Now."

The shed rattled as vehicles screeched to a halt outside-big ones, heavy ones. Kira heard doors slam. Boots hitting gravel. Voices barking commands.

"They're surrounding us," she whispered, pulse spiraling.

"Yeah," Donovan muttered grimly, "they're not playing around."

He yanked open a back maintenance door and pushed her toward it. "Go. Stay low."

She stumbled into the narrow alley between containers. The air smelled like rust and hot metal. Donovan followed, pulling the door shut behind them, locking the latch.

She heard more footsteps. Closer now.

"Donovan?"

"Don't stop," he said. "We get to the bike, we move."

"But-"

"Kira."

His voice sharpened.

"We don't survive if you freeze."

She nodded, breath shaking. She forced her legs to move.

They crawled between stacked containers, through narrow passageways littered with discarded tools and old rope. Donovan checked every corner before letting her move. He kept one hand on her back, steadying her when she stumbled.

The sound of tactical boots spread across the yard.

"They're splitting up," Donovan whispered. "Trying to flank."

A shiver shot down Kira's spine.

He pulled her into a wider gap and flattened both of them behind a broken forklift. The air between them hummed with tension.

"We need a distraction," he murmured.

"How?" she whispered back.

Donovan dug into his pocket, pulling out a small metal object.

A lighter.

Kira frowned. "You're planning to smoke our way out?"

He smirked, flicking it open. "Not quite."

Before she could ask, he grabbed an old oil rag from the forklift floor, doused it in leftover engine fuel, lit it, and tossed it across the yard.

It landed on a pile of wooden pallets that instantly burst into flames.

Shouts erupted.

"There! Fire! Move!"

Smoke thickened, curling up into the sky.

"Now," Donovan whispered.

They ran.

Kira's lungs burned. Sweat slid down her temple. Behind her, through the smoke, she heard the team scrambling to contain the spreading flames-just long enough, she hoped, to give them a chance.

Donovan rounded the last row of containers-

And stopped dead.

Kira crashed into his back. "What-?"

Her words died.

Their escape route was blocked.

Three black SUVs.

A team of armed men.

All facing them.

A man stepped forward.

Tall. Immaculate suit. Cold eyes.

Kira's stomach plummeted.

She recognized him.

Richard Hale's right-hand enforcer. The man whispered about in hallways. The man every employee feared.

Wells.

His voice was smooth, chilling. "Donovan. Your father is disappointed."

Donovan didn't flinch. "He can send me a birthday card."

Wells' eyes slid to Kira.

"And you... the accountant." He said it like an insult. "So ordinary. So timid. And yet you've created such a messy problem for us."

Kira stepped back instinctively.

Donovan moved in front of her.

Wells smiled thinly. "Hand over the flash drive, and we'll make this easier."

Kira clutched the drive inside her pocket, fingers shaking.

"And if we don't?" Donovan asked.

"Then," Wells said calmly, "my men shoot you both where you stand."

The team raised their weapons.

Kira's breath caught.

She wasn't ready to die.

Not like this.

Not after everything she'd seen.

Her fingers brushed Donovan's arm, trembling.

He murmured without turning, "Trust me."

She almost laughed-terrified and delirious-because what choice did she have?

"Three seconds," Wells warned. "Three. Two-"

Donovan suddenly grabbed a metal hook from the ground and hurled it at a nearby propane tank.

It struck hard.

The tank sparked.

Wells' eyes widened. "NO-!"

The explosion tore through the yard, a burst of violent heat and smoke.

Kira screamed as Donovan dragged her to the ground, shielding her with his body.

The world shook.

Shouts erupted. Gunshots fired blindly through the haze.

"Kira-MOVE!" Donovan yelled, pulling her up.

They sprinted through the smoke, stumbling and coughing, nearly tripping over debris.

She saw the motorcycle-just ahead-its chrome glinting through the chaos.

"We'll never make it!" she cried.

"We don't have a choice!"

They ran.

Bullets whizzed past.

Someone shouted her name.

The smoke thinned-

and Kira saw a figure emerging from the fog, raising a gun.

Pointed directly at her.

She froze.

"KIRA!" Donovan shouted, too far away to reach her.

The man's finger tightened on the trigger-

Before the shot fired, a new vehicle screeched into the yard-

a black motorcycle-

ridden by someone Kira had never seen before.

The rider aimed a gun at the man targeting her and yelled:

"KIRA HALE! GET DOWN IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!"

Chapter 4 THE FLASH DRIVE

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