The motel they found was half-abandoned — a chipped two-story building along a forgotten Croatian highway, its neon sign flickering in protest against the night.
Room 17. One key. One bed.
Dominic collapsed onto the faded mattress and let the silence fall around them. Amelia locked the door behind her and leaned against it, staring at the man who had just taken two bullets for her and hadn't even flinched.
"Let me see your hand," she said softly.
He didn't move.
"Dominic."
Only then did he lift his gaze, the heat in his eyes smoldering beneath layers of exhaustion and restraint. He held out his hand. Blood had caked along his knuckles, a deep graze along the palm where shrapnel had kissed him.
She crouched beside him, took a towel from the bathroom sink, and dabbed gently at the wound.
"You should've let me climb down first," she whispered.
"You would've hesitated."
"And you wouldn't?"
He looked at her then — not the way a fugitive looks at a partner, but the way a man stares at the one person who could burn his world to ash with a single breath.
"I only hesitate when you're not around."
The air between them shifted.
Thickened.
Amelia stood quickly and turned away, heart stammering against her ribs. The heat hadn't left the room. It had only moved. Behind her, Dominic stood too. She could feel him watching her, hear the sound of his jacket hitting the floor.
"You don't sleep much," he said.
"No."
"Dreams?"
"Memories."
"Want to talk about it?"
She shook her head. "Do you?"
Silence.
Then: "I remember blood. Screaming. The way my hands shook the first time I pulled a trigger."
She turned.
"And I remember you."
Amelia's breath caught.
"I remember the first time I saw you in Marseille. You were ten. They made you sit in a circle of agents and ask questions. Every answer they gave was a lie. But you smiled through it. And when they left, you stood and said: 'I know what you're doing. You're afraid of me.'"
Her eyes widened.
"I don't remember that."
"No," he said. "Because they erased it."
"My father erased it."
Dominic stepped forward. "He tried to protect you from something darker than memory."
She didn't move.
"Why didn't you tell me you were there?" she asked.
"Because you weren't supposed to remember me. You were just a child. And I was already halfway into the darkness."
The air charged between them like a storm waiting to break.
"But you remembered," she said.
He stepped closer.
"Every day."
His hand came up slowly, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. She shivered—not from cold, but from the way his touch undid her.
"Dominic," she said, voice breaking. "I don't know what this is."
He nodded. "Me neither."
"But it feels like falling."
"Then fall."
Their mouths met like thunder.
Not soft. Not patient. A hunger starved for too long.
She pressed against him, gripping his shirt like a lifeline, as he walked her backward toward the bed. Every touch burned, every kiss deepened the ache.
When he lifted her shirt, his hands trembled, reverent and sure all at once. He kissed the scars beneath her collarbone like they were sacred. She arched beneath him, gasping.
"You're not afraid?" he asked, voice husky.
"I've been afraid my whole life," she whispered. "But not of this."
He froze — forehead pressed to hers — and for a moment the world held its breath.
Then he kissed her again, slower this time.
Like a promise. Like a man letting go of every lie he ever told himself.
They undressed each other in silence.
No pretense. No shame.
Only truth in the shape of skin.
Afterward, they lay tangled in the sheets, her head on his chest, his fingers tracing the curve of her spine.
It should have felt like relief.
Instead, it felt like the calm before a storm.
"We can't keep running," Amelia said softly.
"We're not," Dominic replied. "We're going to find out who brought Halberd back. Who planted that drive. And why your father's name is in every sealed file we've found."
"And if I remember something I can't live with?"
He turned her face to his.
"Then I'll remind you who you are. And who you're not."
She closed her eyes.
And in the silence, a single memory surfaced.
A name.
Spoken in a whisper, in a lab filled with firelight and the hum of machines.
Project Nocturne.
She sat up.
"I remember something."
Dominic was instantly alert.
"What is it?"
"Project Nocturne. I don't know what it means, but it was tied to my father. I heard them say it before… before someone screamed."
He got up, grabbed the laptop from his bag.
"That name never came up in the files."
"It was buried," she said. "The way I was."
Dominic searched for ten minutes before he found a reference — a redacted line in a classified Manticore document:
Subject 12 shows improved recall after exposure to audio-trigger sequence. Project Nocturne reactivation recommended.
Beneath it: a partial name.
Dr. Z—
"That's Zahir," Dominic said. "This wasn't just your father's doing. They were partners. You were their prototype, Amelia."
Her lips parted. "What was I supposed to become?"
Dominic stared at the screen, his expression cold.
"The perfect spy."
Outside the motel, in the shadow of a crooked pine, someone watched the light flicker in Room 17.
He held a phone to his ear.
"She's starting to remember," the man said.
A pause.
"Yes. I'll deliver her to the site by the time Nocturne activates."
He hung up.
And vanished into the trees.