Chapter 3

Evelyn Compton POV:

Hazen' s footsteps faded down the hall, taking with them any last shred of a future I might have imagined with him. He had been shocked, truly shocked, when I told him the wedding was off. His face, usually so composed, had crumpled for a moment. But it wasn't for me. It was for the disruption to his plans, the inconvenience of my defiance.

"You' re being unreasonable, Echo!" he' d hissed, his voice tight with barely suppressed anger. "This is just a tantrum because you' re jealous."

His words, meant to wound, merely solidified my resolve. A tantrum? Was that all our decade together meant to him? I felt a wave of icy contempt wash over me. He was truly pathetic.

He left, slamming the door behind him with a force that rattled the cheap art on the walls. The sound echoed in the sudden silence, a final punctuation mark to our broken story.

My gaze fell on the bedside table. Not the ring, but the small, intricately carved jade elephant he' d retrieved from the floor and placed there. I reached for it, my fingers tracing the smooth, familiar lines. But something was off. The carving felt subtly different, the weight not quite right. My heart gave a strange thump.

I reached under my pillow, my hand closing around the familiar, cool metal of my true good luck charm: a small, personalized combat knife, a gift from my grandmother, inscribed with my name and a single, ancient symbol. This was my real elephant, its hilt carved in the shape of the creature, a secret only I knew. Hazen had never known its true significance, always thinking the jade one was my sentimental piece.

The one on the table was a replica. A cheap imitation.

He had replaced my real elephant with a fake, a common tactic to track operatives. He had thought I wouldn't notice. He had thought I was too broken to care, or too foolish to differentiate. The betrayal was complete, down to the most intimate, secret detail.

A cold, hard fury settled in my chest, replacing the hurt. He wasn' t just betraying me; he was playing me for a fool. I pulled out my comm unit, accessing Aegis' s internal network. With swift, expert movements, I initiated a series of protocols, shutting down all my tracking devices, wiping my digital footprint from their servers, severing every single thread that connected me to Aegis. To him.

I walked out of the safe house that night with nothing but the clothes on my back, my true combat knife, and the memory of that fake elephant. I found a small, nondescript apartment on the outskirts of the city, a place where no one would look for Aegis' s top operative. The silence was deafening, but it was a welcome silence.

Then, a week later, the emergency comm unit I hadn't yet deactivated blared to life. Hazen' s voice, urgent, demanding. "Echo, we have a critical situation! Get to Sector 7 immediately. Bianca's team is compromised."

My first instinct was to ignore it. To let them deal with their own mess. But the offshore account Alston had so generously provided was frozen. A temporary glitch, they said. Enough to leverage me back. I was broke. And desperate.

So I went.

I arrived at the rendezvous point, a dimly lit warehouse, the air thick with tension. Hazen was already there, pacing like a caged beast. Bianca, looking disheveled but unharmed, clung to Corina' s side. The moment Hazen saw me, his face twisted into a mask of pure rage.

He lunged, grabbing my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh. "You useless piece of trash!" he snarled, his voice a low, furious growl. "Where the hell have you been? Bianca was nearly compromised because you abandoned your post!"

His grip tightened, shaking me. I stood my ground, my eyes blazing back at him. "I abandoned nothing. I resigned. You froze my assets, Hazen. You forced my hand."

"You hurt her, Echo!" he bellowed, his face inches from mine. "You traumatized her! Do you know what she' s been through? The nightmares she' s still having?"

"Her nightmares are a convenient accessory, Hazen," I shot back, my voice dangerously calm. "A tool she uses to manipulate you all."

Corina stepped forward, her face a sneer. "Don' t you dare, Echo! Bianca is a victim. You' re just a bitter, jealous woman, always trying to tear her down."

Bianca, seeing her cue, let out a soft whimper, burying her face further into Corina' s shoulder.

"Is that what you believe, Corina?" My voice was cold, biting. "That the girl I rescued, the girl I trained, the girl who systematically sabotaged me to steal my position and my fiancé, is the victim here?"

"Lies!" Corina spat. "Just more lies from a desperate woman!"

I heard a small gasp. Bianca. I turned to her, my gaze piercing. "Tell them, Bianca. Tell them how you orchestrated all of this. Tell them about your 'trauma' that conveniently reappears when you need sympathy."

Bianca' s head snapped up. Her eyes, wide and innocent a moment ago, now held a flash of cunning, of pure malice. She took a step towards me, her face contorted in what looked like genuine horror. "Don' t you dare accuse me! You' re the monster, Echo! You always were!" She lunged, her hand, not weak or trembling, but sharp and precise, going straight for my eye.

I barely had time to react. Her nail raked across my cheek, leaving a thin line of fire. My instincts screamed danger, but before I could retaliate, Hazen was between us, shielding Bianca with his body.

"Get out, Echo!" he roared, his eyes wild with fury. "Just get out! You' re poison! You' re a liability to everyone around you!"

The other agents glared, their faces twisted with condemnation. "She attacked Bianca!" one shouted. "She' s dangerous!" another added.

I stood there, a thin line of blood tracing my cheek, the sting a minor irritation compared to the gaping wound in my soul. I turned and walked out, leaving them all to their twisted version of reality.

I found a quiet corner in the abandoned lot outside, pulling out a sterile wipe from my emergency kit to clean the cut. It wasn' t deep, but it stung, a constant reminder of the venom lurking beneath Bianca' s innocent facade.

Just as I finished, Hazen appeared, his footsteps heavy. He stopped a few feet away, his chest heaving. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice softer now, a hint of concern finally seeping in.

I looked at him, my eyes devoid of emotion. "Don' t pretend to care, Hazen. It suits neither of us."

He flinched. "I... I didn' t mean for things to get out of hand. Bianca... she' s just so sensitive. And you... you provoked her."

"Provoked her?" I laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "By speaking the truth? By exposing her lies?"

He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "Echo, please. Just apologize to her. Let' s put this all behind us. We can still... we can still make this work." He took a step closer, reaching for me.

I stepped back, out of his reach. "There' s nothing left to make work, Hazen. And I will never apologize for her manipulations. I' m done. Truly done."

He stared at me, his shoulders slumping. "Is that what you want? To just... walk away? From us? From everything we built?"

"There is no 'us' left to walk away from," I stated, my voice calm, resolute. My mind was already made up. The memory wipe procedure was no longer a desperate escape. It was a necessity.

Before I could utter the words, the comm unit on Hazen' s belt buzzed again, this time with a frantic, garbled message. Bianca' s voice, high-pitched with terror, screaming about an emergency, a new threat.

Hazen' s face, which had been etched with a flicker of regret, immediately tightened. His protective instincts roared to life. He didn' t hesitate. He turned and sprinted back into the warehouse, leaving me standing alone in the shadows, the taste of blood in my mouth.

In that moment, a quiet finality settled over me. There would be no dramatic breakup speech. No final confrontation. Our relationship, our future, everything, had just ended with a whimper, drowned out by Bianca' s latest manufactured crisis.

My decision was made. I would become Evelyn. The memory wipe would erase Hazen, Bianca, Aegis, and every single painful memory. I would be free. And I would begin the final phase of my plan tonight.

But fate, it seemed, had one last cruel twist in store. Before I could make my escape, a sudden, blinding pain exploded at the back of my head. The world tilted, spun, and then plunged into an abyss of blackness.