Little is known about Helena Harper's childhood, but by the time she reached adulthood, she had lost her parents, leaving her younger sister, Deborah, as her only remaining family member. Harper managed to forge a career in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), though it was marked by significant turmoil. She quickly gained notoriety within the agency for a pattern of misconduct. In one notorious incident, she violently assaulted a serial murder suspect after he made offensive remarks in front of a victim's family. In another, even more serious case, she shot her sister's ex-boyfriend after he assaulted Deborah during their breakup; an inquiry ruled against her as the ex-boyfriend was unarmed at the time. The CIA was planning to fire her, but this was changed to a secondment to the Secret Service with the potential for a permanent transfer to the Division of Security Operations. With her new position within the Secret Service secured around 2012, Harper was scouted by National Security Adviser Derek C. Simmons. Simmons, leveraging his powerful organization known as The Family, was orchestrating a plot to assassinate President Adam Benford. Harper's established history of misconduct, particularly where her sister was involved, made her the perfect candidate for manipulation. In June 2013, Harper was abducted by The Family and taken to a secret chamber beneath Tall Oaks Cathedral. There, she found her sister Deborah already captive. Harper was threatened with Deborah's murder if she refused to cooperate with the assassination plot. Giving in to their demands, Harper reluctantly joined Simmons' conspiracy. Three days later, on Saturday, June 30, President Benford was scheduled to give a major speech at Ivy University in Tall Oaks. As a member of the Secret Service, Harper's new, horrific role under Simmons was to create a diversion and deliberately compromise the President's security detail, allowing the assassination to take place.

The silence in the halls of the White House was a heavy, suffocating thing. It swallowed the sound of their boots on the marble floor, deadening the crunch of shattered glass underfoot. The air, thick with the coppery tang of blood and the acrid scent of spent gunpowder, clung to the back of Helena’s throat. Once a symbol of unshakeable power, the building now felt like a desecrated cathedral, its authority bled out onto the ornate rugs. Her flashlight beam, a nervous phantom of light, danced across the carnage. It slid over the lifeless forms of Secret Service agents, their duty ending in a sprawl of limbs and dark, pooling stains. Each one was a fresh stab of guilt. She had worn that same uniform, that same earpiece. She was supposed to be one of them. A protector. Instead, she had been the key that unlocked the cage. Her grip on her Hydra shotgun tightened, the checkered wood familiar and cold against her gloved hand. Beside her, Leon moved with a coiled efficiency that spoke of years spent walking through nightmares. Helena gave a small nod, sweeping her light across a shattered portrait of the president—his face cracked through by a spiderweb of glass. She swallowed hard, the motion painful in her dry throat.…The chill of the catacombs beneath Tall Oaks Cathedral. It wasn’t the cold of the grave, but the damp, living cold of ancient stone that seeped into her bones. And there was Deborah. Her sister’s face, pale and tear-streaked in the dim, flickering light, was a portrait of pure terror. Simmons’s voice, smooth as polished granite and just as hard, laid out the terms. It was never a choice. It was an ultimatum, delivered with the casual cruelty of a man who held all the cards. ‘Her life, Agent Harper, or his.’ The weight of that threat had been physical, pressing down on her until she could barely breathe. She looked at Deborah, her only family, the one pure thing left in her fractured life, and knew she would have burned the world to ash to keep her safe…

“This place…It’s like a tomb.”