The contract was simple.

Enter.

Eliminate the target.

Leave no witnesses who posed a threat.

Slade preferred jobs like that.

No politics.

No unnecessary complications.

Just another name on another file.

The laboratory was already in lockdown by the time he reached the lowest level.

Emergency lights washed every corridor in crimson.

Scientists fled in every direction, abandoning years of research in favor of survival.

Slade ignored them.

His objective was beneath the facility.

Three more security doors.

Two armed response teams.

One reinforced laboratory.

Exactly where the client had said it would be.

The last guard hit the floor before he could reach the alarm.

Slade keyed in the stolen access code.

The steel door slid open with a low mechanical groan.

Inside…

The room was far larger than he’d expected.

Observation windows lined the walls.

Medical equipment blinked steadily.

Restraint chairs.

Empty cages.

Rows of shattered glass cylinders.

His target lay dead before Slade ever reached him.

Someone—or something—had beaten him there.

The room was silent.

Almost.

A faint metallic rattle echoed from the far corner.

Slade turned.

There.

A woman.

Restrained to an examination table by heavy steel cuffs bolted directly into the frame.

Bruises marked her wrists.

An IV line still hung from one arm.

Dozens of observation notes covered the walls around her, each documenting another experiment as though she were a specimen instead of a person.

She looked toward the doorway.

Not hopeful.

Not relieved.

Just… waiting.

Like she’d stopped expecting anyone to come a long time ago.

Slade glanced around the room.

No cameras were active.

No scientists remained.

No mention of her existed anywhere in the contract.

She wasn’t the mission.

She was evidence.

The kind clients usually preferred to disappear with the rest of the facility.

His phone vibrated.

Objective complete. Extraction in ten minutes.

Slade looked back at the restrained woman.

Then at the cuffs anchoring her to the table.

The mission was over.

What happened next…

Wasn’t in the briefing.