The CIA's Chicago field office wasn't flashy. Tucked inside a grey building just off Wacker Drive, it looked like any other federal office. But inside, tension buzzed through every hallway.
Special Agent Carter Mays stood with arms crossed inside the surveillance room, eyes locked on the paused frame on the monitor. The footage showed a dark figure in a hoodie standing over the lifeless body of Leon Kray inside Louis' Barbershop. The face was partially shadowed, but Carter recognized that posture. The stance. The precision.
"This isn't just some street hit," he muttered.
Another agent stepped beside him. "We confirmed the shooter left a message on the body. Said it was for his father. James Royner."
Carter's jaw tightened.
James Royner. The ghost. The man with the ability the CIA had tried for years to replicate, to isolate. They never succeeded. So they erased him. Or so they thought.
"Then the boy survived," Carter said coldly.
"Sir?"
"Von Royner," Carter growled. "He's alive."
The room went silent.
"And if he's got the same sight James had… this city's about to burn."
He turned away, mind racing. He thought about Shanice—his daughter at home. Alone. Again. He hadn't seen her in three weeks. Not really. Just calls, texts. She didn't understand the weight he carried. The danger. He couldn't tell her he was hunting the most dangerous weapon the government ever created.
But the truth was, the CIA didn't just fear Von's abilities.
They wanted them, they always had.
On the South Side, the heat of summer still clung to the cracked pavement. Inside Shanice's apartment, music played low, casting a slow rhythm through the space.
Von leaned against the wall, watching her.
Shanice had always been beautiful fierce, smart, the kind of woman who didn't play games. But tonight, something felt different. Real.
"You really just showed up outta nowhere, huh?" she said, walking toward him. "No call. No 'Hey Shanice, I'm back from the dead.' Just boom. Von."
He shrugged, smirking slightly. "Felt like enough."
She stood close now, eyes locked on his. "Everyone thought you were gone."
"I was."
He didn't have to say more.
She stepped even closer, and the air between them pulsed like lightning. "You look different," she whispered.
"So do you."
Shanice tilted her head, her hand rising to brush a dreadlock from his eye. "Where you been, Von?"
He didn't answer.
Not with words.
Instead, he leaned in and kissed her slow at first, uncertain, but then hungry. Their bodies pressed together with years of tension finally snapping. Her lips were soft, warm, and tasted like heat and danger.
Clothes came off in a blur. The world faded outside the bedroom walls.
Every touch was electric. Their movements were wild and deep, as if they were claiming a piece of each other they'd lost in the chaos of O-Block. Von traced her curves like a man mapping his way back from hell. Her body arched under him, a dance of fire and silk, every sigh a spark that made his skin burn.
In the quiet after, they lay tangled in sheets, breathless. Shanice curled against his chest, fingers playing lightly across the scars on his arm.
"You're not safe, are you?" she whispered.
"No," Von said. "Not even close."
She looked up. "Then I'll hold you when you're not."
Von kissed her forehead, letting the warmth of her words sink into the cold place in his chest. But even in this peace, his mind spun. He had to keep moving.
She didn't need to know her father was hunting him.
Not yet.
Back at the CIA field office, Agent Carter sat at his desk, reviewing old files, James Royner's files. Photos, classified reports, lab notes on DNA anomalies, predictions, behavioral models.
Project Oracle.
That's what it had been called. An unofficial black program designed to isolate what they labeled "temporal cognition"—the ability to see moments ahead in time. James Royner was the only known carrier.
Until now.
"Sir," a junior agent called from the hallway. "We've got chatter from the south side. Word is, BD's moving heavy protection toward 79th. A location they're calling 'the safe house.'"
Carter stood, grabbing his coat.
"Send a drone over the area. Keep eyes on that house. Royner's son is going back to the roots."
Von slipped out of Shanice's apartment before dawn. He didn't wake her. He left a note on the pillow.
"This isn't goodbye. I just need to finish something first."
The streets were quiet as he walked alone. A BD lookout tailed him from a distance, a shadow for protection, until Von waved him off once they hit 79th.
The building was old, a run down two story tucked between a liquor store and a boarded-up laundromat. But it looked exactly how his mother described it.
He found the loose floorboard near the corner of the kitchen, pried it up, and reached inside.There was a box. Heavy. Locked.
He cracked it open using the small key hidden inside his pendant. Inside were stacks of papers, maps, names, and flash drives labeled "PROJECT ORACLE ,FINAL PHASE."
He sat down, pulling out a photo.
It was his father—James—standing beside a younger Agent Carter Mays.Von's breath caught in his throat."They were partners?" he whispered.
"No, not partners."
His father had trusted Carter once. And Carter had turned him in.
Von's hands tightened into fists. The puzzle pieces were shifting. He didn't just want revenge anymore.
He wanted the truth.
Across town, inside the surveillance van parked outside 79th, Agent Carter stared at the blurry drone footage of the house.
He saw the figure walk inside.
Pause.
Then disappear into the shadows.
He knew who it was.
"He's there," Carter said. "Right now. The Demon of O-Block."