[Ethan’s POV]

The freight train tore through the Carpathian Mountains like a rusted iron bullet, its steel wheels screaming against the tracks.

Claire and I were huddled in the freezing darkness of a cargo car, surrounded by wooden crates of untaxed machine parts. The wind howled through the gaps in the sliding doors, carrying the bitter chill of the Ukrainian winter. We were two hours away from the Hungarian border. From there, it was a straight shot to Vienna.

I was sitting on a crate, meticulously stripping and cleaning my Glock in the dim light of Claire’s penlight.

"You’ve checked that magazine three times," Claire said, her voice vibrating with the motion of the train. She was wrapped in a thick wool blanket, her breath pluming in the air.

"Volkov’s men were sloppy," I said, snapping the slide back into place. "Isabella won’t make that mistake again. If she knows Jake is heading to Vienna, she’s going to send her best."

"She already sent Tier-One PMCs," Claire pointed out. "Jake slaughtered them."

"PMCs are mercenaries. They fight for a paycheck," I said, holstering the weapon. "I’m talking about a true believer. A hunter."

The train suddenly lurched violently, throwing Claire against the wooden crates. The screech of metal on metal echoed through the car as the massive locomotive began to rapidly decelerate.

"Are we at the border?" Claire asked, scrambling to her feet.

"No," I said, my blood running cold. "We’re in the middle of nowhere."

I moved to the sliding door, pressing my eye against a narrow crack in the wood. Outside, the snow-covered pine trees were whipping past, illuminated by the harsh, blinding glare of a spotlight.

A matte-black tactical helicopter was pacing the train, flying dangerously low, its side doors wide open.

"Get down!" I roared, diving toward Claire.

The wooden wall of the train car exploded inward.

A hail of heavy-caliber armor-piercing rounds shredded the timber, turning the crates around us into flying splinters. I covered Claire with my body, the deafening roar of the helicopter’s mounted machine gun drowning out the sound of the train.

The gunfire stopped as abruptly as it started.

Before the dust could even settle, the heavy iron latch on the sliding door was blown off by a shaped breaching charge. The door was violently yanked open, letting the freezing wind and the blinding light of the helicopter flood the car.

Three men in black tactical gear dropped into the car from the roof.

I didn’t hesitate. I rolled off Claire, drawing my Glock and firing from the ground. I put two rounds into the first man’s knee, dropping him, and transitioned instantly to the second, putting a bullet through the gap in his body armor under his armpit.

The third man lunged at me with a combat knife. I caught his wrist, twisted my hips, and threw him over my shoulder into the open doorway. He screamed as he tumbled out of the speeding train, vanishing into the dark.

I scrambled to my feet, keeping my gun raised, my breathing heavy.

"Impressive," a voice said from the doorway. "Darius taught you well."

A fourth man stepped into the train car.

He wasn’t wearing a helmet or heavy body armor. He wore a tailored, charcoal-gray tactical suit under a long black overcoat. He was older, his hair silver at the temples, his face weathered and lined. But his eyes were dead, cold, and terrifyingly focused. He held a customized, suppressed SIG Sauer pistol in a relaxed, perfect center-axis relock stance.

I recognized him instantly.

"Varga," I breathed.

Two years ago, he had been a corrupt ex-FBI private investigator hired by Marcus Thorne to destroy Jake’s reputation. Jake had used Nia to hack Varga’s servers, stealing his blackmail files and ruining his life.

"Hello, Ethan," Varga said, his voice smooth and completely devoid of emotion over the roar of the wind. "You’ve grown up. You don’t look like a frat boy playing bodyguard anymore."

What are you doing here, Varga?" I asked, keeping my sights locked on his chest. "I know you’re ex-FBI, but you were a private eye. A blackmailer. Since when do you lead PMC hit squads out of helicopters?"

"Since your boss took my business," Varga said, taking a slow, measured step into the car. "He took my leverage. He left me with nothing. Isabella Vane found me in the gutter. She reminded me of the manhunter I used to be before I went private. She gave me unlimited resources and one simple job: hunt down the ghost who ruined my life."

"Jake isn’t here," I said.

"I know," Varga smiled, a cold, razor-thin line. "But you’re following his blood trail. Which means if I follow you, I find him. And Isabella wants him put down before he reaches Vienna."

Varga moved.

He was impossibly fast. He didn’t shoot; he closed the distance in a blur of motion, sweeping my gun hand aside with his left forearm while driving the barrel of his SIG toward my face.

I ducked, the suppressed shot grazing my ear, and drove a brutal left hook into his ribs. It felt like hitting a brick wall. Varga didn’t even flinch. He pivoted, trapping my arm, and delivered a devastating elbow strike to my jaw.

My vision flashed white. I stumbled backward, crashing into a stack of crates.

Varga advanced, firing twice. I threw myself sideways, the bullets tearing through the wood where my chest had been a fraction of a second before.

Close the gap, Darius’s training screamed in my head. Don’t let a shooter keep his distance.

I lunged forward, tackling Varga around the waist. We hit the floor of the train car hard, rolling over the splintered wood. I scrambled to pin his gun arm, driving my knee into his bicep. I raised my Glock to his head, but Varga was a veteran. He bucked his hips, throwing my balance off, and slammed the palm of his hand into my throat.

I gagged, my grip loosening. Varga kicked me off him, rolling smoothly to his feet.

He raised his gun, aiming dead at my chest.

A heavy wooden crate suddenly smashed into the side of Varga’s head.

Claire stood there, her chest heaving, holding the shattered remains of the crate.

Varga staggered, blood trickling down the side of his face, but he didn’t fall. He turned his cold, dead eyes toward Claire and raised his weapon.

"No!" I roared.

I didn’t shoot. I threw my Glock like a baseball. The heavy polymer frame smashed into Varga’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger, sending the shot wide.

I scrambled to my feet, grabbing a heavy iron pry bar from the floor. Varga recovered, turning his gun back to me.

I swung the pry bar with everything I had, smashing it into his forearm. I heard the bone crack. Varga grunted, dropping the SIG Sauer.

But he didn’t retreat. He drew a serrated combat knife from his belt with his good hand and lunged.

We clashed in the center of the car, a brutal, high-speed blur of parries and strikes. He slashed at my throat; I blocked it with the pry bar, sparks flying as steel met iron. I drove my boot into his knee; he absorbed the blow and slashed my shoulder, slicing through my canvas jacket and drawing a hot line of blood.

He was a machine. He fought with a cold, calculated rhythm that was terrifying to face.

The train suddenly banked hard to the left, taking a sharp curve through the mountains. The violent shift in momentum threw us both off balance.

We crashed against the open doorway, teetering on the edge of the speeding train. The freezing wind whipped around us, the ground blurring past at eighty miles an hour.

Varga grabbed the collar of my jacket, his knife raised to plunge into my neck.

I dropped the pry bar, grabbed his knife wrist with both hands, and threw my weight backward.

We tumbled out of the train car.

For a terrifying second, we were in freefall. Then, we slammed onto the metal roof of the adjacent cargo car. I hit the corrugated steel hard, the breath exploding from my lungs.

Varga landed on his feet, his coat whipping in the wind. He looked down at me, his knife gleaming in the moonlight.

"You’re good, kid," Varga yelled over the roar of the train. "But you’re just the warm-up. I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to put a bullet in Jake Hart’s head."

I looked past him. We were approaching a massive, steel-truss railway bridge spanning a deep river gorge.

"Claire!" I screamed into the wind. "The coupling!"

Inside the car, Claire didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the pry bar I had dropped, ran to the back of the car, and smashed it down onto the heavy iron coupling lever connecting our car to the one Varga and I were on.

With a massive screech of tearing metal, the locking pin disengaged.

The train car I was on violently jerked as it separated from the rest of the train.

Varga lost his footing, stumbling backward as the gap between the cars rapidly widened.

I didn’t wait for him to recover. I scrambled to the edge of the roof, took a running leap, and launched myself across the growing chasm.

I slammed into the wooden floor of Claire’s car, sliding across the splinters. Claire grabbed my harness, hauling me all the way in.

I looked back out the open door.

Varga was standing on the roof of the decoupled car, rapidly shrinking into the distance as our locomotive sped away. He wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t screaming. He just stood there, his coat blowing in the wind, watching us disappear into the snow.

"He’s not going to stop," I gasped, clutching my bleeding shoulder.

"I know," Claire said, her hands shaking as she helped me sit up. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Isabella Vane hadn’t just sent mercenaries. She had unleashed a bloodhound. And as the train sped toward Vienna, I knew Varga would be right behind us, hunting the Feral King.

And next time, he wouldn’t miss.