The handcuff clicked around Red Widow’s wrist.
For several seconds, neither woman moved. Then the rage disappeared from Natasha’s face. She looked frightened, disoriented—and completely unaware of how the fight had begun.
Her eyes dropped toward Sienna’s necklace.
“Don’t take it off,” she warned. “If the signal disappears, whoever controls it will know we found it.”
A red light pulsed inside the silver cross.
Natasha removed the communication device from her ear and crushed it beneath her boot. The voice ordering her to kill Sienna immediately stopped, but the cross continued blinking.
She remembered receiving an authenticated agency alert claiming Sienna had murdered two agents and stolen a weapon called the Aegis Key. The order carried Red One’s digital signature.
But Natasha had never spoken to Red One.
The moment she came within fifty feet of Sienna, something entered her communication system. Her thoughts became distorted until eliminating Sienna felt like her own decision.
Sienna examined Natasha’s wrist computer. It contained footage of crimes she had supposedly committed in three different countries that morning. Every recording showed her face, voice and fingerprints.
All of it was fabricated.
Then a new file appeared:
WIDOW FAILED. ACTIVATE PROJECT RED ONE.
A progress bar climbed rapidly toward one hundred percent.
Sienna reached for the clasp behind her neck, but Natasha stopped her.
“If that device can control my neural interface, imagine what it can do to an armored suit connected directly to its pilot.”
The screen displayed one final detail.
The command had not been authorized by the Red One. It had been signed using Sienna’s fingerprint, voiceprint and heartbeat—six hours before she entered the archive.
Someone had not only turned the mob agents against her.
They had made it appear that Sienna was controlling them.
A deafening metallic impact shook the room. Dust fell from the ceiling as the reinforced entrance door began glowing red from the other side.
Natasha pulled desperately against the handcuff.
“That door won’t stop him.”
The steel bent inward.
Through the glass wall, Sienna saw a red-and-gold armored figure descending into the corridor. Its chest reactor illuminated the darkness.
Then Sienna’s cross pulsed again.
Red One’s eyes turned red.
Red Widow had been dangerous—but she was still human.
The next agent coming to kill Sienna was wearing a weapon designed to fight gods.
