“You kept it…”
Sienna had barely finished the words when a red laser appeared on Ethan’s chest.
Her instincts took over.
She threw herself at him just as a suppressed shot cut through the morning silence. The bullet struck the stone wall behind them, sending fragments across the wet grass.
Three black SUVs burst through the mist. Armed men stepped out and spread across the riverbank with military precision.
They were not there to rescue anyone.
Sienna dragged Ethan behind the wall and fired into the front tire of the closest vehicle. The SUV swerved, blocking the narrow path and forcing the attackers to separate.
“Move!” she ordered.
Ethan struggled to stand. The infection was getting worse. His body shook violently, and for one terrifying second, his cloudy eye fixed on Sienna with no recognition.
Then his fingers closed around the ring box.
The aggression disappeared.
Whatever the virus had stolen from him, the ring was helping him remember.
They reached an abandoned boathouse as bullets tore through the wooden door behind them. One attacker followed them inside. Sienna blocked his first strike, drove him into the wall and knocked the weapon from his hand. A second man entered through a side window, but Ethan suddenly tackled him into a stack of fishing crates.
Ethan saved her—but the effort accelerated the infection.
He turned toward Sienna, breathing like an animal, his hands curling as he fought the urge to attack. She raised her rifle again.
“Look at me, Ethan!”
His gaze dropped to the engagement ring.
He stopped.
Sienna pulled the experimental suppressant from her jacket and injected it into his arm. Ethan collapsed against the wall as the dark veins along his neck slowly began to fade.
A radio crackled beside the unconscious attacker.
“Recover Sienna alive. Terminate the carrier.”
Sienna froze.
Ethan had never been the true target.
With trembling hands, he removed the ring from its box and pushed against the velvet lining. A hidden compartment opened underneath it. Inside was a tiny memory card.
“I didn’t come here to propose,” Ethan whispered. “I came here to give you this.”
Sienna connected the card to her phone.
The first recording showed her FBI partner, Grant Mercer, escorting Ethan into the laboratory at gunpoint. Standing beside him was the scientist who had supposedly been injured during the breach.
The next file contained Sienna’s medical records.
Years earlier, after exposure to an experimental chemical during an undercover mission, her blood had developed an unusual resistance. The scientists believed it could neutralize the new virus—or transform it into something they could completely control.
Ethan had been infected deliberately.
They knew his remaining memories would lead him to Sienna. The engagement ring was the one object they could not make him abandon.
Sienna helped him into an old motorboat behind the boathouse. As the attackers broke through the entrance, she started the engine and pushed away from the shore.
For a moment, they believed they had escaped.
Then every phone in the city received the same emergency alert.
Multiple violent incidents were being reported near hospitals, train stations and schools. The same infection had appeared in six different locations.
Ethan looked toward the city skyline.
“The laboratory wasn’t the outbreak,” he whispered.
In the distance, warning sirens began sounding one after another.
“It was only the test.”
