Six months later – 19 June 2026
Positano, 22:41
The villa's infinity pool glowed turquoise against the black sea. Cicadas screamed in the lemon groves. The air smelled of salt, jasmine, and gun oil.
Gareth stood at the edge of the terrace, shirtless, a faint new scar across his ribs catching the moonlight (souvenir from a disagreement in Tangier). In his hand: a glass of Laphroaig, no ice. He watched the coast road far below, the way a wolf watches the tree line.
Mira was inside, barefoot on the marble, speaking rapid Cantonese into a satellite phone. She ended the call, walked out, and leaned against the balustrade beside him.
"We're burned," she said simply.
He didn't ask how bad. He simply waited.
"My father is dying," she continued. "Liver. Three months, maybe less. The triad council in Hong Kong wants a successor named tonight. They want me."
Gareth turned. "And?"
"They'll only accept me if I bring them something bigger than money." She met his eyes. "They want London."
A long silence. Only the sea and the cicadas.
"They want the City's dark ledgers," she clarified. "Every favour, every politician, every bank that laundered for them and then turned away when Beijing cracked down. They want the keys you still hold."
Gareth drank. "I burned those keys."
"You burned the copies. The originals are in a dead-man server outside Tallinn. You kept the master private key. I watched you encrypt it the night we left Greenland."
He smiled, small and dangerous. "You never miss anything."
"I miss you when you pretend to be tame." She stepped closer. "Come with me. One last job. We walk into Hong Kong, hand them the corpse of the City of London on a hard drive, and in return I take the dragon throne. Then we own half of Asia's shadow economy. No one ever touches us again."
He studied her face in the moonlight: beautiful, lethal, and for the first time in six months, uncertain.
"And if I say no?"
She didn't flinch. "Then tomorrow morning a kill team from 14K lands in Naples. They'll be polite at first. Then they'll start cutting pieces off me until you change your mind."
Gareth set the glass down. "They won't get within ten kilometres."
"They already have." She tilted her head toward the coast road.
Two sets of headlights were climbing the switchbacks, slow and deliberate. Black Mercedes G-Wagens with Hong Kong plates.
Gareth exhaled through his nose. "You planned this."
"I gave you six months of peace," she said softly. "That's more than either of us has ever had."
He walked inside, opened the safe hidden behind the Basquiat, pulled out two things:
- a matte-black titanium hard drive the size of a cigarette pack
- a nickel-plated Sig Sauer XTen with pearl grips (her birthday present)
He tossed her the pistol. She caught it one-handed.
"Rules," he said.
"Name them."
"No innocents. We don't start a war with Beijing. And when it's over, we disappear again. For good this time."
She racked the slide. "Agreed."
The first G-Wagen stopped at the gate. Four men in dark silk suits stepped out, hands visible. The leader (mid-forties, dragon tattoo climbing his throat) bowed once, formal.
"Miss Zhao. Mr Winter. We come with respect and an invitation from the Mountain Master. The car is armoured. The jet is waiting in Naples. Forty-eight hours. After that, respect becomes something less polite."
Mira looked at Gareth.
He was already pulling on a black linen shirt, sliding the hard drive into an inside pocket.
"Forty-eight hours," he repeated. "Then I bury every dragon who looks at you the wrong way."
He walked past the four triad soldiers without a glance, climbed into the back of the second G-Wagen.
Mira followed, barefoot, the Sig resting casually on her thigh.
Doors slammed. Engines growled. The convoy descended the cliff road toward the waiting jet.
Behind them, the villa's lights winked out one by one, as though the house itself understood its masters were returning to the dark.
23:57 – Gulfstream G700, climbing out of Naples
Mira sat opposite Gareth, legs crossed, sipping chilled sake.
"You could have said no," she said.
"I did once," he answered, eyes on the night beyond the window. "I said no to London and they buried me alive. I'm done saying no to the people I—"
He stopped.
She waited.
"The people I love," he finished, voice rough.
Mira's smile was small, sharp, and for once, almost gentle.
Over the Mediterranean, the jet banked east.
Toward Hong Kong.
Toward dragons older than empires.
Toward a war that would make London look like a playground scrap.
The wolf was going back into the fire.
This time, he walked beside the serpent.
And the world was about to learn what happens when winter and venom hunt together.