Leonardo didn't return to California immediately.
Instead, he chose silence—the kind found not in empty rooms, but in unfamiliar cities where no one knew your name. He drifted through train stations wearing a coat too warm for the season, headphones in but no music playing, always watching.
He moved through the quieter veins of Europe—the silent train stations of Warsaw, the cluttered backstreets of Lisbon, a quiet tech market in Zagreb where ex-Soviet gear was traded like baseball cards. He wore no disguises, but no one knew his name. He was just another face in the blur.
Except one man did know him.
It was Han.
They met in Prague, on the roof of a mid-rise building where drifting wasn't possible, but distance was.
"You tracking Shaw too?" Han asked, lighting a cigarette.
Leonardo nodded. "It's hard to ignore ghosts when they're walking in daylight."
Han exhaled smoke into the night. "Dom's gonna need backup soon. Brian's already feeling the strain. You in?"
Leonardo watched the moon for a long time.
"Yeah," he said. "I'll be there. But not yet."
The Arsenal
Back in the London flat, Tabane and Koko had turned the lower levels into something unrecognizable.
Tabane worked furiously on containment fields, stealth drones, and acoustic mirage decoys—none of it "world-breaking," but all light-years ahead of what MI6 or the CIA would field publicly.
Koko managed weapons logistics and intel pipelines, liaising with mercenaries and shipping routes without leaving a single digital footprint.
Leonardo took a different approach.
He trained with the kind of discipline that bordered on obsession. Mornings began before the sun rose—barefoot jogs through misty woods, sandbags strapped to his torso. By mid-morning, he was already sparring with weighted gloves. When Gisele arrived, it only pushed him harder.
Every morning was hand-to-hand combat. Every afternoon was field simulation with Gisele, who'd arrived quietly after Mia insisted Leonardo needed someone with a steady aim nearby.
"I'm not here to play spy games," Gisele said, cocking her pistol during a sparring round. "I'm here because Dom's not calling yet. So, I figure we're prepping the rescue before the fire starts."
Leonardo grinned, rubbing his ribs where she'd landed a hit. "We might just start the fire instead."
Signs of War
It started with whispers—power grids glitching in Belgium, encrypted Russian satellites rerouting themselves, a convoy in Spain disappearing without a trace.
Shaw wasn't working alone. That became clear when intelligence Koko intercepted from a Belgian darknet server showed not just logistics but personnel charts—dossiers of men and women who didn't officially exist. Ghosts, much like Leonardo himself.
He was building a team of anti-versions. Bizarro-world reflections of Dom's crew: a driver who could drift like Han but fired live rounds; a hacker more clinical than Tej; a woman who fought like Letty—but without a name.
That last one haunted Leonardo most.
The sightings were more frequent now. Traffic cams, blurry bar photos, glimpses on stolen footage. Always the same silhouette.
Letty.
Alive.
Homeward
Finally, Leonardo returned home.
His mother greeted him with a smile. She didn't ask why he looked more tired now than when he'd left. She didn't ask about the faint scars on his knuckles or why he spent an hour each night reviewing encrypted data logs.
She simply set dinner for him, made tea, and joined him on the terrace like nothing had changed—like he hadn't vanished into shadows chasing enemies she would never be allowed to know by name.
"You're always moving," she said gently.
"I can't stop yet," Leonardo replied.
"I know." She placed a hand over his. "Just don't forget to come back."
He smiled.
He wouldn't.
Because the storm was finally taking shape.
And Leonardo DeMarco would be ready.