Page 70 of Code Name: Ghost

I turn to Cherise and lean in close, the world narrowing down to her breath and mine. My hand slides to the back of her neck—steady, deliberate—not harsh, but claiming. A reminder. A tether. Not just of who I am, but of who she is to me.

"Stay here. Monitor all channels. If I call for backup, you follow protocol."

She nods. "Yes, Sir."

The title hits my bloodstream like fire. Not because I crave control for control’s sake, but because she chooses to surrender to me—even here, surrounded by live feeds and encrypted chaos. Her obedience isn’t submission to command. It’s devotion wrapped in steel. And in this moment, she’s not just mine. She’s my anchor in the storm I’m about to unleash.

I lean in, brush my lips against hers. "Eyes up. Mind sharp."

She grins, fierce and focused. "Cut the head off. I’ll keep the body from twitching."

Damn right.

I push off the console, grab my kit, and step out into the night.

The compound sprawls across the hillside north of Ajaccio, perched like a predator watching the sea. It’s a fortress dressed as luxury—white stone walls, faux-Mediterranean charm, and a private runway that hums with the quiet arrogance of untouchable wealth. On paper, it’s a leisure estate owned by a shell corporation linked to Vallois’ logistics front. In reality, it’s a hardened node in his trafficking pipeline.

Floodlights sweep the outer perimeter on a twenty-second cycle. Motion sensors guard the southern fence. But every system has its blind spot. We found ours in the maintenance tunnel that runs beneath the eastern wing—a relic from when this place was a vineyard. A forgotten route turned point of entry.

Gated. Walled. But not impenetrable. Not tonight.

Logan meets me at the breach point, crouched behind the outer wall, eyes scanning every shadow like they might come alive. The moonlight barely touches his gear—matte-black tactical vest, silenced pistol holstered low, throat mic already activated. He doesn’t need to speak to tell me he’s locked in. Focused.

We're on our own. Logan and I have danced this edge before—silent, brutal, surgical. We move as one, thought and muscle fused by years of dirty work no one else will ever know about. The maintenance tunnel is invisible to everyone but us, and Cherise, watching from the ops van, the only one who sees the ghost trail we leave behind—just two flickering blips on her screen, making their way toward the head of the snake.

That tunnel—dug for vineyard irrigation decades ago—hasn’t seen daylight in thirty years. It's barely wide enough to crawl through, let alone fully rigged. Damp. Claustrophobic. Every breath tightens in your lungs the deeper you go, and one wrong move means an alert tripwire, a crumbling wall, or a buried motion sensor from when Vallois turned this vineyard into a fortress. We mapped it inch by inch, betting on this relic being overlooked.

But every inch inside is a gamble. We pass rusted piping that could shear flesh. The only light is the dull red from our shoulder rigs—enough to see the rats, but not enough to alert the cameras. The tunnel brings us beneath the eastern retaining wall, a blind spot not even Vallois’ top security consultants flagged. The crawl ends behind the reinforced server room—a vault disguised as a wine cellar, the heartbeat of his logistics command.

We’re not just infiltrating a building. We’re threading a needle inside a kill zone. And we’ve only got one shot before the entire house of cards folds in fire and steel.

We crouch in silence for another beat, listening—ears straining for footsteps, for the crackle of radio chatter, for the sharp bite of a mistake we can’t afford. The low-frequency hum of internal comms jammers buzzes faintly against my earpiece, confirming the perimeter is live but not encrypted. Vallois is arrogant. Worse, he’s complacent. He believes the estate’s isolation and his so-called diplomatic immunity are armor enough. That the ghosts hunting him tonight are just myths.

He’s wrong.

Every second we’re in this tunnel, the risk multiplies. Tripwires disguised as utility lines. Pressure sensors rigged to the stone floor. A single dropped breath too loud could trigger a silent alarm. We’re balanced on the edge of a live wire with soaked boots and loaded guns, and the only reason we’re not dead yet is because we’ve made a career out of surviving moments like this. But that doesn’t make it less dangerous. It makes it surgical—deadly in both directions.

I glance at Logan. He nods once. That’s all we need.

Time to make Vallois bleed.

“You ready to cut the head off this snake?” asks Logan.

I slide the bolt back on my suppressed sidearm and nod. I'm not sure I've ever been more ready for anything.

"You’ve got a fifteen-minute window before the next aerial sweep," says Cherise over the comms. "Everything is locked, internal signals scrambled. You have a green light."

She's learned the lingo quickly. It's as if she has always been part of the team.

"Moving now," I say.

We move fast, fluid, practiced. My boots hit the inner stone of the courtyard without a sound, but every step feels like walking across a minefield. This place may wear the trappings of wealth and indulgence, but underneath it's all teeth—trip lasers, reinforced entry points, biometric scanners embedded in doorframes. One wrong move and we don't just die—we disappear, no questions asked. But for me, this time, there's more at stake. This time, I would leave Cherise behind to carry on alone. So many years wasted. I vow to myself that after tonight, I won't ever have to say that again.

I hold up my hand to stop Logan. He arches an eyebrow in question, but I ignore him. "Cherise?"

"I'm here Nick."

"I love you."

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