Page 13 of Code Name: Hunter
Another wave crashes immediately behind it, raw and unrelenting, and I cry out as it overtakes me. My limbs lock, myvision white behind the blindfold, and my breath is lost to the rush.
He grunts, sharp and primal, and then he’s pulling out, coming onto my stomach in a warm burst, my name a sacred whisper on his lips.
The scene unfolds in a slow, exquisite rhythm of command and surrender. He doesn’t fuck me. He owns me—with touch, with voice, with silence. He pushes me to the edge, then catches me. My body sings for him. My mind quiets. And in that stillness, I find something I’ve never felt before.
Safety.
When he's done cleaning me up, he removes the blindfold. The absolute stillness in his body radiates a grip on the room so complete it feels structural. He doesn’t immediately untie me. He lingers. His thumb brushes the raw line the rope leaves on my wrist—and for a heartbeat, I think I see regret. Or maybe reverence. His hands are careful, almost reverent, as he loosens the knots. The rope falls away, and I feel the sudden weightlessness of freedom—and something else, something far heavier: the echo of everything that just passed between us. My wrists are marked, not bruised, but etched with something I can’t see, only feel. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. In that silence, there’s understanding. Command delivered. Power shifted. Trust traded like currency. And somewhere deep inside, I realize—I didn’t just submit to him. I gave him something I’ve never handed anyone before.
I go to dress in silence, my fingers trembling slightly—only to pause. My clothes lie discarded nearby, wrinkled and bearing the evidence of surrender. I consider putting them back on, reclaiming that thin armor, but something inside me resists.
My bare feet sink into the carpet with each step, the fibers warm from the heat of the scene we just left behind. I cross to the door where his shirt hangs casually from a hook. It’s soft andworn. I slip it on, and it swallows me whole—draping over my thighs, the sleeves too long, the collar brushing my neck like a secret. The scent clings to me: cedar and sin, heat and memory. It’s not just comfort. It’s a claim. It’s proof I walked willingly into the fire... and survived.
I pause with my hand on the doorknob, fingers tightening around the cool metal as his voice settles behind me like a tether I hadn’t realized I needed. He doesn’t ask me to stay—not with words, at least—but his presence hums against my spine, charged and unspoken.
“Someone will escort you back to your place,” Logan says from behind me, his voice smooth, composed, resolute. “You’ll collect your things—and the dossier.”
I glance over my shoulder, catching the impenetrable look in his eyes. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he replies. “Then you return. To me.”
My grip tightens on the doorknob, a thousand objections rising and falling unspoken.
“No questions,” he adds, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “You knew the moment you walked in here that this was never going to be on your terms, Vivian.”
There’s no threat in his voice. Just finality. Certainty. And something else too—that steady pull I can’t name but already obey.
It’s not a suggestion. It’s a command cloaked in calm. And somehow, that steadies me. The girl I used to be when I walked in here would’ve bristled at the authority, found a dozen ways to claw free of the implication. But that version of me never felt this quiet conviction, this invisible pull that makes walking away feel like losing something I didn’t know I needed.
So, I nod once, the smallest of acknowledgments, and open the door.
I don't ask for comfort. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. But I walk out wearing his shirt, carrying the weight of something new: not just submission—but the terrifying possibility of trust.
I didn’t just walk into the lion’s den. I handed him the leash. And for the first time in years, I’m not running. I’m choosing to stay.
6
LOGAN
Iwatch Vivian slip down the service corridor with two of the lower-level field agents flanking her, bare legs flashing beneath my shirt like a dare she knows I can’t ignore. The door at the far end seals, swallowing the echo of her footfalls—but the pounding in my chest stays steady and sharp. Control is a razor: deadly when honed, useless if I let it dull. I keep it sharp with silence, with breath held at the edge of action, with the discipline that burns behind my eyes and turns every twitch into calculation. Let it slip for a heartbeat, and everything bleeds. I force a long breath and ride the private lift into the nerve center two stories above Opus Noir.
The moment the doors part, Cerberus hums around me—glass, steel, and carefully contained chaos. Analysts perched at holographic stations barely glance up; only professionals ignore blood in the water this efficiently. Fitzwallace stands at the main holo-table, silver temples catching the LED glow as if he draws voltage straight from the grid.
“Fitz,” I greet, voice level. The elevator seals behind me. The faint bite of overworked circuitry rides the chilled air, mixing with the muted hum of processors stacked behind glass. Light from the holo-stations carves sharp edges into the shadows,every flicker mapping itself across the steel and glass like a pulse line.
Fitz slides a data-slate my way. “She didn’t disappoint.”
The slate displays a multi-layered encryption already half-cracked by our best algorithmic brute-force. Vivian’s breadcrumb. Lines of alphanumerics scroll like a living indictment—fund transfers, cargo tags, satellite pings inside diplomatic pouches. Each node pulses amber; every pulse is a corpse waiting for a name. And every one of those corpses has her fingerprints on the shovel. That’s how she works—never the killer, just the architect of the burial ground.
I narrow the focus on the root directory. “She salted the file structure—paths loop through dead agencies, shell corporations, and one NGO that shuttered a decade ago. Classic misdirection. She wants us chasing our own tails long enough for her to negotiate leverage.”
“And will we?” Fitz asks, mild as chamber music.
“No.” I swipe aside two dummy folders and reveal a bricked sub-layer, the one she hoped would stay hidden. “She left a tearaway tab in case we cracked this far. Watch.”
A single touch decrypts a buried checksum—a unique validation code that confirms the integrity of encrypted data, proving the file hasn’t been tampered with. Three names ignite crimson across the display:
KLEIN, Robert — NATO Liaison
