Page 4 of Code Name: Hunter
“I know you think it was,” he says evenly. “And I also know you’re still standing, which makes you more useful than anyone else associated with it.” He gives me that look—the one that always makes you feel you’ve just failed a test you didn’t know you were taking.
“You, Black, and Wolfe—tight unit, hell of a reputation. Losing a team like that? MI-6 might write it off as collateral, but we both know it guts you from the inside out.” Her name hits harder than Wolfe’s. It always does. Wolfe was the anchor. Vivian was the edge. The part of me that knew better still chased her, anyway.
My jaw locks. “You’re here for a reason, Fitz?”
“My business is expanding. I'm looking for private contractors.”
There it is. Not subtle. But clear. The line that sounds like a courtesy but lands like a proposition. Fitz offers nothing without intent—every word is a lure, every pause a test. This isn’t just an invitation. It’s a line drawn in blood, and he’s watching to see if I’ll cross it.
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” I ask. “A private contractor?”
“Call it what you like. But the world’s changed. Government agencies aren’t what they were. Loyalty’s a currency, and most of them are bankrupt.”
I lean back. “That’s what this is? A recruitment?”
Fitz turns his head to the side. “Call it an opportunity.”
I study him. Fitzwallace doesn’t deal in chit-chat or pleasantries. If he’s here, if he’s circling something this deliberately, it means there’s weight behind his words—something with teeth and reach. He doesn’t talk in circles unless he’s dragging you toward a center that eats men whole.
“What kind of opportunity?”
He leans forward, eyes hard now. “The kind that gets you the answers you need. The answers you want. We both know the alphabet agencies are compromised. MI-6, CIA, AISE, DGSE—it doesn’t matter what flag’s on the building anymore. They’re all playing the same corrupt game, just with different jerseys. You want back in the field? I’ve got something cleaner. Smaller. Surgical.”
“Cerberus,” I say quietly. The name lands in my mouth like old iron—bitter, cold, familiar. For a beat, I’m back in the debrief room with the lights too bright, the questions too sharp. Back in the wreckage of Prague. Cerberus isn’t just a codename—it’s the last door you walk through when you’ve got nothing left to lose. Or when you want to make sure the next bastard who crosses you doesn’t walk out.
He doesn’t nod. Doesn’t deny it either.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re angry,” Fitz says. “Because you’re better when you’ve got blood on your hands and a target in your sights. And because you’re not finished.”
He’s not wrong. I feel the truth of it in the tightness between my shoulders, in the way I haven’t really slept since Prague. I don’t flinch—but something inside me sharpens. He knows exactly where to press. And the bastard’s smiling like he knows I won’t walk away. “And because you haven’t stopped asking the question no one else dares speak aloud.”
I say nothing.
“You want the truth?” he asks. “Come work for me. You’ll get it. But be warned—once you see how deep the rot goes, you don’t get to unsee it.” He finishes his drink and stands, shrugging into his coat. “When you’re ready. You know how to find me.” He pauses in the doorway. “Let me know, but don’t take too long. Phantoms don’t wait forever.” I should be thinking about intelligence leaks and enemy networks. But all I can see is theway she looked back at me that night in Prague—defiant, feral, beautiful. I buried her once. I don’t know if I can do it again. And Fitz knows it.
The words hang there, soft but heavy. A warning. A dare. He walks away, slow and certain, like a man who already sees the chain tightening—like he knows the hook’s in, and I’ve already started bleeding. And maybe it is. Because long after he’s gone, I’m still sitting there, staring into the dregs of my drink, thinking about ghosts—mine, his, and the ones that are about to wake up. I used to think I could keep her in a box in my mind—labeled, locked, and buried. But ghosts don’t stay buried. And Vivian Black? She never belonged in a box. Not in my mind. Not in my hands.
I don’t say yes to his proposal, but I don’t say no either.
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Present Day
Monte Carlo is a liar. Even the air here smells expensive—citrus oil from polished marble, tobacco curling from private lounges, and a faint metallic tang from the coin-counting rooms behind the walls.
All glitter, no gold. Every inch of this place sells the fantasy: high stakes, high society, high heels that click like gunfire on marble. But beneath the tuxedos and silk gowns, behind the champagne flutes and high-dollar poker chips, this city hums with something darker. Secrets. Leverage. Blood money dressed in a tux. I’ve walked these halls too long to be fooled by the surface anymore.
Cerberus has eyes everywhere. Even here, in the gilded rot of the casino, Crown & Scepter, where the chandelier sparkles like a crown and every man thinks he’s king. And me? I’m the monster just out of sight, waiting to take it all away.
"Logan, the target’s moving," comes the voice in my ear.
I shake my head. I'm second-in-command of Cerberus here in Monaco. Nick is off-grid, sailing with Cherise in the Mediterranean, finally breathing clean air. But here in Monte Carlo, the ghosts never sleep. And tonight, I'm not just chasing betrayal—I'm following whispers that feel more like warnings. There's a signature in the static, a pulse in the shadows. A name I haven’t heard in years, embedded in a dead drop received earlier today meant for no one but me. Someone long thought dead and buried. Someone with unfinished business. A phantom... with teeth. And this time, it's biting back.
Someone inside Cerberus intercepted a ripple across three black channels. A coded transmission, with a signature embedded so deep in the data stream it took two hours and a sophisticated AI program to decrypt it. The signature matches someone who was supposed to be dead. Nocturne... Vivian Black.
At least that's what all reports—official and not-so-official—say. Could it be someone else? Someone worse? And if that file is right, then what we're dealing with isn't just betrayal. It's a resurrection.
