Page 8 of Code Name: Hunter
I grab my burner phone, already keyed up for the next drop. If they want a show, they’ll get one. But I choose the curtain call.
Let them follow. Let them chase shadows. But I promise—they won’t see the ending coming until it’s already claimed them.
Because this time, I’m not just fighting to survive. I don’t need to vanish.
I just need them to. Let them watch. Let them trail. But I choose when they fall—and how far.
4
LOGAN
She doesn’t follow me out of the Crown & Scepter, and I don’t wait to see what kind of chaos she leaves behind. The streets of Monte Carlo blur beneath the sodium haze, a slick canvas of polished stone and old secrets. Every reflection in the rain-slicked pavement feels like a silhouette waiting to step out of the glass. My eyes don’t linger on the luxury. I’m scanning sightlines. Clocking shadows. Calculating routes of retreat.
Every one of my senses is keyed up, every reflex calibrated to the threat I haven’t seen yet—but feel crawling in the air. Monte Carlo’s veneer of opulence only sharpens the danger. I’m not here to admire it. I’m here to survive it. Always calculating, slick with the kind of wealth that hides sin in plain sight. But I’m not looking for decadence—I’m counting angles, monitoring entry points, and watching for surveillance gaps.
I cut down a side alley off Rue des Iris, letting muscle memory guide me to the black sedan waiting just beyond the security cameras. I didn’t call for it. Cerberus always anticipates for you. The door opens with a soft click, and I’m sliding in without a word. I don’t speak, don’t blink. Control is built in moments like this—stillness without weakness. I’m alreadyplaying the next move in a game I haven’t agreed to, with a woman who never lost a match she didn’t throw on purpose. Monte Carlo doesn’t sleep—it prowls. Neon bleeds off marble facades, clubs thrum with bass notes and whispered deals, and shadows press close in alleys where no one’s supposed to look.
Opus Noir is tucked into the city’s pulse—an invitation-only club with no name on the door and no second chances. Most patrons think the top floors are off-limits because they’re exclusive rooms. They’re not. They’re fortified. Black-glass windows above the velvet rope hide the actual power: Cerberus’ office in Monte Carlo. Inside, the air is chilled and faintly metallic, with the sterile-clean tang of recycled filtration systems masking the faint oil scent of well-maintained weapons. High-tech, high-surveillance, and bristling with enough classified muscle to cripple half the world’s dirty wars.
That’s where I’m headed. And she’s the reason why.
The walls here are glass and concrete, steel and shadow. No names on doors. No logos. No bullshit. Just the quiet hum of power beneath precision—like a live wire under the skin, always vibrating, always ready to burn if you get too close. It’s surgical, the way this place operates—clean and quiet and utterly without sentiment. Which is why what I’m looking at now feels like a cancer.
One glance tells me it’s been pulled from multiple systems—civilian, diplomatic, and military—stitched together with the precision of someone who’s breached these walls before. The decrypted file Vivian sent is projected on the wall across from me. My arms are crossed tight against my chest, every muscle drawn taut with suspicion. My shoulders ache from the tensionI haven’t released since I walked in. A pulse ticks in my jaw where I’ve been clenching too hard for too long. A taut pull settles behind my eyes—tight, static—like a fuse ready to snap. It's not sweat. It's an instinct honed too sharp to be anything but a warning. This isn't just intel—it's a gut punch with data points. And it’s got my instincts howling. She knows how to cut without bleeding. Always did. This file isn’t a plea—it’s leverage. A challenge. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on, just a little, to watch her dare me to bite.
Line by line, it bleeds secrets—alias names, routing numbers, embassy stamps, encrypted footnotes cross-referenced with military exercises and covert arms transfers. It’s damning. Precise. If she wanted our attention, she's got it. If she thinks she has something worth trading, she's not wrong—but the exact weight of it remains to be seen.
The information is too fucking precise to be anything but legit. Data doesn’t just fall into someone’s lap. No, this was carved out, tooth by tooth, pried loose from systems that don’t bleed easily. Each entry screams deliberate. Intentional. Like a sniper's grouping on a paper target—tight, unforgiving, and centered exactly where it’ll do the most damage. Not just telling a story. Controlling the narrative.
I stand with my arms crossed. My jaw is still tight. Someone’s fingerprints are all over this, and they’re polished. What she’s handed over could incinerate the scaffolding behind half the world’s covert operations—expose the rotten beams holding it all up, one name at a time. But it’s curated. Focused. Controlled. Like she wants us to see exactly this—and nothing else... at least for now.
Every thread she’s pulled leads in one direction, but it’s too linear and too clean. I shift my stance, weight rolling to the balls of my feet—a habit from years of expecting the blow you don’t see coming. There’s no chaos here, no noise. That’s not how realleaks work. This isn’t exposure—it’s orchestration. And the more I look at it, the more I wonder who she's shielding—and why.
"Zoom in on entry forty-seven," I say.
The analyst in the corner doesn’t question me. He taps a key, and the screen isolates one entry—an arms shipment rerouted through a diplomatic crate to a NATO forward base in Cyprus. The contact’s name is redacted. But the authorization code? It's one I’ve seen before. Years ago. Burned into memory from a mission that ended with two dead assets and a ruined safe house in Benghazi.
"Bloody hell," I mutter.
Fitzwallace doesn’t look up from the dossier in his hand. He’s seated in one of the angular leather chairs by the tinted-glass window, backlit by the city’s fractured glow. Calm as ever, like the chaos on the screen is no more troubling than a poorly decanted scotch. He flips a page, unreadable. "She’s not bluffing."
"No," I say. "She’s not." I step closer to the screen, letting my fingers hover just shy of the glowing surface. "But she’s not being completely honest either."
He glances at me over the edge of his glasses. "You think she’s manipulating the data?"
I exhale. "I think she’s guiding us. Controlling what we see. This intel? It’s a map. But she's already circled the cities she wants us to care about." She’s left just enough leash for me to chase her. And that’s the worst part—how well she knows I will.
"Is she protecting someone?"
"Or herself."
A memory flickers—her eyes locked on mine during a training exercise, voice low, full of promise: "I’d never lie to you." And I believed her. That’s the part that still burns. Not the lie. That I wanted it to be true. I wasn’t just the man—I was the one in control. Or I thought I was. And maybe that’s why it stillstings—because she didn’t just lie. She took the reins and made me like it.
Fitzwallace doesn’t move. Just watches me from his chair, that old field-readiness still humming beneath his calm. I hold his gaze, jaw set, the unspoken questions crowding the air between us.
“She’s always played the long game—ran an entire two-week infiltration drill once just to prove a theoretical point to a superior officer. Strategic to the marrow, even then."
"MI-6 always underestimated their female operatives," Fitz says quietly.
