Page 18 of Code Name: Hunter
His eyes burn into mine, jaw clenched so tight I can hear the grind of his molars. Rage simmers just beneath the surface—frustration, betrayal, fear. Not that he’d ever admit to that last one.
He’s vibrating with it. With the things he can’t say out loud without breaking something—or someone.
"You saw that ring." Logan’s voice is low, guttural—choked with something he won’t name. Not disbelief. Not anymore. It’s frustration. It's grating behind his eyes, sharp and ragged.
His stare sears into me, demanding an answer he already knows. It’s not a question—it’s an indictment. Every inch of space between us feels loaded, as if one wrong word could detonate both of us in the same breath. A reckoning. And the muscle ticking in his jaw says he’s barely keeping the fury at bay.
I nod, but it feels like too little, too late. "Yes."
Logan pins me with that predator's stare, pupils blown wide, voice raw with betrayal. "Did you know he was alive?" There’s more than betrayal in his eyes. There’s loss. Not just of Wolfe—but of me. Of the woman he once commanded, once broke, once trusted to fall apart in his arms and not flinch.
Each word cracks like a whip, not just loud—but laced with something deeper. Not disbelief. Not even rage. Grief, maybe. Grief wrapped in steel and fury. With pain that doesn’t get wept out—it gets weaponized.
I open my mouth, then clamp it shut, the words clawing at my throat. My instinct screams to deflect, to dodge, to guard the last fragments of control I still own. But he's not wrong. He's bleeding in a language only I seem to understand, and I can’t pretend I don’t hear it.
"If I told you, you’d have thought I was chasing ghosts," I say, voice low. I glance away, then back—because I owe him that. I didn’t hide it to protect him. I did it to protectmyself. From hoping. From spiraling. From believing that the worst betrayalwasn’t that he died—but that he let me think he had. "I wasn’t sure until just now. But I suspected. I just... didn’t want it to be true."
His hands curl against the door on either side of my head. Not touching, but surrounding. Containing. "And now? What do you believe now?"
I swallow hard. "Now I think Wolfe is alive."
He doesn’t answer. Not with words. He slams one hand into the wall beside me, the crack of flesh against stone echoing through the narrow hall like a gunshot. He’s panting hard, like he’s run a gauntlet through his own memories, and lost.
His knuckles are white where they press into the door, veins bulging, fury vibrating off him in waves. “Do you know what it fucking cost me to let him go? To let you both go?” he growls, voice ragged, torn open from somewhere deep. “Not money—fuck the money. It cost me everything. My certainty. My edge. My career. I buried more than a man that day—I buried the part of me that trusted anything I couldn’t shoot.”
My voice is raw, gutted by years of silence. "Do you know what it cost me to survive?" I shake my head, the heat behind my eyes sharp and unrelenting. "To look over my shoulder every day, wondering if I’d see my past in the shadows? To tell myself I was wrong just to keep breathing? To live like I’d imagined the ghost of him, only to find out the nightmare is real?"
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. Just bitterness. Just grief, weaponized and spent. "I rebuilt myself from ash and lies. I ran until I didn’t know who I was anymore—just so I wouldn’t have to face the truth. That he used me. That I let him."
My gaze finds Logan’s, my voice quieter but laced with steel. "So yes, I survived him. But it cost me everything I used to be, too."
His eyes are fire. We’re too close. Still riding the high after the kill. Still buzzing from adrenaline and something darker between us.
I whisper, "How that man moved... it wasn't just familiar—it was muscle memory. That wasn’t standard training. That was someone trained by Wolfe. Same footwork. Same pivot stance. Same fucking elbow tuck before a draw. I’d know it blindfolded, and I thought I’d never see it again."
Logan’s eyes go flat. Still. A calm before the storm—but not the kind that rumbles off into the distance. No, this one coils inward, simmering beneath his skin, building in pressure until it ruptures. His chest rises once, twice, then stills completely, like he's locking every thought and emotion behind a reinforced wall. But I see it. I know that stillness. It’s the pause before the pounce. The moment right before he decides whether to shatter everything... or hold the line with bloodied hands.
Then he steps back. Just a single step. But it feels like a chasm.
I reach for the ring where Logan threw it down on the floor after ripping it off the dead man's hand. I pick it up not as a keepsake, but as a weapon. A message. One I intend to answer. Whatever game Wolfe thinks he’s playing, I know how to flip the board. My fingers close around it. The silver is still warm.
"We need to talk to Fitz," I say, my voice sharper than I intend. I turn the ring over in my fingers, its silver catching the low light like it still holds a heartbeat. "Because if Wolfe's alive... he’s not just sending a message. He’s orchestrating a symphony. And I'm center stage. He knows I'm alive, too."
Logan nods, slow and heavy, the gesture more resignation than agreement. "He knows about the dossier. That wasn't a warning—it was a retrieval mission. A kill op with orders to secure the intel at any cost." His voice is gravel, low and bitter. He jabs a finger toward the villa's scorched front. "That wasphase one. And when he finds out they failed, he won't hesitate. He’ll escalate. He’ll send more. Smarter, better equipped. This was just the opening volley."
His jaw clenches so tight I can hear the grind of enamel. For a moment, I think he’s going to punch the doorframe just to bleed out some of the tension coiling in his limbs.
And God help us, I believe him. If Wolfe is pulling the strings, we haven’t just kicked a hornet’s nest.
I look down at the ring, its silver edge biting into my palm... we’ve blown open the hive. And if Wolfe’s the one shaking the branches, I know exactly how this ends—bloody, personal, and up close.
8
LOGAN
The Cerberus safehouse sits like a predator’s den outside Monte Carlo along the coast—reinforced, remote, and quiet. The quiet that feels earned, like a predator fed and resting—watchful, but never harmless.
The main floor of the cottage is bright and cheery—sun-washed tile, open shelving, and windows that let in the scent of rosemary and salt air from the sea. But beneath it lies something else entirely. There’s a double lock on every door, a faint metallic tang to the air that never quite fades, and the faintest echo of tension in the walls—like the house itself is braced for impact.
