Page 22 of Code Name: Hunter
It couldn't be. It shouldn't be. Not after Prague. I’d seen the signet ring, but had dismissed it. It’s hard to believe that it could really be him after the fire, the blood and the grave buried with his name. Until I saw that signet ring, I had every reason to believe he was dust. Ash. A ghost I’d finally learned to stop missing.
But how that man walks? My head says it’s a shadow. My gut screams it’s him. That’s the problem with ghosts—once you’ve loved one, you recognize them in every silhouette. It detonatesevery fragment of instinct I’ve tried to kill. Something primal locks onto it—bone-deep recognition. Muscle memory doesn’t lie. My body reacts before my mind catches up, a jolt straight to the sternum that tastes like memory and warning all at once. It knows what betrayal looks like in motion.
And yet, a part of me clings to disbelief. Because if Wolfe’s still alive… it means everything that happened in Prague was a lie.
Including him. Including us.
I blink and he’s gone—vanished behind a curtain of swaying textiles or into the crowd. My pulse spikes, not from exertion but from disappointment so sharp it feels like whiplash.
It’s just a man. Similar build. Similar walk. But not Wolfe.
No scar beneath the jawline. And the moment I second-guess, I know—I wanted it to be him. Needed it, even. Because as much as I hate him, I still want answers. Closure. Maybe revenge. Maybe more.
But it's not him. And that realization cuts deeper than it should. I curse myself for hoping. Hope is the most dangerous habit I’ve never been able to break. For the half-second I let my guard slip and my heart accelerate. For believing, even briefly, that maybe—just maybe—he’d show his face. That he’d dare.
After watching my tail pause at the edge of the market—scanning with increasing frustration before vanishing down another side alley—I feel the shift. He thinks he’s lost me. Believes I’ve disappeared.
Good.
The game was never about evasion. It was about assessment. And now that I’ve seen enough—his rhythm, his failure to noticemy disappearance, the way he missed my rooftop angle—it’s time to end the charade.
I rise slowly from my crouch behind the low wall edging the flat-topped roof, muscles stretching tight, nerves still buzzing from the jolt of mistaking Wolfe. Below, the market hums on, oblivious to the tension coiling just above its sunbaked awnings.
Enough games. I’m done being the bait. Time to return to Opus Noir. Back to Cerberus. Back to Logan. The crowd feels different now—like the air’s holding its breath for something ugly.
Out of the corner of my eye, two shadows peel from the stalls behind me—smooth, coordinated, their angles wrong and timing too perfect to be accidental. I pivot on instinct, my hand going to the grip of my weapon, but the first attacker is already moving fast and deliberate.
A shock baton crackles to life mid-swing, arcing toward my ribs with the hiss of electricity and intent. The charge spits heat into the air, raising the hair on my arms before it ever touches me. I drop low, rolling into the motion, the baton missing by inches as I hiss between my teeth and drive my knee upward into the attacker's thigh. Bone meets resistance—a grunt escapes him—but before I can capitalize, the second shadow is already there.
There’s a rhythm to their assault—too efficient for freelancers, too restrained for a kill order. It’s not chaos. It’s choreography. Another baton swings, this time from the left. I barely deflect it with my forearm, pain blooming like fire beneath my skin. I counter with a sharp elbow, twisting toward his center mass, but he absorbs the hit with a grunt and shoves me back. They move in tandem, like mirrored wolves, forcing me toward the rooftop edge. Not a wasted step between them, no hesitation in the handoffs—they’re running a play they’ve drilled to perfection. These aren’t common enforcers. They’re trained. Efficient. Tactical.
They close ranks on me fast—surgical, synchronized. Like a Cerberus exercise.
But that's impossible. There's no way this is a sanctioned exercise—there’s too much at stake. Fitz wouldn’t green-light an op this exposed, not with civilians milling under tents and strings of festival lights like fish in a barrel. It’s not just uncharacteristic. It’s reckless. Reckless gets you burned in Cerberus. Fitzwallace would rather destroy a city block than let tradecraft slip like this. So either he’s not behind it… or someone is rewriting the rules. Fitz might be ruthless, but he’s never sloppy—and this? This is a mess waiting to detonate.
I catch one in the shoulder with a quick snap of my elbow; a solid hit throws off his balance. Without hesitation, I pivot hard and break right, boots digging into sun-slick tile as I sprint for the opposite side of the rooftop's edge. I don’t know if it was him. I don’t know what I want it to mean if it was. But every part of me is moving now like it remembers him—even the fear. My legs coil and launch—I vault across the yawning gap between buildings, gravity nipping at my heels. A half-beat slower and I’d be painting the alley in red and regret. The wind tears at my loose shirt midair, sun flaring in my eyes.
I hit the other side hard—knees jarring, breath knocked from my lungs—but I roll with the impact, shoulder grazing a chimney as I tuck and twist into cover behind a crumbling wall. Gravel bites through my palms. My weapon's up, safety off. My pulse hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to break free. Then I hear it. A whistle.
Not just any whistle. Short-long-short. It’s a Cerberus field code. A signal meant for close-quarters ally ID. My blood turns to ice. That signal doesn’t belong in enemy hands. Not unless someone handed it to them, which means the real threat isn’t on this rooftop—it’s already inside the walls I trusted.
These guys aren't Cerberus, but they’re using Cerberus’ signals.
Whoever these bastards are, they’ve been trained in-house—or by someone who had access to protocols that should be locked behind retinal scans and triple encryption.
That narrows the list significantly.
I steady my breathing, press against the cool concrete of what's left of the wall, and scan below. One attacker lingers at the other edge of the rooftop, scanning—but not for me. He’s waiting. Coordinating. Like he knows the next step in the playbook.
Time to rewrite the ending.
I pull a flash charge from my boot holster, prime it, and count. Three. Two. One.
Detonate.
It explodes with a shriek of white light. I move under smoke cover, drop to a lower rooftop ledge, and down a maintenance shaft that lets out between the seafood restaurant and the deserted building.
Whoever they were, they came hunting the Nocturne they remembered—the operative trained to attack, to avoid, to survive. But I’ve changed. I’ve rebuilt myself from ash and adrenaline, forged by fire and betrayal into something sharper, colder. The woman they were prepared for is gone. And the one who replaced her? She doesn’t run.
