Page 24 of Code Name: Hunter
She huffs, but she holds. Barely.
The rest scatter, boots slapping against pavement as they melt into the maze of Monte Carlo’s backstreets. Tactical retreat. But it’s too clean, too rehearsed. Not panic—positioning.Cowards with a mission—stall, isolate, test. A dry run for something bigger.
My breathing evens as I scan the alley for stragglers, every nerve still lit up, instincts howling that this isn’t over. Their retreat wasn’t a surrender. It was strategy.
I haul the one she took down to his feet, wrenching his arms behind him. He tries to twist, but I jam my forearm into the back of his neck. "Nice try, arsehole."
Vivian wipes blood from her lip with the back of her hand. "Tell me again how this was your idea of a calm afternoon," she mutters, tone dry and sharp enough to cut glass. Then, narrowing her eyes, she adds, "Oh wait—you never said that, did you? Just yanked me into an alley like it was date night in Prague." Her eyes are dark and sharp, assessing everything. She says nothing, but the pulse in her throat tells me she’s wired tight.
Ignoring her, I hit the comm clipped to my vest. "Cerberus inbound. Package secured. Send pickup."
"ETA in six," comes the response.
Vivian raises a brow. "'Package'?"
I turn to her. "What would you prefer? 'Hostile?' 'Prisoner?' 'Arsehole'?"
She flips me off.
I glance down at the captured bastard. He’s got the lean build of a ghost op and a burn scar across his cheek. Not Cerberus. But definitely someone with our training. "You talk, you live," I tell him. "You don’t, I’ll let her finish what she started."
His stare is blank.
The Cerberus van pulls into the alley discreetly. Two operatives exit through the side door, secure the prisoner while I keep my grip tight, and drag him away. No chances.
Vivian watches silently, arms crossed. I grab her by the elbow. "We’re not done here."
"You’re welcome," she mutters.
“You think this is a game?” I snap, voice low. “If I’d been thirty seconds later, you’d be bleeding out in that alley. You’re reckless," I shoot back. "You were tailed by at least four people with in-house protocols. You nearly got your throat opened."
"But I didn’t. Luckily for me, you were here to protect me."
The woman is infuriating.
By the time the last shadow is gone, my muscles are humming with leftover adrenaline, the aftertaste of copper thick on my tongue. I manage to get her to the car without any serious incident. There was that one moment she had to stop at a food vendor to get some fried ravioli filled with Swiss chard and ricotta known as barbajuan.
“Vivian,” I say with exasperation, watching as she makes a beeline for the nearest food vendor like we hadn’t just dragged a ghost-op off a city street.
“What? I'm hungry, and I just love barbajuan.” Her tone is breezy, but there’s a sharpness under it—her usual deflection when her nerves are fraying.
I glance around. The alley’s behind us, but the mission’s not. “Seriously?”
She shrugs. “Fried pastry helps me think.”
I eye her bag again. Lightweight. No backup comms. No weapon I can see. She's walking around like prey. We grapple briefly—me trying to steer her away without drawing eyes, her deliberately ignoring every ounce of tension still humming through the air—but I relent when I see her digging into her bag and coming up empty. No wallet. Of course.
She looks at me expectantly, brows raised like I’m the unreasonable one. With a muttered curse, I slap a few euros into her hand and stand watch, eyes scanning every reflection and movement while she buys her damn pastry like we’re out for a leisurely stroll.
She pops a bite into my mouth before I can say anything else. She watches me chew with a knowing smile. “See? Worth it.”
I don’t answer. I just open the SUV's door and wait for her to get in, reminding myself that throttling her wouldn’t help—and probably wouldn’t work.
We hit the road. I take her back to the safehouse just outside Monte Carlo. Remote, fortified, and Cerberus-cleared. The place ghosts go when the world burns.
She’s quiet. Not sulking. Calculating.
Once we’re inside, I lock the door behind us and kill the lights. The mechanical thunk of the deadbolt echoes louder than it should in the sudden hush, like a final nail sliding home. Sunlight streams in through the high windows, cutting across the safehouse in long, golden stripes. Vivian pauses in the entryway, haloed in light and dust motes, the tension in her spine slowly unwinding. Every part of me stays wired—ears straining for sounds that shouldn’t be there, heart refusing to slow. We’re safe, but for how long I’m not sure. The sterile hush feels artificial against the warmth outside, as though we’ve stepped into a waiting room between worlds. Places like this feel safe until they don’t—and I’ve learned the hard way that quiet is just the pause before something hits.
