Page 19 of Code Name: Hunter
I make my way down to the heart of the safehouse below. The hallway I move through now hums with hidden life. The sterile bite of recirculated ventilation cuts through the air, dry and chilled, masking the dense thrum of servers embedded in reinforced walls. A low pulse of data traffic whispers from the floorboards like a subterranean heartbeat. Every pulse hums through the soles of my boots, a reminder that even the ground here listens. I stalk the perimeter toward the interior briefing room, boots muffled on matte black tile, every movement rehearsed and measured.
It’s too quiet. Not the type of quiet that soothes—but the kind that precedes a kill. I’ve learned to listen for silence like this. In combat, it means you're being hunted. Here? It means something’s coming, and I’m not sure whose side it’s on.
Inside the communications hub, Fitz stands with arms folded, framed by the soft glow of a tri-panel display alive with surveillance feeds, encrypted threads, and tactical overlays. Banks of computers line the far wall, casting pulses of cold light across matte surfaces and steel. The red status box at the corner of the screen blinks in stubborn repetition, a silent pulse that hasn't changed since the SUV extraction—a metronome of dread. Fluorescent light hums overhead, softened by the matte ceiling tiles, but it can't erase the sense that this room isn't just operational—it's tactical. Fitz doesn’t turn when I enter; he doesn’t need to. The room, much like him, is wired for control.
“Report,” he says, clipped.
I don’t waste breath. “It’s Wolfe.”
Fitz stills, and then finally glances over his shoulder. “You saw him?”
“I saw his signet ring. And the way his team moved. Not mercs. Not rookies. MI-6 protocols from years ago—cleaned up, but I recognized the spacing and fallback structure.”
“Copycats?”
“If they are, they’re trained by someone with access to MI-6 dead files. That narrows down the suspect list significantly.” I take a measured step closer, letting the weight of it punctuate the next words. “Nocturne confirmed visual. Her reaction wasn’t just immediate—it was visceral. No hesitation, no calculated play. Pure recognition.”
“Which means she believes Wolfe is alive.”
“She doesn't just believe it. She knows it. And if she knows it, then I’d stake every classified scrap of intel on one truth: Wolfedidn’t die in Prague. He vanished—because someone helped him disappear.”
Fitz taps a feed, bringing up a freeze-frame. His posture stiffens, and for a split second, his jaw tightens—just enough for me to catch it. Not fear. Recognition. It coils behind his eyes and tightens his grip on the edge of the console, white-knuckled and quiet. The image freezes at the moment the SUV doors opened. The ring that looks like Wolfe’s ring glints in the moonlight—stark against the shadowed jawline of a man built like he never died. For a man who’s mastered stillness, the flicker in Fitz’s eyes is a flare in the dark—too quick to be fear, too sharp to be surprise.
Fitz’s mouth flattens. “They buried him—or at least something people could mourn. An empty casket, a ceremony, a few staged details to make the loss feel real. Burying the dead, even symbolically, helps the secret remain intact. Gives people closure. Keeps questions buried alongside the lie.”
“The same with Vivian. We buried the story—at least the real version we didn't need the world to hear. There were no remains to recover, no clean forensic trails to chase. Just two blast zones charred beyond analysis, scattered evidence burned to ash, and assumptions hastily wrapped in classified ribbons. It was enough to close the file—but not enough to erase the truth.”
“And now you think Wolfe is sending ghosts after the dossier?”
I nod. “One of them had Balkan scars—left side. I interrogated a man with the same markings in Montenegro in '17. Wolfe must’ve turned him.”
Fitz’s knuckles flex. “If he’s activating buried assets, NATO’s exposed.”
I don’t flinch. “Already is. These moves are coordinated. Surgical. Someone in Brussels is feeding him.”
“And you have proof?”
“Not yet. But I have a trail.”
Footsteps echo beyond the sound-dampened glass.
The moment I hear her boots, my pulse recalibrates. Doesn’t spike—worse. It stabilizes like it used to before breaching a door, when adrenaline laced with obsession carved focus into bone. She was always the calm within my storm. Until she became the storm.
Vivian steps into the room like she owns it—dark jeans molded to her legs, gun riding high on her hip, and that same unapologetic, fuck-you glint in her eye that makes it impossible to forget who she is. Her boots strike the tile with a cadence more calculated than casual, each step landing like a statement. The scent of jasmine laced with the faint trace of spent powder and sun-warmed leather drifts behind her, threading the space between her and everyone else like a warning and a memory all at once. She moves as if she’s casing the room even as she claims it, eyes catching exits, angles, weaknesses—mine included. She doesn’t just command attention—she consumes it, pulling the room’s focus into her orbit as if gravity itself obeys her.
For a second, it guts me—how effortlessly she flips the switch between silk and steel. She’s no longer some distant ghost I’ve spent years trying to forget—she’s kinetic, real, and sharpened like a blade honed in fire. And that scent? The barest echo of something once sacred and now weaponized—it slams into me like a trigger and a dare, dragging old wants into new light. She doesn’t just enter the room—she detonates it, blowing open every reinforced boundary I thought I'd rebuilt since Prague. It’s not just her presence—it’s the muscle memory of wanting her and wanting to command her, two instincts that have never learned how to coexist.
She tosses a sealed drive onto the center table with theatrical indifference. “Dossier, partial. Don’t get greedy.”
Fitz doesn’t blink. “You said full.”
“I said we’d discuss the full dossier upon my relocation.” Her gaze cuts to me. “Which hasn’t happened yet.”
I meet her stare head-on. “You’re at a secure site under Cerberus protection. That’s relocation.”
She arches an eyebrow. “No. That’s a bunker. I want a field presence. I want movement. You want cooperation? Prove I’m not just trading one invisible cage for another with prettier curtains.” Her words land like lock picks, testing every latch I’ve set between her and the outside world. “I didn’t survive everything just to rot underground again. I want a life—real, dangerous a little, maybe—but mine. You want me to give you everything I’ve got? Then show me I’m more than a disposable asset.”
Fitz observes us like he’s watching a chemical reaction—half waiting for combustion, half daring it to ignite—with the faintest hint of amusement ghosting behind his otherwise unreadable eyes. Not quite a smile, but close. I don't take my eyes off her. His fingers tap a silent rhythm against the console—calculating. He doesn’t just watch. He records, studies, memorizes the way our tension spirals like a fuse. If he’s weighing how much leash to give me, he’s already seen how fast I’ll snap it.
