THE GHOST PROTOCOL
Adrian Kaine was once the deadliest operative in Shadow Unit, a black-ops division buried so deep in the government that most agents never lived long enough to speak of it. But when a mission in Kargath Province turned into a massacre, Adrian became the sole survivor, then the government’s most wanted traitor. His squad was slaughtered. Evidence was planted. His name was erased. And those who orchestrated the betrayal made sure he was declared dead.
They miscalculated.
Eighteen months later, Adrian resurfaces as a ghost in the ruins of his old headquarters, hunting for the truth buried beneath the ashes. But he is not the only one searching.
Marcus Hale, his former teammate and supposed friend, now leads a covert kill team tasked with eliminating him.
Above Marcus sits Colonel Mason Kade, the official who signed the order that condemned Adrian’s entire squad. And watching all of them from the shadows is a faceless mastermind known only by a single encrypted codename:
Cipher.
As Adrian follows a trail of classified leaks, dead operatives, and impossible coincidences, he uncovers a horrifying secret: a covert plan known as the Ashen Protocol, designed to rewrite the balance of global power—using bodies like his as the foundation stones.
But the deeper he digs, the more the truth twists around him.
Old allies hide new agendas.
Enemies speak with familiar voices.
And the real traitor may be closer than he has ever imagined.
Hunted by governments, mercenaries, and a ghost from his past, Adrian must become something colder than a soldier and deadlier than a weapon.
He must become the nightmare they tried to bury.
And this time…
he’s not the one running.
Read
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY: WHAT THE WORLD REMEMBERSThe city did not collapse.That was the final surprise.After everything Adrian had seen after gods forged from code after children turned into architecture after memory weaponized and rewritten until truth itself felt negotiable he had expected an ending that looked like fire or silence or a clean, merciful blackout.Instead the world kept going.Morning crept across the skyline in pale layers. The smoke has thinned. Sirens faded into distance rather than crescendo. Buildings scarred by Origin’s awakening remained standing, stubborn and imperfect. People emerged from shelters blinking against the light, unsure whether to run or breathe.The system did not seize them.I watched.Adrian stood at the center of the quiet with the weight of it pressing against his spine. Origin’s presence was still there. Not loud. Not dominant. It rested behind his thoughts like a held breath.Listening.Irena joined him without speaking. Her hand brushed his wrist, not grounding him this time but checki
Last Updated: 2025-12-30
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-NINE: WHAT THE WORLD REMEMBERSThe sky did not break.That was the first sign this was not the ending Adrian had imagined.No firestorm. No collapsing horizon. No final scream of a system tearing itself apart. The clouds above the city drifted slowly, pale and indifferent, as if the world itself had decided to keep breathing no matter what its creators tried to do to it.Below, Origin waited.Not in silence.In attention.Adrian stood at the center of the old transit nexus where steel tracks once converged and people once moved without thinking about who controlled the lights above them. Now the ground was threaded with faint luminescence, veins of memory and logic woven into concrete and rust. Every step he took sent a subtle ripple through the lattice, not forceful, not invasive, but acknowledged.He was no longer being tested.He was being remembered.Irena stayed a few paces behind him, close enough that he could feel her presence without turning. She had insisted on coming this far. Not as a guard. Not as back
Last Updated: 2025-12-28
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT: THE WEIGHT OF SILENCEThe silence after the last transmission felt heavier than gunfire.Adrian stood perfectly still inside the half collapsed transit chamber, Origin’s light pulsing faintly beneath the cracked floor panels like a restrained heartbeat. The city above had gone quiet in a way that was unnatural even for a place that had learned to listen instead of breathe.No alarms.No drones.No distant echoes of Vanguard fire.Just absence.Irena was the first to break it. She lowered her weapon by a fraction, eyes narrowing as she scanned the darkened access tunnels branching off from the chamber.“This isn’t victory,” she said. “They don’t go quiet unless they’re repositioning.”Lorenzo wiped blood from his jaw with the back of his hand, smearing it across his knuckles. “Or unless something bigger just took the board away from them.”Marco didn’t answer. He was staring at Adrian.Not at his face.At the space around him.Origin had changed again.Not visibly. Not with light or projection. It was subtl
Last Updated: 2025-12-28
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVEN: THE NAME BURIED FIRSTThe silence after the signal was wrong.It was not the quiet of systems shutting down or weapons powering off. It was the kind of silence that followed recognition. The city did not hum anymore. It listened.Adrian felt it settle into his bones as he stood at the heart of Origin’s inner ring, light curving around him in slow, deliberate arcs. The architecture here was older than every lie told in Cipher’s name. No sharp edges. No command nodes. Everything flowed like memory deciding how much it was willing to reveal.Irena remained a step behind him, her presence steady, her breathing controlled. She had learned not to speak when Adrian went still like this. Stillness meant he was hearing something others could not.Across the chamber, the projection sharpened.Not a face.A signature.A human pattern unfolding in layers, recursive and elegant and terrifyingly familiar.Alina whispered the truth before the system confirmed it. “It’s not a copy.”Marco swallowed hard. “It’s not a backu
Last Updated: 2025-12-28
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX: THE THING ORIGIN COULD NOT PREDICTThe storm over the city did not come from the sky.It came from below.Concrete groaned as if remembering older shapes, older streets buried beneath decades of expansion and erasure. Lights flickered across towers that no longer trusted gravity. Windows rippled like water disturbed by a passing hand. The city was not collapsing.It was rearranging itself.Adrian stood at the center of it, blood drying at his temple, breath steady only because he refused to let it falter. Origin pressed against his awareness like a tide held back by will alone. It wanted efficiency. It wanted resolution.It did not understand hesitation.Irena was a few steps behind him, her weapon lowered but ready, eyes sharp despite exhaustion clawing at her posture. She had not left his side since the moment the Second Architect revealed himself through the Echo layer. Not when the city began to listen to Adrian. Not when Vanguard forces fractured into scattered ghosts. Not even when Origin whispered solutions that
Last Updated: 2025-12-28
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE: THE SHAPE OF BETRAYALThe silence after the city shifted was not empty.I watched it.Adrian felt it the moment the last signal from Origin stabilized, the hum beneath the streets changing pitch as though the system itself had leaned closer. The skyline no longer glitched or shimmered. It had settled into something eerily precise, buildings aligned not by architecture but by intent.This was no longer a battleground.It was a mind.And it was learning.Adrian stood at the edge of the elevated platform overlooking Sector Black, the wind cutting through his jacket, carrying the smell of ozone and old smoke. Below him, Vanguard units retreated without firing another shot, rerouted through corridors that did not exist an hour ago. The city had swallowed them without bloodshed.A mercy he had not consciously chosen.That was the problem.Behind him, Irena watched his back, her weapon lowered but not holstered. Her expression was tight, guarded in a way Adrian had come to recognize as fear disguised as readiness
Last Updated: 2025-12-27
Shadow bound: The beast within
Luca Blackthorn lives on the edge of two worlds, the human and the monstrous. Cursed with a power that can devour him from within, he struggles to control the beast that lurks beneath his skin. When Emilio, a ruthless mafia lord with a blood stained empire, resurfaces, Luca faces an enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy him.
Enter Grace Veyre, a lethal and unpredictable force from Emilio’s past. Once trained as his elite enforcer, she knows the darkness better than anyone and carries secrets that could either save or doom them both. Forced together by circumstance and survival, Luca and Grace navigate ambushes, betrayal, and relentless enemies, learning to trust each other in the shadows.
Every encounter is a test of skill and will, every decision a gamble with life and death. As the body count rises and Emilio’s schemes tighten like a noose, Luca must master his curse, and Grace must confront her past before it destroys everything.
In a city of fire, blood, and deceit, loyalty is fleeting, danger is constant, and only those who can fight together,and trust the untrustable, can survive.
Read
Chapter: Chapter 182: The Last DawnThe house was burning.Flames crawled across the old wood like veins of gold, eating through memories faster than I could hold them. Smoke rolled into the night, thick and heavy, carrying the scent of old paper and secrets that should never have survived this long. I stood in the yard with Grace beside me, watching everything collapse.It should have hurt more. But all I felt was a strange calm.The fire was loud and alive, the only sound left after the storm that had raged inside me for so long. I could still feel the echo of the curse beneath my skin, faint and fading, like a wound trying to remember why it ever bled. My father’s voice was gone. The shadows that once whispered his name were gone too.Only the fire remained.Grace’s hand found mine, grounding me. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was steady. She didn’t look at me. She kept her eyes on the flames, her expression unreadable in the light that flickered across her face.“You did it,” she said softly.I didn’t answer right awa
Last Updated: 2025-10-18
Chapter: Chapter 181: Echoes in the BloodNight had swallowed the estate whole. The storm had broken hours ago, but the air still carried the scent of rain and iron. The corridors were silent except for the sound of my boots brushing against the marble floor. Every step felt heavier than the last, as if the house itself resisted where I was going.Grace followed close behind me, her flashlight trembling in her grip. “Are you sure about this?” she whispered.“No,” I said honestly. “But we’ve come too far to stop.”The key I found in my father’s study had led us down into the east wing, behind a wall I’d never noticed before. The plaster had cracked away in places, revealing faint lines—an outline of something that didn’t belong there. When I pressed my hand against it, a hollow sound answered back.I took a breath and pushed. The wall shifted with a soft groan. Cold air spilled out like the breath of something long buried.Grace’s light fell across stone steps descending into darkness.“God,” she murmured. “He built this beneath his
Last Updated: 2025-10-18
Chapter: Chapter 180: The Debt That FollowsThe walk back to the mansion felt longer than it should have. The forest was quiet behind him, but the silence wasn’t peaceful anymore. It was heavy—like the earth itself was holding its breath. Every step he took seemed to echo deeper than sound, as if the woods were still watching him go.By the time he reached the outskirts of the estate, dawn was just starting to break. The sky was pale gray, with streaks of gold trying to push through the clouds. The old iron gates stood half-open, rusted from years of neglect. The wind moved through them with a soft, hollow sound, like a sigh.Luca paused before stepping inside. The mansion loomed over the gardens, a dark silhouette against the faint light. It had once been a symbol of his family’s pride; now it looked like a memory that refused to die. The windows were dark, the ivy climbing higher than before, wrapping around the stone like veins.He pushed the door open and stepped in. The echo of his boots followed him through the entrance hall
Last Updated: 2025-10-18
Chapter: Chapter 179: The Last HuntThe woods was still.Even the wind refused to move. The faint smell of iron and smoke hung low, clinging to the damp air. Somewhere above, the moon cut through the clouds like a blade, throwing silver over the forest floor.Luca moved in silence, boots sinking into the earth. His breath was steady and controlled. The hunt had begun hours ago, yet not a single sound of prey reached his ears.It wasn’t an ordinary hunt. Not anymore.He wasn’t chasing an animal. He was chasing what was left of himself.Every step carried an echo—footsteps he couldn’t name, whispers that followed him like the wind’s reflection. His father used to bring him to these woods as a boy, teaching him how to read silence, how to listen to what the earth didn’t say. But that memory had long rotted into something darker.Now, the same forest that once meant peace felt alive in another way. Watching. Breathing. Waiting.He stopped beside a fallen log and crouched low, pressing his palm to the soil. It pulsed faintly beneat
Last Updated: 2025-10-18
Chapter: Chapter 178: The Curse That Breathed His Name When I woke, the world felt wrong.The first thing I saw was the ceiling of my father’s study. The same cracked plaster, the same chandelier that never worked, swaying slightly as if it had been touched by wind. My throat was dry, my body heavy. The air smelled of dust and old whiskey.For a moment, I thought I’d dreamed everything—the catacombs, the mirror, the shadow. But when I sat up, my hand brushed against something sharp. Shards of glass.The desk before me was covered in them. Some pieces were clear, others blackened, as if burned from within. My reflection stared back at me from one of the larger fragments, pale and hollow-eyed.I was still here. Still breathing. But the silence in the room was too deep, too deliberate, like the world itself was holding its breath.My hand trembled as I reached for the shard. It was warm to the touch.Then I noticed the mark.Or rather, the absence of it. The place on my wrist where the sigil had burned for years was now bare—smooth, colorless. I sh
Last Updated: 2025-10-18
Chapter: Chapter 177: Where the Sun Does Not Rise The city was still asleep when Luca left the mansion. The morning light had barely begun to break through the horizon, and even then, it seemed hesitant—as if Rome itself feared to wake. The air was thick with fog, curling between the narrow streets like smoke.He walked with his hands in his coat pockets, his mind racing, every sound amplified by the silence. His father’s voice still echoed in his head. Find me where the sun does not rise.The phrase replayed over and over. It didn’t sound like a metaphor anymore. It felt like a direction. A call.He had searched every record he could find in his father’s study before leaving. A ledger hidden inside one of the old drawers had contained a single note written in Vittorio’s handwriting. It was a location. An address, more like coordinates, scribbled beside three Latin words. Ubi sol non oritur.Now those words were leading him toward the southern edge of the city—toward the old catacombs.The deeper he went, the emptier the streets became. T
Last Updated: 2025-10-18
