THE GHOST PROTOCOL

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE BLOOD OATH

Rain slammed against the windows of the abandoned warehouse, each drop shattering like tiny bullets. The building was dark, save for a single flickering lamp in the center of the dusty floor. Adrian Kaine stood beneath it, stripped of emotion, blood still drying on his knuckles from the fight that brought him here.

He had killed four men in the alley behind the harbor.

All of them had the same symbol tattooed behind their ear.

All of them belonged to Cipher’s private kill unit.

He wiped his blood-stained hand on his shirt and stepped deeper into the warehouse. Everything smelled of rust and old oil. The silence was so thick it pressed against his skin.

It was the perfect place for a meeting.

Or an ambush.

With Cipher, it was always both.

A low metallic click echoed behind him.

Adrian didn’t turn.

He didn’t have to.

He knew the rhythm of that breathing.

The weight shift.

The scent of gun oil mixed with cold sweat.

Marcus Hale stepped from the shadows.

Same man who left him to die in Chapter One.

Same man who watched him burn.

But now Marcus looked different.

Tired. Nervous. Unsteady.

“Adrian,” Marcus whispered, lowering his rifle. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. “Then you shouldn’t have called.”

A long silence stretched.

Marcus swallowed hard.

“You weren’t supposed to survive that night,” Marcus said. “None of us were.”

Adrian’s expression didn’t move, but something dark slid through his eyes. “Talk.”

Marcus’s hands trembled slightly. “I need you to listen first. Cipher is watching everything. Every signal. Every safehouse. Every move.”

Adrian kept walking toward him.

Slow. Silent. Controlled violence wrapped in flesh.

Marcus stepped back. “I tried to warn you. The team wasn’t supposed to be executed. They only wanted you dead.”

Adrian stopped two feet away.

“Why?” Adrian asked.

Marcus’s throat tightened. “Because you found something in Operation Blackwell. Something you were never meant to see. Something about him.”

Adrian’s fists curled. The ghosts of his squad stirred in his bones.

“What did I find?” Adrian demanded.

Marcus opened his mouth,

but a sharp TICK echoed from the ceiling.

Adrian’s eyes flicked up.

A red laser dot moved slowly across Marcus’s chest.

Sniper.

Marcus realized it too late.

“No, Adrian, wait—!”

Adrian pivoted, grabbing Marcus by the collar

But the shot fired.

Blood sprayed across Adrian’s face.

Marcus dropped to his knees, gasping, clutching his shoulder where the bullet buried itself.

“Cipher doesn’t forgive traitors,” Marcus groaned.

Adrian dragged him behind a steel crate as a second shot cracked through the air, shattering the lamp above them.

Darkness swallowed the warehouse.

Marcus’s breath came in ragged gasps. “They’re here… Adrian, you need to run.”

Adrian checked the wound, shoulder, not fatal.

He drew a knife from his boot. “You’re coming with me.”

“No. They’ll kill us both.”

Adrian leaned close, voice low and lethal. “They’re killing you because you talked. And they’re killing me because they failed.”

Another shot rang out, sparks exploding off the metal beside them.

Adrian grabbed Marcus’s weapon and peeked around the crate. Movement flickered across the rafters, three shadows crossing overhead, boots silent on steel.

Kill squad.

Tactical.

Fast.

Clean.

Cipher’s signature.

Marcus clutched Adrian’s arm. “You need to leave me. I can’t slow you”

“You owe me answers,” Adrian growled.

Marcus closed his eyes as if that truth stabbed deeper than the bullet.

Adrian pulled him up, dragging him along the ground toward the side corridor. Gunfire shredded the crates behind them. Metal screamed. Dust burst into the air.

Then

A cold voice echoed from the warehouse speakers.

“Adrian Kaine.”

Adrian stopped moving.

Every muscle in his body turned to stone.

That voice.

It didn’t sound human.

It didn’t sound real.

It was distorted… but something beneath it felt familiar. Too familiar.

Cipher.

“You want the truth?” Cipher said. “You have always been chasing the wrong enemy.”

Marcus froze beside him.

Adrian stared into the darkness, body quiet, mind razor-sharp.

“You burned your own squad,” Cipher continued. “You killed them yourself. Don’t you remember?”

Marcus flinched. “He’s lying. Adrian, look at me”

But Adrian didn’t look at Marcus.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t breathe.

Because the Cipher wasn’t finished.

“They trusted you,” Cipher said. “And you pulled the trigger.”

Adrian’s chest tightened painfully.

His vision blurred for half a breath.

He knew Cipher was lying…

But the voice was designed to poison the mind.

Marcus grabbed Adrian by the collar. “Listen to me, Cipher wants you unstable. He wants to break you before he kills you. Adrian, look at”

A flash grenade dropped from the ceiling.

Adrian reacted first.

He grabbed Marcus and dove behind a concrete pillar as the grenade exploded,

a brutal white flash,

a bone-deep shockwave,

dust raining from the rafters.

His ears rang violently.

Marcus screamed.

The kill squad dropped from above like black shadows cutting through smoke.

Three of them.

All armed.

All masked.

Adrian shoved Marcus aside and rose into the chaos.

A bullet grazed his arm, another shattered a steel beam beside him. Adrian moved like a knife through darkness, tackling the closest soldier. They rolled across the floor, each strike hard, military precise.

Adrian ripped the soldier’s knife free, driving it upward into the soft spot under the mask.

The body collapsed.

Blood pooled.

Two more advanced.

Adrian barely dodged the first swing of a steel baton. The second soldier attacked from behind, wrapping an arm around his throat. Adrian slammed his elbow backward, breaking ribs, then flipped the man over his shoulder, driving him into the ground.

He didn’t stop.

Didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t breathe.

He snapped the man’s neck.

The last soldier lunged with a suppressed pistol. Adrian spun, forcing the gun aside. The round tore through the wall instead of his skull.

He twisted the soldier’s wrist until bone cracked,

then drove his knee into the man’s throat until he stopped moving.

Silence fell.

Marcus lay on the ground, coughing through pain, staring at Adrian with something between fear and awe.

“You shouldn’t be alive,” Marcus whispered.

Adrian knelt beside him. “Start talking.”

Marcus hesitated, shaking. “Cipher… Cipher isn’t one person.”

Adrian’s stare hardened.

“It’s a program,” Marcus whispered. “A ghost network. A chain of handlers. Anyone with access can use the voice. The betrayal didn’t start with one person, it started with the system you were part of.”

Adrian’s throat tightened, but his voice stayed cold. “Who gave the order to kill my squad?”

Marcus’s eyes filled with dread. “Not Cipher. Someone higher. Someone you knew.”

Lightning flashed, flooding the warehouse with white light.

And Adrian saw it

A figure standing at the far end of the building.

Tall.

Still.

Watching them.

A silhouette he recognized.

Adrian rose slowly, muscles locking with tension.

No.

It couldn’t be.

It was impossible.

But the figure stepped forward, and the truth hit him like a bullet.

“Elias…” Adrian whispered.

Captain Elias Ward.

His mentor.

His commander.

The man he trusted more than anyone alive.

Elias stared at him with empty eyes. “Kaine.”

Adrian’s hands curled into fists. Marcus gasped, “Adrian… don’t… don’t go near him…”

Elias’s voice was flat. “You weren’t supposed to live.”

Thunder roared overhead.

Adrian took one step toward him

, and a high-pitched beeping filled the air.

Adrian’s head jerked up.

Small blinking lights.

Dozens of them.

The kill squad had planted charges across the ceiling.

Every single one is active.

Elias’s expression didn’t change. “Goodbye, Kaine.”

The detonators clicked.

Adrian grabbed Marcus

The world turned white

The ceiling collapsed

THE ENTIRE WAREHOUSE ERUPTED IN A MASSIVE EXPLOSION.

Flame swallowed everything.

Concrete shattered.

Steel melted.

Bodies flew.

And Adrian Kaine disappeared under the roaring firestorm as Elias Ward walked away into the night.