THE GHOST PROTOCOL

CHAPTER THREE: THE MARK OF A DEAD MAN

The forest swallowed the world in darkness as Adrian pushed deeper into the night, his breath steady, his mind cold. The blast still rang in his bones, the fire still burned behind his eyes. He had crawled out of death again, but not clean.

Marcus Hale.

The one man he trusted with his life turned his gun on him.

And not just for money.

Not just for orders.

Marcus was working with Cipher.

Adrian’s hands curled into fists as he walked. The cold air cut through his clothes, but it couldn’t reach the heat boiling under his skin. Betrayal had a taste, metallic, sharp, unforgettable.

It was the same taste he had swallowed the night his team died.

He stopped under a tall pine tree, listening.

Stillness.

Silence.

But not peace.

Someone was following him.

He shifted his weight without sound, stepping behind a fallen log. His fingers touched the knife on his belt, the only weapon he had left after the explosion.

A crunch of leaves broke the quiet.

Adrian waited.

A shadow moved between the trees, too light to be a soldier, too cautious to be a civilian. The figure approached slowly, hands raised to show they were empty.

Then a quiet voice.

“Adrian… it’s me.”

Adrian didn’t move.

Liora Sato stepped into a slice of moonlight. Her black hair was wet with rain, her face pale, her backpack strapped tight against her body. Not a soldier. Not a killer. But dangerous in her own way.

She had been their team’s intelligence analyst, smart, calm, and always five steps ahead. Adrian hadn’t seen her since the night of the ambush.

Adrian stood still, knife ready.

“How did you find me?”

Liora didn’t flinch at his voice.

“You’re not easy to track. But not impossible.”

She stopped three feet away.

“You need to move. Now.”

Adrian’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because Cipher just put a kill order on your name.”

He didn’t react.

He already knew.

Liora exhaled sharply. “This isn’t a normal bounty, Adrian. It’s not mercenaries. It’s not soldiers. Cipher called in a black group. Unregistered. Untraceable.”

“Ghost Unit?” Adrian said quietly.

She looked up, startled that he already knew.

“Not just Ghost Unit,” she whispered. “Cipher activated Protocol Black Sun.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. He remembered that name.

A classified kill program.

They didn’t take prisoners.

They didn’t leave bodies.

Liora stepped closer.

“You don’t understand. They’re coming now.”

Adrian’s eyes flicked past her shoulder. “I know.”

She followed his gaze, too slow.

A red laser slid across her shoulder.

Adrian moved at once.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her behind the tree a split second before a suppressed rifle cracked through the air.

The bullet hit the bark where her head had been.

Adrian shoved her down. “Stay low.”

She didn’t argue.

More lasers flickered in the darkness.

Three.

Four.

Five.

A kill team.

Closing in.

Adrian scanned the forest. No rifles. No gun except the one he had stolen from the dead soldier near the blast site. Half the chamber is gone. One extra mag. Too little.

Perfect.

He crouched, eyes narrowing, his pulse slowing to a calm, deadly rhythm.

Liora whispered, “They’ll flank you.”

“They’ll try.”

Adrian slipped into the trees, moving like smoke. The night swallowed him, and Liora lost sight of him in seconds.

The first soldier moved cautiously between the trees, scanning left and right. His rifle hummed with a laser sight. His boots were light. No jingling gear. Professional.

Adrian slid behind him without a sound.

One hand clamped over the soldier’s mouth.

The other drove the knife under his ribs, angled upward.

The man convulsed silently.

Adrian lowered the body to the ground.

One down.

He took the fallen rifle and melted back into the shadows.

A second soldier crouched behind a stump, scanning.

Adrian fired once.

The man spun and collapsed.

Two down.

The forest erupted with movement, shouts, muffled orders, beams of light cutting through the branches.

Liora pressed her back against a tree, breathing fast.

She had seen Adrian kill before, but not like this, not with anger under every step, not with betrayal burning in his eyes.

He wasn’t just fighting.

He was hunting.

A soldier approached Liora’s hiding place.

She held her breath.

Her fingers dug into the bark.

Seconds passed.

Then a shadow rose behind the soldier.

Adrian wrapped an arm around the man’s throat, twisted hard, and lowered him silently.

Three down.

But the fourth saw the movement.

He fired blindly.

A bullet ripped past Adrian’s shoulder, grazing flesh. Blood streamed down his arm, warm and fast.

Adrian didn’t react.

He barreled into the shooter, slamming him into a tree. The soldier swung a knife, Adrian caught his wrist, snapped it, and drove his own blade into the man’s throat.

Four down.

Breathing steady.

Heart calm.

Only one left.

Adrian scanned the trees.

Silence.

Too silent.

The fifth soldier didn’t move like the others.

Didn’t breathe like them.

Didn’t panic.

A professional.

A leader.

And he was waiting.

Adrian rotated slowly.

A voice came from the darkness, deep, calm, familiar.

“Hello, Kaine.”

Adrian froze.

Marcus stepped from the shadows, rifle pointed directly at Adrian’s chest. His face was calm. His hands are steady. Rain glistened on his tactical gear.

He didn’t look conflicted anymore.

He looked decided.

Liora gasped softly behind a tree.

Marcus ignored her completely.

He focused only on Adrian.

“You should stop running,” Marcus said quietly. “Nobody escapes Cipher.”

Adrian didn’t answer.

Marcus raised the rifle a little higher. “You weren’t supposed to survive the explosion. You weren’t supposed to survive tonight. But you just don’t die, do you?”

Adrian stared at him with dead eyes.

“You always talked too much.”

Marcus smirked.

“Still cold as ice.”

Adrian took one small step forward.

Marcus’s finger tightened on the trigger.

“Don’t,” he warned. “Cipher wants your body intact. Don’t make me ruin your face.”

Adrian’s voice was flat.

“You betrayed us.”

Marcus didn’t blink.

“I survived.”

He was about to fire,

When a sudden burst of comms crackled in Marcus’s earpiece.

“Unit Six, collapse position! The charge is armed, thirty seconds to detonation!”

Adrian’s eyes shot to the ground.

His boot touched metal.

A blinking light.

They planted another explosive.

Right under him.

Marcus smiled slowly.

“You’re already dead.”

He stepped back into the dark, fading between the trees like a ghost.

The beeping quickened.

Liora crawled toward Adrian. “Adrian, move. MOVE!”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her behind a fallen log.

The forest shook.

A violent, tearing explosion ripped through the clearing, fire shooting upward like a dragon’s breath. The shockwave hurled Adrian backward, slamming him into a tree so hard the air left his lungs.

Liora screamed his name

But another voice cut through the ringing silence.

A voice from a radio left behind one of the dead soldiers.

A voice distorted, cold, impossible to place.

Cipher.

“Adrian Kaine…” the voice whispered.

“You survived again.”

A soft, chilling laugh.

“I wonder… How long can a dead man keep outrunning his own grave?”

The radio clicked.

And Liora stared in horror.

Because Adrian… wasn’t moving.

His body lay on the ground, blood pooling under his shoulder, smoke rising from his clothes.

The blast had finally caught him.

And for the first time…

He looked almost dead.