2025-08-11 00:51:24The next morning, Ayla woke to a pounding in her skull and a blinking cursor on her screen.
1 new message
Subject: Phase One – Roarke
Her finger hesitated above the mouse. A whisper of doubt curled in her chest. She was in uncharted territory, pulled into a shadow game where the rules were made by a man everyone feared.
She clicked.
The screen went black, then pulsed back to life with a new dossier. Not on Senator Roarke this time, but on a man Ayla had never heard of.
Name: Benjamin Grae
Status: Active
Location: London
Affiliation: Unknown – suspected handler for high-net assassinations
Threat Level: Classified – Level Omega
Then a blinking prompt appeared at the bottom.
Confirm readiness. Target access window: 18 hours.
She exhaled slowly. “You’re serious about this…”
10:44 a.m. Inside a top-floor conference room, Director Langford slammed his palm on the table. “You want me to greenlight an unauthorized operation on foreign soil based on intel from a dead man?”
Ayla stood her ground. “Cassian’s first tip brought down a senator. He gave us everything, account numbers, logs, even the kill order Roarke signed. That wasn't luck.”
Langford’s jaw tightened. “If he’s right about Grae, we’re not chasing shadows anymore. We’re attacking ghosts with teeth.”
“Then we bite first.”
The director paced. “And you think you’re qualified for this?”
“No,” Ayla said. “But I’m not the point. Cassian is. He’ll only work through me. We ignore this, we lose the trail and him.”
Langford stared at her. “I don't like you being in the middle of this. He’s using you.”
“I know,” she said, voice flat. “But maybe I can use him back.”
London. 22:19. The warehouse Cassian pointed her to was quiet, too quiet.
Ayla crouched behind a stack of crates, heart hammering, eyes flicking between shadows and the signal on her tablet. Cassian had rerouted her into a backdoor channel, unlocking Grae’s encrypted comms through a signal sniffer he'd built in the 2000s, and updated just last week.
The man was either a time traveler or a demon with Wi-Fi. She spotted Grae, Sharp suit. Thin, hawkish face. Calm like a surgeon with a scalpel. He walked with a limp and never looked over his shoulder. That told her everything: he didn’t need to.
Suddenly, Ayla’s earpiece crackled. Cassian’s voice, smooth, cold. “He knows you're watching.”
Ayla froze. “What?”
“Grae’s better than you think. This is a show. He's baiting you.”
Sure enough, Grae stopped mid-step and turned, eyes locking on her location. “Run.”
She didn’t need telling twice, She sprinted, bullets slicing past her head as masked men emerged from the shadows, no uniforms, no insignia, just precision and silence. Her heart thundered. She leapt a rail, hit concrete hard, and bolted through a side exit.
She made it back to the safe house, adrenaline still pumping, Cassian was already waiting on the screen. He looked amused. “I see you survived.”
She glared at him. “You sent me into a trap.”
“I warned you.”
“You set me up.”
He leaned forward. “I vetted you. You want to play in the shadows, Agent Trent? This is what it costs.”
Ayla’s voice shook. “You could’ve helped.”
“I did,” he said coldly. “You're not dead.”
She wanted to scream. But under the rage, she knew the truth: Grae had walked into that warehouse knowing someone was watching. Which meant he was tipped off.
Which meant someone inside the agency had leaked the mission, A mole, Back in the U.S., Ayla sat in the dark, eyes glued to her screen. The cursor blinked again. Well played. Round two soon. — R
She stared at it, jaw tight, Cassian was playing a long game. Every name, every move, was another step on a chessboard she couldn't see the end of.
But the mole changed everything, If there was someone inside feeding intel to the enemy, She was already surrounded. And Cassian knew it.
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Chapter Thirteen – The Forgotten Protocol
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Chapter Twelve – The Overseer’s Blind Spot
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Chapter Eleven – Ghost Ice
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Chapter Ten – Hollow Point
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Chapter Nine – The Fourth Name
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Chapter Eight – The Glass Floor
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