Page 10 of Code Name: Hunter (Club Opus Noir #2)

LOGAN

I watch Vivian slip down the service corridor with two of the lower-level field agents flanking her, bare legs flashing beneath my shirt like a dare she knows I can’t ignore.

The door at the far end seals, swallowing the echo of her footfalls—but the pounding in my chest stays steady and sharp.

Control is a razor: deadly when honed, useless if I let it dull.

I keep it sharp with silence, with breath held at the edge of action, with the discipline that burns behind my eyes and turns every twitch into calculation.

Let it slip for a heartbeat, and everything bleeds.

I force a long breath and ride the private lift into the nerve center two stories above Opus Noir.

The moment the doors part, Cerberus hums around me—glass, steel, and carefully contained chaos.

Analysts perched at holographic stations barely glance up; only professionals ignore blood in the water this efficiently.

Fitzwallace stands at the main holo-table, silver temples catching the LED glow as if he draws voltage straight from the grid.

“Fitz,” I greet, voice level. The elevator seals behind me.

The faint bite of overworked circuitry rides the chilled air, mixing with the muted hum of processors stacked behind glass.

Light from the holo-stations carves sharp edges into the shadows, every flicker mapping itself across the steel and glass like a pulse line.

Fitz slides a data-slate my way. “She didn’t disappoint.”

The slate displays a multi-layered encryption already half-cracked by our best algorithmic brute-force.

Vivian’s breadcrumb. Lines of alphanumerics scroll like a living indictment—fund transfers, cargo tags, satellite pings inside diplomatic pouches.

Each node pulses amber; every pulse is a corpse waiting for a name.

And every one of those corpses has her fingerprints on the shovel.

That’s how she works—never the killer, just the architect of the burial ground.

I narrow the focus on the root directory. “She salted the file structure—paths loop through dead agencies, shell corporations, and one NGO that shuttered a decade ago. Classic misdirection. She wants us chasing our own tails long enough for her to negotiate leverage.”

“And will we?” Fitz asks, mild as chamber music.

“No.” I swipe aside two dummy folders and reveal a bricked sub-layer, the one she hoped would stay hidden. “She left a tearaway tab in case we cracked this far. Watch.”

A single touch decrypts a buried checksum—a unique validation code that confirms the integrity of encrypted data, proving the file hasn’t been tampered with. Three names ignite crimson across the display:

KLEIN, Robert — NATO Liaison

KEENE, Sir Alastair — MI-6 Deputy Director

LANGSTON, Deborah — U.S. Senate Intel

I’ve played long enough to know when the stakes change.

This isn’t a breadcrumb. It’s bait wrapped in barbed wire, laced with enough truth to bleed an empire.

If this cracks open the wrong way, it won’t just topple careers.

It’ll drag my team through the same mud I’ve bled in, stain every op we’ve run, and give the wrong people the cover they need to vanish.

I feel the temperature in the room dip, like the walls themselves are bracing for impact. Fitz exhales—slow, sharp—the sound edged with equal parts admiration and annoyance, as if he’s impressed by the precision and already cursing the political fallout he knows is coming.

“That information can't be a rumor,” I say. “It’s a guillotine. And she’s still holding the blade.”

He nods once. “How deep?”

“Deep enough that if those three fall, half the Western defense grid goes with them. And that’s only what she’s willing to preview.”

The table pings; fresh lines blossom—routing codes spiraling from a Brussels server farm to a Rome shell bank.

Numbers I recognize from an off-books op in Benghazi years ago.

My pulse kicks. Vivian knew exactly where to strike to prove authenticity—and exactly where to pull back so I’m forced to dig the rest out myself.

My jaw clenches on instinct, the muscle ticking hard beneath my skin.

She’s baiting me, and I feel it land like a strike to the ribs—sharp, precise, impossible to ignore.

Fitz folds his arms. “Do you think she's setting us up?”

“Unknown, but doubtful. This is more like a hand-picked preview to get our attention.” I tap the slate.

“It's not random. It's too curated, too linear.

If this much of the dossier is this damning, it could be someone already sanitized it.

I think she's either hiding bigger players or someone moved the dirt before she stole it.”

“And you think she’d do that?”

I flash him a grim smile. “Vivian doesn’t play to win the hand; she stacks the deck while you’re still reading the rules.

And I’ve been burned enough to recognize the shuffle—her kind of precision leaves scars that don’t fade.

If something’s missing, she excised it on purpose.

Not because she’s shielding them—but because she’s deciding who lives long enough to matter.

That’s the difference between data and power: she doesn’t collect it. She curates it.”

Fitz’s gaze sharpens. “Explain.”

“She wants protection, not Armageddon. Expose too much, and the entire intelligence community collapses on her. Expose just enough, and everyone scrambles to bargain.” I step closer to the table. “But she miscalculated one thing.”

“Which is?”

“Me.” My reflection in the holo-table looks carved from night: jaw set, eyes bleak. “I won’t let her drip-feed the truth if men like Wolfe still breathe.”

"Do you think that's possible?"

"Could be. That op was torched by someone on the inside, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. That leaves Wolfe and Vivian—both presumed dead, no bodies, no confirmation. But now Vivian’s walking and talking. Which means Wolfe might be too. I’ll get that dossier out of her—page by page if I have to."

Fitz’s smile is thin. “And how will you manage that without spooking her into open warfare?”

“I already started,” I answer, the memory of her pussy spasming around my cock flashing hot—like something intimate and dangerous I’ve already claimed.

“I already started. I claimed leverage the moment she let go. That moment still echoes—hot, unguarded, hers. Mine. Every reaction she gives me is intel—every pause, every breath, every flicker of defiance. Wanting her isn’t a distraction; it’s another weapon in my hand, and I intend to use it.

Isn’t that your philosophy anyway? Dominate the mind, master the body, own the will—and everything else follows. ”

Fitz’s eyebrows lift, amused. “Interesting field tactic.”

“Effective. And consensual,” I add, because Fitz respects facts, not hearsay. “She walked out barefoot, wearing my shirt.”

“That she did.” He angles his head. “Good. Because as of ten minutes ago, I made the call. You’re point on Nocturne.

Handler and Dominant in equal measure. The distinction matters.

” He adds for clarity. I’ve led kill teams into black sites, neutralized assets without blinking—but this…

this is personal. Commanding her isn’t about orders.

It’s about balance—between desire and duty, truth and seduction.

And that line? It’s thinner than breath.

The words land like a stamp across my sternum—official, irreversible.

“Understood.” My voice doesn’t waver, but the title sears through my bloodstream like an incendiary charge.

Handler and Dominant—responsible for the most volatile asset on the continent, and I shoulder that duty like armor forged for war.

Every part of me hungers for the weight of it—sharp, defining, and vital as air I’ve been without.

He gestures to the scrolling intel. “First objective: secure the physical dossier. Second: establish whether Klein, Keene, or Langston have countermoves in play. Third...”

“Determine Wolfe's true status.” I finish for him. “And end whatever game he thinks he’s still winning.”

"Can you do that? I know you two were close."

"Which, if he's alive and behind the blown ops, makes me want him just that much more."

Fitz’s half-smile says that exactly. “Your escort is en route to Villa Tenebrae. ETA six minutes.”

My comms chirp as if on cue. I double-tap the earpiece. “Talk to me, Ash.”

A woman’s voice crackles through: “Approaching target property. Exterior clear. No thermal hits past fifty meters. Package compliant.”

Package. Vivian will hate that.

“Maintain eyes,” I order. “Sweep for remote optics—she flagged a lens earlier. Could be hostile surveillance.”

“Copy.”

I sever the channel and glance back at Fitz. “She’s being watched. Smart money says Wolfe is alive and has subcontractors here already.”

“Then move,” Fitz says. “The quicker you make her feel safer with us than without, the quicker she yields.”

Yield. The word sparks an image: Vivian on her knees, pulse flickering against restraint, mouth parted as if confession lives there. I school my face.

Fitz pushes a black-metal key fob across the table. “Range Rover is downstairs. Gear in the boot. See that she understands the hierarchy before dawn.”

He pivots to leave, then pauses. “Logan. One reminder.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Dominance is leverage, not indulgence. Use it wisely—or she’ll weaponize it before you have a chance to.”

He doesn’t wait for acknowledgment.

Five minutes later I’m threading through Monte Carlo’s midnight arteries, city lights slicing across the bonnet like tracer rounds.

Rain spits on the windshield—harbor mist rising to kiss storm clouds.

Perfect cover. Ash’s voice feeds me live telemetry: ground-level motion sensors green, heat signatures stable, drone circling above Villa Tenebrae’s north ridge.