Page 18 of Code Name: Hunter (Club Opus Noir #2)

LOGAN

T he moment I see her, scanning the street like she thinks she’s free—I move.

She doesn’t hear me coming. I should be furious with her—but all I feel is that sick twist in my gut.

Relief laced with dread. The kind that makes your pulse throb in your throat, because you know you’re about to earn every second of it in blood.

One second slower, and I might have lost her.

She’s already turning down the alley, her gait loosening slightly, shoulders uncoiling from the tension she wears like armor.

She thinks she’s clear. Her head tilts, lips parting on what might’ve been a sigh of relief.

She’s not scanning corners anymore. Doesn’t feel the eyes still tracking her—mine included.

She doesn’t feel the other set either—the ones that aren’t mine—closing in with the patience that means they’ve done this before.

I grab her from behind, hand clamping around her waist and over her mouth, yanking her into the shadows before she can make a sound. She twists, wild and furious, ready to gut me—until her gaze locks with mine.

Recognition flickers. Her breath hitches. She stops fighting.

I clamp a hand around her wrist and drag her with me deeper into the alley. "Move," I growl. "Now."

Vivian doesn’t ask questions. Her breath hitches, but her feet are already moving, boots pounding against the stone beside mine.

She matches my pace with ease—two professionals slipping into rhythm like we never stopped.

No hesitation. No questions. Just the old cadence, like Prague never burned.

We’ve barely covered ten paces when a sharp whistle cuts through the narrow alley—short, long, short.

The sound ricochets off the narrow walls, warped by damp stone and the faint smell of diesel from somewhere deeper in the maze.

The sound is too practiced to be local. It’s a call-and-response code—one I recognize from Cerberus protocol.

These aren’t just hired thugs. They’re trained. Disciplined. And they’re closing in.

I shove her into a recessed doorway, shielding her with my body as the first hostile rounds the corner, moving fast, eyes sweeping. He doesn't register me until I’m already on him—closing the distance in a single, silent lunge.

My fist slams into his throat mid-step, the impact precise and brutal. The cartilage in his throat collapses under my knuckles with a muted crunch; his breath dies in a strangled wheeze before his knees hit the ground. I catch him as he drops, easing his fall just enough to keep the noise down.

One down. Three to go. And this time, I’m not in the mood to leave survivors.

Two more flank the opposite side of the alley. Shadows peel off the wall like ghosts with steel in their hands.

"Stay down," I snap to Vivian, then launch into motion.

Combat becomes instinct. My world narrows to the rhythm of movement, breath, pain, and precision.

Elbow to the solar plexus—he wheezes, staggering.

Throat strike next, heel of my hand cracking against his windpipe.

His eyes bulge. A knee to the gut folds him over, a breathless grunt escaping as he crashes to the ground.

Blood roars in my ears. I don't think—I calculate. Every angle, every shift in weight, every step is wired into my nervous system like old code resurfacing. My body doesn’t ask permission; it remembers—every brutal drill, every live op—and executes like there’s nothing else left in the world but the next target.

The tang of sweat and copper laces the air.

Somewhere behind me, Vivian shouts. My pulse doesn’t spike.

I pivot on instinct, scanning for the next threat.

Pain flares briefly in my shoulder from a wild blow that grazes past, but I absorb it, redirect the force, and slam my elbow into the bastard’s temple. The body goes slack. I barely register the fall.

The next one lunges from the right. He’s fast. But I’m faster.

One goes down hard; the other catches a boot to the gut and staggers back.

I don’t give him a chance to recover—I grab the back of his neck, slam him into the brick wall hard enough to crack something.

He slumps. I move to cuff him with zip ties when a shout behind me has me whirling.

I scan the alley—tight quarters, too many blind corners.

They chose this ground. That alone pisses me off.

Vivian's already moving. Fast. Precise. Her attacker lunges with a baton, but she twists and brings him down in a clean, brutal arc. Her knee plants in his back, and she has a blade to his throat in the time it takes to blink. For half a heartbeat, we’re back-to-back like its muscle memory—covering each other without thinking about it.

"Don’t kill him," I order.

She doesn’t look at me. "Why not?"

"Because we need to question him first."

She huffs, but she holds. Barely.

The rest scatter, boots slapping against pavement as they melt into the maze of Monte Carlo’s backstreets. Tactical retreat. But it’s too clean, too rehearsed. Not panic—positioning. Cowards with a mission—stall, isolate, test. A dry run for something bigger.

My breathing evens as I scan the alley for stragglers, every nerve still lit up, instincts howling that this isn’t over. Their retreat wasn’t a surrender. It was strategy.

I haul the one she took down to his feet, wrenching his arms behind him. He tries to twist, but I jam my forearm into the back of his neck. "Nice try, arsehole."

Vivian wipes blood from her lip with the back of her hand.

"Tell me again how this was your idea of a calm afternoon," she mutters, tone dry and sharp enough to cut glass.

Then, narrowing her eyes, she adds, "Oh wait—you never said that, did you?

Just yanked me into an alley like it was date night in Prague.

" Her eyes are dark and sharp, assessing everything. She says nothing, but the pulse in her throat tells me she’s wired tight.

Ignoring her, I hit the comm clipped to my vest. "Cerberus inbound. Package secured. Send pickup."

"ETA in six," comes the response.

Vivian raises a brow. "'Package'?"

I turn to her. "What would you prefer? 'Hostile?' 'Prisoner?' 'Arsehole'?"

She flips me off.

I glance down at the captured bastard. He’s got the lean build of a ghost op and a burn scar across his cheek. Not Cerberus. But definitely someone with our training. "You talk, you live," I tell him. "You don’t, I’ll let her finish what she started."

His stare is blank.

The Cerberus van pulls into the alley discreetly. Two operatives exit through the side door, secure the prisoner while I keep my grip tight, and drag him away. No chances.

Vivian watches silently, arms crossed. I grab her by the elbow. "We’re not done here."

"You’re welcome," she mutters.

“You think this is a game?” I snap, voice low. “If I’d been thirty seconds later, you’d be bleeding out in that alley. You’re reckless," I shoot back. "You were tailed by at least four people with in-house protocols. You nearly got your throat opened."

"But I didn’t. Luckily for me, you were here to protect me."

The woman is infuriating.

By the time the last shadow is gone, my muscles are humming with leftover adrenaline, the aftertaste of copper thick on my tongue.

I manage to get her to the car without any serious incident.

There was that one moment she had to stop at a food vendor to get some fried ravioli filled with Swiss chard and ricotta known as barbajuan.

“Vivian,” I say with exasperation, watching as she makes a beeline for the nearest food vendor like we hadn’t just dragged a ghost-op off a city street.

“What? I'm hungry, and I just love barbajuan.” Her tone is breezy, but there’s a sharpness under it—her usual deflection when her nerves are fraying.

I glance around. The alley’s behind us, but the mission’s not. “Seriously?”

She shrugs. “Fried pastry helps me think.”

I eye her bag again. Lightweight. No backup comms. No weapon I can see.

She's walking around like prey. We grapple briefly—me trying to steer her away without drawing eyes, her deliberately ignoring every ounce of tension still humming through the air—but I relent when I see her digging into her bag and coming up empty. No wallet. Of course.

She looks at me expectantly, brows raised like I’m the unreasonable one. With a muttered curse, I slap a few euros into her hand and stand watch, eyes scanning every reflection and movement while she buys her damn pastry like we’re out for a leisurely stroll.

She pops a bite into my mouth before I can say anything else. She watches me chew with a knowing smile. “See? Worth it.”

I don’t answer. I just open the SUV's door and wait for her to get in, reminding myself that throttling her wouldn’t help—and probably wouldn’t work.

We hit the road. I take her back to the safehouse just outside Monte Carlo. Remote, fortified, and Cerberus-cleared. The place ghosts go when the world burns.

She’s quiet. Not sulking. Calculating.

Once we’re inside, I lock the door behind us and kill the lights.

The mechanical thunk of the deadbolt echoes louder than it should in the sudden hush, like a final nail sliding home.

Sunlight streams in through the high windows, cutting across the safehouse in long, golden stripes.

Vivian pauses in the entryway, haloed in light and dust motes, the tension in her spine slowly unwinding.

Every part of me stays wired—ears straining for sounds that shouldn’t be there, heart refusing to slow.

We’re safe, but for how long I’m not sure.

The sterile hush feels artificial against the warmth outside, as though we’ve stepped into a waiting room between worlds.

Places like this feel safe until they don’t—and I’ve learned the hard way that quiet is just the pause before something hits.