Chapter 1 #2
Voices drift closer. Someone is moving toward this room. I minimize the transfer window and slide behind the door, knife in hand, every muscle coiled. The progress bar is only halfway complete. If the transfer fails, if the files are corrupted, this entire infiltration becomes worthless.
Footsteps approach. They pause. A lighter clicks, and cigarette smoke wafts through the doorway.
Whoever it is stands just outside, taking a smoke break.
My pulse thunders in my ears. If he looks in, if he sees the computer screen, this is over.
The transfer continues in the background but not fast enough. Each second stretches into an eternity.
Smoke curls through the air, acrid and sharp. Weight shifts outside. He takes another drag. I will him to leave. Finally, footsteps retreat, fading back toward the great hall.
I return to the computer. The transfer is complete. I eject the drive and pocket it, then close the windows and return the screen to its previous state. There's no trace left behind. No evidence of intrusion.
Now I need to leave. Fast.
I retrace my path through the monastery, moving through what feels like a dream where every shadow might hide a threat. The great hall voices continue, oblivious to my presence. I reach the kitchen without incident, then the corridor, then the service entrance.
Cold air hits me like a blessing. I'm outside, back in the night, the monastery looming behind me. Relief floods through me, premature and dangerous. I'm not clear yet. Not by a long shot.
Engines growl in the distance, multiple vehicles approaching on the mountain road. They're coming fast with no attempt at stealth.
It must be Cerberus. They picked up the same intelligence that brought me here, or they're tracking movements the same way I am. This place is about to become a battlefield.
I should run. Should disappear into the mountains and let Cerberus handle them.
But the records room—the physical documents that back up everything on the drive.
If Cerberus storms this place, the Iron Choir have time to destroy evidence.
If Cerberus doesn't know what they're looking for, they might miss the most damning material.
Worse, if they capture partial records, the mole at Interpol could spin the narrative, make it look like these are Interpol files, turn the intelligence into a weapon against the very people trying to stop them.
The decision crystallizes in seconds. I can't let that happen.
I race back inside, moving faster now that stealth is less important than speed. The records room is adjacent to the great hall, a converted chapel filled with filing cabinets and document boxes. The door is unlocked.
Rows of files stretch before me. Years of operations, meticulously archived.
I don't have time to review it all, to determine what's critical.
So I'll make sure no one else can access it either.
Not them. Not even Cerberus—not until the drive reaches someone I trust, someone who can use it without the Cardinal twisting the intelligence against us.
I pull the lighter from my pocket and flick it open, holding the flame to the corner of the nearest document. Paper catches quickly, flame spreading in hungry orange lines.
I light another file. Then another. Fire grows, feeding on decades of accumulated paper. Smoke begins to fill the room, thick and choking. Sprinklers might activate soon, but modern fire suppression systems are rare in medieval buildings. By the time anyone responds, this room will be an inferno.
The vehicles are closer now. Shouts echo from outside the monastery. Cerberus has arrived.
I sprint for the service entrance, smoke stinging my eyes. Behind me, flames roar to life, consuming evidence they can't be allowed to preserve. Let them lose their archives. Let them scramble to reconstruct what's been taken.
The corridor leads back to the kitchen, then to the service entrance. I burst through the door into cold night air—
And straight into chaos.
The courtyard is swarming with Iron Choir operatives. They heard the engines, saw the approaching headlights. Now they're mobilizing, taking defensive positions, weapons drawn. They're not looking for me. They're preparing for an assault. But I'm right in their path, and there's nowhere to hide.
"Contact!" someone shouts in French.
Muzzle flash lights up the darkness. I dive behind a stone pillar as bullets chip ancient rock. My Glock is in my hand before conscious thought, muscle memory overriding panic. I return fire. Two rounds center mass. The shouting operative goes down.
More voices. More movement. They're converging on my position, thinking I'm the advance element of whatever's coming up that mountain road. I can't stay here. Can't fight them all. The only way out is through.
I break from cover, firing as I move. Another operative drops, clutching his shoulder. A third spins away from a leg shot. I'm not trying for kills, just creating space, buying seconds to reach the gates.
A bullet tears through my jacket sleeve. Too close. Pain blooms hot and immediate—grazed, not deep, but enough to make my left arm useless. I switch hands and keep moving.
The gates are thirty meters away. Twenty. Operatives are scrambling, caught between hunting me and preparing for whoever's about to storm this place. Their confusion is my advantage. I fire twice more, forcing them back behind cover. Fifteen meters now.
Someone tackles me from the side. We hit the ground hard, stone punching the air from my lungs. Hands grab for my weapon. I twist and drive my knee up, connecting with something soft. The grip loosens. I roll clear and kick out, catching him in the jaw. He goes limp.
Ten meters to go. My legs burn. Blood soaks my sleeve, warm and sticky. The gates loom ahead, rusted iron silhouetted against the dark forest beyond. Almost there. Almost—
A round catches my tactical vest, the impact like a sledgehammer to the ribs. Kevlar stops the penetration but the force drops me to one knee. I can't breathe. Can't think. I just move.
I push through, staggering the last few meters. Behind me, the monastery is chaos—shouts, gunfire, the roar of approaching vehicles. Whoever's coming is seconds away, and I’m caught between threats.
I slip through the gates and plunge into the tree line. Branches tear at my face, roots catch my boots. Behind me, more gunfire erupts. Operatives are either fleeing or dying, and Cerberus is rolling into a scene already torn apart.
The car waits where I left it an hour ago—stolen from a service lot in the valley, plates swapped, registration untraceable.
I scramble down the steep slope toward it, loose rocks sliding under my boots.
Above me, the monastery lights up like a beacon, flames visible through windows, smoke billowing into the night sky.
I reach the car and throw myself inside. Blood soaks the driver's seat. My hands shake as the engine starts. The wound in my arm screams protest when I grip the wheel, but I push through.
The engine starts with a reassuring purr. I pull onto the road and accelerate, tires finding purchase on the icy pavement. Every breath sends fire through my ribs where the round hit the vest.
The drive presses against my thigh through my pocket, a small weight that carries the future. Everything depends on what comes next. Every choice from this moment forward will determine whether an innocent child lives or dies, whether the Choir burns or thrives.
My fingers find the crystal bracelets on my wrist, reiki-infused stones that have grounded me through five years of lies and blood.
The smooth surfaces are familiar, comforting.
A reminder of who I was before Prague, before my mentor, Elena Vasquez, was killed.
Before I became Nocturne. And before I learned that staying alive sometimes means becoming the monster.
Marissa. My name is Marissa Vale. I need to remember that. Need to hold onto it like a lifeline, because Nocturne is just a mask, just a role I play.
Except Nocturne feels more real now than Marissa ever did.
Five years of being someone else, of thinking like them, moving like them, killing like them.
Marissa Vale is the phantom now—a ghost that haunts the edges of my consciousness, growing fainter with each mission, each compromise, each body left behind.
But this mission is different. Amelie Laurent is six years old and innocent and maybe saving her means I can still find my way back. Maybe this is redemption, if I live long enough to claim it.
The mountain road winds down through darkness, hairpin turns requiring concentration I barely have. Headlights appear in my rearview mirror. Someone is following. Could be Cerberus. Could be operatives who escaped before the fire consumed everything. I can't let them catch me.
I push the accelerator harder. The car responds, engine roaring as we hurtle through the night. Trees blur past. The cliff edge runs dangerously close to the road's shoulder. One mistake, one moment of lost focus, and I'll plummet into the valley below.
The lights behind me fall back. Not gone, but not gaining. I have time. Hours, maybe. Long enough to reach Monaco. Long enough to reach the villa above Monte Carlo where I can regroup, plan my next move.
The villa is Interpol's, technically. A safe house maintained for deep cover operatives who need a bolt hole. As the head of Interpol, Moreau knows about it, which makes it dangerous. But it's the only place where I have access to secure communications, where I can try to salvage this disaster.
Because they'll be coming for me. Cerberus will track me there. They'll come with orders to eliminate the traitor, the phantom operative who's supposedly working for the Iron Choir. When they arrive, I'll have seconds to convince them I'm not the enemy.
The city lights of Monaco appear in the distance, a glittering sprawl against the dark sea. It's beautiful and deadly, like everything else in this life. Those streets have been my hunting ground for years, my cover, my stage. Now those same streets might become my grave.
Cerberus arrived minutes too late to stop me. But they'll piece together what happened—the fire, the missing intel, the operative who vanished into the night. They'll run their analysis, cross-reference their surveillance, and the trail will lead them straight to the villa above Monte Carlo.
I have hours. Maybe less.
And when they come, it won't be some faceless team. It'll be him. Archer Hayes. Cerberus's best operator, the one they send when failure isn't an option. His files are committed to memory—patterns, tactics, everything Interpol knows about the man who's never lost a target.
The drive presses against my thigh. Amelie Laurent's life depends on what comes next. The entire network is on this drive, proof that could bring them down if I can just get it to the right people. If I can survive long enough to make them listen.
I touch the crystal bracelets one more time, feeling their weight.
Then I focus on the road ahead and the impossible conversation I need to survive.
I've been undercover for five years, navigating situations where one wrong word meant death.
This is just another performance. Another lie wrapped in truth.
Except this time, I'm not lying. This time, I'm trying to tell the truth to people who've been trained not to believe it.
The game is in play. I've made my opening move.
Now I wait for Hayes to make his.