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 willdetermine 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.
