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.
2
ARCHER
Smoke rises from the monastery like a funeral pyre, a dark column against the Alpine night sky, illuminated from below by flames that shouldn't be there. My jaw tightens. We're too late. The tactical team in the vehicles behind me maintains radio silence, tension thick in every vehicle. Whatever we expected to find here, it's already gone to hell.
Fitzwallace's briefing at Opus Noir echoes in my mind, his voice crisp and certain in the operations center above Monte Carlo. Nocturne has gone rogue. Multiple Interpol operatives are dead, and intelligence suggests she's working for the Iron Choir now. My orders were crystal clear: eliminate her before she compromises Cerberus's European operations. No capture. No interrogation. Clean elimination.
I've never questioned an order from Fitz before. The man built Cerberus from nothing, turned it into the most effective shadow organization operating in Europe. When he says someone needs to be eliminated, there's a reason. There's always a reason.
But something about this mission has felt wrong from the start.
The dossier was too clean. Too convenient. Kill reports that read like textbook assassinations, attributed to an operative who's been deep cover for five years. Nocturne was one of Interpol's best before she went dark—smart, adaptable, fluent in multiple languages, utterly fearless according to her file. An operative capable of disappearing into a network like the Iron Choir and never surfacing. Or capable of being framed.
Operational discipline requires focus, not speculation. Fitz vetted the intelligence. If he says Nocturne is compromised, then she's compromised. My job is to neutralize the threat, not psychoanalyze it.
The convoy slows as we approach the monastery gates. Rusted iron hangs open, and the smell of smoke is thick even through the vehicle's filtration system. I signal the team to halt and step out into the cold night air. Wind cuts through my tactical gear, carrying ash and the acrid scent of burning paper.
Bodies litter the courtyard—dead and wounded Iron Choir operatives in expensive suits, weapons drawn but most never fired. They fell in defensive positions facing the monastery entrance, not guarding it. Fresh blood trails lead from the doors across ancient stone. Someone fought their way out, not in. Surgical. Efficient. The gun battle ended minutes ago, and whatever happened here was brutal. We missed it by minutes.
Weapon raised, I move through the courtyard, scanning for hostiles. The tactical team fans out behind me, securing the perimeter, checking the wounded for intelligence. Remy Pascal, also known as Nitro for his tendency to blow things up, kneels beside one of the Iron Choir men, his scarred face pale with shock and blood loss. After a moment, Remy stands and shakes his head. Nothing useful there.
The monastery's main entrance is open, smoke billowing out in thick waves. Respirator in place, I enter. Heat hits me immediately, oppressive and intense. The fire is coming fromsomewhere deeper in the building, but the entry corridor is still navigable.
Old stone walls press close on either side, and the floor is littered with debris and broken glass. A discarded Iron Choir comm unit lies among the wreckage, its screen shattered. Evidence of hasty abandonment, but not the kind I expected. This wasn't a meeting that went wrong. This was an infiltration, probably a woman—the boot prints in the dust are smaller than most men. The kind Nocturne would leave.
The trail leads through what must have been the monastery's kitchen. Stone hearths built for feeding hundreds dominate one wall. A coffee maker sits on the counter where monks once prepared bread, still warm to the touch. Someone made coffee recently. The Iron Choir, preparing for their meeting. A meeting Nocturne crashed.
The great hall beyond is chaos. Long tables overturned, laptops smashed, equipment destroyed. The projected image on the far wall is frozen mid-presentation, showing what looks like operational maps of European cities. Paris. Berlin. London. I file that information away for later analysis.
Scanning the room, I reconstruct the sequence of events. Nocturne entered from the kitchen corridor, stayed low along the wall, used the shadows for cover. Years of training and field experience show in every detail—the angle of approach, the positioning, the timing. Movement that doesn't match someone working with the people in this room.
A side room draws my attention. The door is open, and inside sits what looks like a makeshift operations center. A desk holds a computer, its screen dark but the casing still warm. I tap the keyboard but get nothing—the heat has already damaged the internal components beyond recovery. But the setup tells me what I need to know. Current intelligence, not archives. The kind of workspace for active operations planning.
Someone accessed this computer recently. The positioning of the chair, the way the keyboard sits slightly askew—all signs of hurried work. Intelligence gathering, most likely. She would have copied files, not deleted them. This wasn't destruction or sabotage.
The pieces don't fit the narrative Fitz received. An operative working for the Choir wouldn't need to steal their files—she'd have access. She wouldn't infiltrate a meeting—she'd be invited. My instincts are screaming one thing while orders say another. Time to trust the instincts that have kept me alive for twenty years.
The records room is adjacent to the great hall, and the door is charred black, intense heat radiating from beyond it. Testing the handle—hot but not unbearable—I push the door open and step back as smoke billows out.
Inside, the room is an inferno. Filing cabinets stand like skeletal sentinels amid the flames, their contents reduced to ash and ember. Decades of paper burning away, destroying evidence that can never be recovered.
Nitro appears at my shoulder, studying the burn patterns with the focused intensity of a man who's spent years working with explosives. After a long moment, he speaks. "No accelerant. Just lighter fluid from ignition, let it spread naturally. Takes time, creates risk of discovery." His jaw tightens. "Professional would've used something faster. This was either amateur hour or someone who wanted it to look amateur."
"Your assessment?"
"Whoever set this knew exactly what they were doing. Multiple ignition points, strategic placement to maximize document destruction while minimizing structural damage. This wasn't panic. This was surgical." He glances at me. "This wasn't their operative covering tracks. This was someone destroying their intelligence."
