Chapter 8: The Ghost File
The Ghost File
Night had returned, cloaked in silence but heavy with consequences.
Inside his private command chamber, Damien Grayson leaned over a high-tech desk glowing with holographic data streams. His expression was carved from granite. The mercenary breach had triggered more than just security protocols — it had awakened something darker. Something buried.
He slid his palm across the desk, unlocking a deep vault hidden beneath encrypted files.
Project HALCYON — CLASSIFIED.
Clearance Level: Dead Zone.
Access granted.
Damien hesitated for a beat.
He hadn't opened this file in eight years.
The moment he did, dozens of names, faces, and case numbers flared into view. Experiments. Lost operatives. Vanished scientists. One redacted line blinked ominously:
Subject Zero: Adrian Cross. Status — DECEASED (UNCONFIRMED).
"Damn it," Damien whispered. The name pulsed like a curse. Adrian had been his brother-in-arms. A genius in coding, a devil in combat, and the only person who could match Damien blow for blow — until he vanished during HALCYON's last operation.
Officially, Adrian had died. But the data said otherwise.
Now someone's trying to tie up loose ends.
Damien's gaze narrowed as he replayed a security feed of the attack. One of the assailants had used a move Adrian once invented — a low reverse sweep followed by a double pivot twist.
Coincidence?
Or a warning?
Across the city, Nora sat in a dark loft, illuminated only by the glow of her laptop. She wasn't at the Grayson estate tonight. She needed space. She needed clarity.
And she had secrets to dig up.
She accessed a network only six people in the world could reach — the Glass Veil, a deep-web vault her father once used to hide political blackmail and secret identities.
She typed:
Search: Ashbringer Organization
Crosslink: Project HALCYON
Results blinked to life.
Ashbringer — rumored to be a rogue syndicate that once partnered with government sectors for black bioengineering. Rejected by UN Security Council. Vanished five years ago. Allegedly funded by anonymous conglomerates.
One image flashed in the folder.
Her blood went cold.
A photograph. Two men in military gear, younger, battle-hardened — one of them unmistakably Damien Grayson.
And beside him… Adrian Cross.
But what stopped her breath was the man in the background. Faded, blurred — yet instantly recognizable.
Her father.
He had lied. About everything.
Nora sat back, her mind reeling. The world was smaller than it looked. And every secret she uncovered was pulling Damien and her together — not as strangers or lovers — but as players in a war larger than either of them had realized.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She hesitated, then answered.
A distorted voice spoke: "You're too close, Nora."
Her spine stiffened.
"Who is this?"
"You need to stop digging. Or they'll come for you like they did your brother."
Static. Disconnected.
She stared at the phone.
Brother?
She didn't have a brother. Did she?
Suddenly, her laptop flickered. The screen glitched.
Then — a message.
We See You.
She slammed it shut.
Back at the Grayson estate, Damien received a different kind of message — from an anonymous drop-point server.
Just one sentence:
"The devil you buried is crawling back up the hole."
He leaned back slowly, eyes shadowed.
Something was beginning.
Something they might not survive.