Silas Vane POV
The first bullet missed my head by an inch and slammed into a metal trash can with a loud ping. I didn't even blink. When you have already been blown up by your own team, a little bit of flying lead doesn't scare you anymore. I dove behind a stack of wooden crates, my boots sliding through the cold, oily puddles of the alleyway. My heart was beating steady and slow. That was the training. That was the "Ghost" inside me.
"Over there! Get him!" a voice yelled.
I peeked around the corner. Four men were moving toward a small, rusty door at the end of the alley. They weren't soldiers, but they moved like they knew how to hurt people. They were wearing dark suits and held guns with silencers. These were the "Hounds," the kind of mean people General Sterling used to clean up his messes.
Inside that door was Maya Lin. I had spent weeks tracking her down using the last bits of my old military codes. She was a disgraced hacker, someone the military had kicked out and blamed for things she didn't do, just like me. She was the only person who could help me pull back the curtain on the lies Sterling had told the world. If she died today, my revenge died with her.
I couldn't let that happen.
One of the Hounds kicked the door open. I didn't wait. I moved like a shadow, just like I had practiced during my long, painful year of recovery. I was behind the last man before he even knew I was there. I grabbed his arm, twisted it until I heard a snap, and took his gun. I didn't use it to shoot. I used the heavy handle to hit him across the neck. He crumpled to the ground without a sound.
"Who's that?" another man shouted, turning around.
I didn't give him time to think. I threw a heavy metal pipe I found on the ground. it hit him square in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. I lunged forward, my scarred face twisted in the dim light. Most people froze when they saw my face. It looked like a map of a nightmare, covered in silver lines from the fire Sterling had dropped on me.
"I'm the man you should have killed a year ago," I growled.
I punched the second man so hard he flew back into a pile of garbage. The third man tried to fire his gun, but I was faster. I kicked the weapon out of his hand and swept his legs. He hit the pavement with a loud thud.
The fourth man, the leader, was already inside the room. I heard a girl scream. It was a high, sharp sound that made my blood run cold. It reminded me of the screams of my brothers, Jax and Leo, right before the fire took them.
I burst through the door. The room was tiny and filled with glowing computer screens and tangled wires. A girl with messy hair and big glasses was backed into a corner. The leader of the Hounds had his gun pointed at her head.
"Drop it, or the girl dies!" he yelled.
I stopped. I held my hands up, but I didn't drop my gun. I looked at the girl. This was Maya "Mouse" Lin. She looked terrified, her eyes darting between me and the man with the gun. She didn't know who I was. To her, I was just another scary man with a broken face.
"You don't want to do this," I said, my voice as cold as ice.
"Oh yeah? And why not?" the man sneered.
"Because if you pull that trigger, you'll be dead before she hits the floor," I said. "And I don't miss."
The man laughed, but his hand was shaking. He saw the look in my eye. He saw that I wasn't afraid to die. I had already died once in the Karsak Valley.
"You're that dead Major," the man whispered, his eyes widening. "Vane? But the news said—"
"The news lied," I said.
In that split second of confusion, I moved. I didn't shoot him. I threw a small, black raven feather I had hidden in my palm. It flicked past his face, distracting him for just one second. That was all I needed. I closed the distance and disarmed him with a move so fast the girl gasped. I pinned him against the wall, my hand around his throat.
"Go back to Sterling," I whispered in his ear. "Tell him the Ghost is coming for his ledger. Tell him every name on his list is going to burn."
I shoved him out the door and locked it. I turned to the girl. She was shaking, her back pressed against her desk.
"Are you okay?" I asked, trying to make my voice sound softer. It was hard. My voice had become jagged and rough.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Are you here to kill me too?"
"No," I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small, scratched metal dog tag. It was my old one. "My name is Silas Vane. But the world knows me as Elias Thorne now. I'm the man Sterling tried to erase."
Maya looked at the dog tag, then up at my face. The fear in her eyes started to change into something else. It was a look I saw in the mirror every morning. It was the look of someone who had lost everything and wanted to know why.
"You're the one from the Black Ravens," she whispered. "They said you were a traitor."
"They said the same about you," I replied. "Sterling uses people until they find out too much, then he throws them away like trash. He did it to my team. He did it to you."
Maya stood up slowly. she looked at her computers. "He stole my life, Silas. He took my job, my home, and he told everyone I was a criminal. I've been hiding in this basement for months, just trying to stay alive."
"I know," I said. "And that's why I'm here. I'm going to dismantle everything he built. But I can't do it alone. I need eyes in the sky. I need someone who can see through his firewalls and find his secrets."
Maya looked at the screens, then back at me. A small, sharp smile touched her face. It wasn't a happy smile. It was a hungry one. "You want to go after a General? You want to fight the whole military-industrial complex?".
"I want to make them pay for every brother I lost," I said.
Maya held out her hand. It was small and thin, but her grip was tight. "Then we have a pact, Ghost. You keep the Hounds off my back, and I'll give you every secret Sterling ever tried to bury."
We spent the next hour working. Maya's fingers flew across the keyboard. She was amazing. She could talk to computers in a way I had never seen. She started pulling up files that were supposed to be locked away forever.
"Wait," Maya said, her face turning pale in the blue light of the monitor. "Silas, look at this."
I leaned over her shoulder. She had found a secret communication log. It wasn't from Sterling. It was a message sent to Sterling from a blocked number.
The message was short: The Ghost has been spotted in the city. The Hounds failed. Proceed with the 'Clover' protocol. Erase the daughter.
My heart stopped. The daughter. Claire Sterling.
I looked at the map Maya pulled up. Claire was at a university across town, and a team of Hounds was already moving toward her location.
"Why would he kill his own daughter?" Maya whispered, horrified.
"Because she knows something," I said, grabbing my gear. "Or because he wants to blame it on me to make the world hate me even more."
I headed for the door, my mind racing. I was supposed to be hunting Sterling, but now I had to save his daughter. It was a trap, or a twist, or both.
"Maya, get your stuff. We're moving," I ordered.
As we ran to the car, my phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. I answered it.
"Major Vane," a voice said. It was Sterling. He sounded like he was smiling. "I saw you on the cameras. You always were a hero, Silas. Let's see if you can be a hero one last time before I tell the world you kidnapped my little girl."
The line went dead. I looked at the road ahead. The General wasn't just hiding anymore. He was playing a game with my life, and the first move was a knife at his own daughter's throat.
"Hold on," I told Maya as I floored the gas. "This is about to get very loud."