The room was bare.
Concrete walls. Steel table. A single incandescent bulb swaying gently overhead, casting flickering shadows like a dying heartbeat. No cameras. No windows—except the one Raven stood beside, half-cracked open to the rain.
He didn't need more.
The space was clean. Efficient. Empty.
Like him.
Outside, the world whispered through weather—rain tapping a metallic rhythm on the corrugated rooftop, slow and deliberate, as if echoing the pulse in his chest. A dog barked somewhere in the sprawl below, a sharp sound swallowed by distance. Far off, the city lights trembled behind the storm—amber, pale, shifting like fireflies lost in fog.
From up here, cities always looked cleaner. Quieter. Like sin hadn't seeped into every street.
Raven didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't speak.
Not since Marrakesh.
Not to the woman who handed him the forged passport at the port in Tangier. Not to the driver who crossed him through the border checkpoint without a word. Not even to himself.
Silence was the contract.
The penance for perfection.
One shot. No witness. No echo.
Then disappear.
That was the code. That was the life.
Until now.
----------------------------------------------------
A knock at the door.
Three short. One long.
Raven moved without hesitation.
He cracked the reinforced door just wide enough. A courier stood there—young, wiry, hood pulled low. No words. Just the transfer. A black case, sleek and silent, slid into Raven's hands. The courier vanished down the stairwell without a backward glance.
Smart kid.
Raven shut the door and locked it. The world outside disappeared again.
He carried the case to the table, set it down with care. His fingers traced the smooth, matte finish of the container—no markings, no logo. Cold. Purpose-built.
He keyed in the access code.
Fingerprint scan.
Retina lock.
The case hissed open.
Inside: a single black folder. No USB. No drive. No digital trail. That alone said everything.
Whoever issued this contract didn't want it logged. Didn't want it filtered through handlers or channels.
This wasn't high-tier.
This was ghost work.
Off-the-books.
He opened the folder.
A photograph sat atop a single page. The woman in the image looked directly into the lens. Composed. Sharp. Dangerous.
Early thirties, he guessed. French-Algerian. High cheekbones. Smooth skin. Chestnut eyes—dark, focused, calculating. She wore a sleeveless navy dress. A silver pen rested between her fingers, caught mid-signature. Behind her, a press backdrop:
Assemblée mondiale de défense sociale.
Name printed in bold below:
Anaïs Delacroix.
Beneath, a single line in courier font:
Eliminate within 10 days. No collateral. No traces. No second attempt.
YOU ARE READING
Codename: Raven
Mystery / ThrillerHe watches from the shadows. She stands in the spotlight. One is a ghost-flawless, untraceable, and paid to disappear. The other is the most protected figure in Europe, delivering a speech that could change everything. But when the plan unravels, an...
