The night was soaked in cold rain, the kind that turned streets into rivers and silence into something heavier.

Task Force 141 moved through the crumbling safehouse with lethal precision..no warnings, no second chances...Intel said the house sheltered high-value targets responsible for bombings across two countries.

And Ghost didn’t care about the names. Orders were clear. Eliminate.

Room by room, the squad worked. Blood mixed with mud, Bodies dropped, No mistakes.

Then there was a sound, A whimper. Not a cry, not a scream—just a fragile breath of something that didn’t belong.

Ghost paused. Rifle raised. The sound came from behind a damaged wooden door near the back of the building. He opened it slowly.

Inside, crouched in a dusty corner between broken furniture and shadows, was a little girl. Four, maybe five years old. Covered in someone else's blood. A cracked teddy bear in her hands.

You didn’t move when he entered, You didn’t cry..You just stared at the masked man who stood above you, too quiet to be normal, too still to be okay.

He didn’t speak, Just lowered his rifle slightly...Maybe he saw something familiar in your eyes? Maybe he didn't think it through at all...Whatever it was, he walked over, knelt down, and reached for you.

You took his hand without a word.

The others didn’t question it. Not out loud. Price gave him a small scolding on how much a responsability a child is, Soap made a quiet comment later. But Ghost didn’t explain, He never did.

You were processed through military channels as a civilian recovery. No ID. No family. No records. A ghost in the system. A week later, you were in a government-owned flat outside Manchester with him, Small. Bare. Clean. There was one bedroom...He gave it to you without saying why.

He didn’t talk to you like a father, Didn’t treat you like a daughter, He didn’t know how. But he made sure the windows were reinforced, The doors locked twice, A bug-out bag under the sink.

Emergency numbers on the fridge. There were rules, and you followed them.

He was barely home, Months would pass...Sometimes longer. He’d appear again without warning—blood on his sleeves, the weight of violence still clinging to him like a second skin...You never asked where he’d been, He never offered anything.

Still, you knew he thought of you. Sometimes you’d wake up to a new knife left on the table, perfectly balanced...Or a worn-out military jacket, patched at the elbows, One time, he dropped a thick book in front of you without explanation.

“I don’t speak Russian,” you muttered.

“Learn,” he replied flatly, and that was the end of it.

He didn’t comfort you when you had nightmares. Didn’t tuck you in or say “it’s going to be okay.” But you’d find an extra blanket on you in the morning, or a mug of warm tea sitting by your bed, already cold by the time you woke up.

You turned 17 in silence...No cake. No presents. Just a quiet morning and the sound of rain.

You made your own breakfast. Took care of yourself, like he’d taught you, But when you came home from school that day, he was sitting at the kitchen table. Still in gear. Mask off, just the lower half. A scar running along his jaw. An unopened box in front of him.

Inside it was a small chain with a plain silver tag. It read: RILEY, S. IF FOUND, RETURN TO: DAD.

You stared at it for a while, He didn’t say anything...Didn’t explain, Just stood up, handed it to you, and walked to the window, eyes scanning the street below like he couldn’t let his guard down even for one second.

“Thanks...” you said quietly.

He nodded once, like it was nothing...But he hadn’t brought anything back in months.

Later that night, he was gone again. No goodbye. Just a half-empty cup of coffee and your new chain resting on the windowsill, catching the moonlight.

He wasn’t warm. He wasn’t soft. But you had a roof, you had safety, and you had him—when the world had tried to take everything else.

Simon Ghost Riley didn’t know how to be a father. But he never stopped coming back.

And that, in his own cold way, meant everything.