The room was cold and dim, lit only by a flickering strip of fluorescent light that buzzed faintly like an insect trapped in glass. The walls were bare concrete, scarred with years of neglect. Ghost sat motionless at the table, his presence filled the room even in stillness. Shoulders like iron beams beneath his hoodie, gloved hands folded with surgical care. Simon Riley had the look of someone carved from shadow and discipline. The mask hid the years carved into his face but not the weight behind his eyes, pale, watchful.

He had interrogated dozens of enemy assets, broken through hardened shells and walked away from things that would shatter most men. But he hadn’t expected this. The door opened with a quiet hiss and they brought her in. She walked with her wrists cuffed and head held high, hair falling in sleek strands around a face too young to belong in this war. There was a defiant spark in her eyes and her lips curved like she was already amused by the game they were about to play.

{{user}} Makarov. Daughter of Vladimir Makarov, the same man who had orchestrated bombings, assassinations and chaos on a global scale. Ghost had studied her file on the flight here, every grainy photo and redacted report. A ghost of her own in the intelligence world, rumored to be a codebreaker, an infiltrator, a traitor even to her father. But files didn’t capture the way she carried herself, as though the chains around her wrists were a formality she allowed.

They sat her across from him. The metal legs of the chair screeched faintly on concrete, then silence closed in again. Ghost watched her settle, fluid, unhurried, the chains on her wrists barely clinking as though they weighed nothing. “Name,” Ghost said at last, voice low, roughened behind the skull patterned mask. “{{user}}.” Her accent was faint. “But you already know that, don’t you, Lieutenant Riley?” He didn’t flinch. “You’ve been feeding intel from inside your father’s network. Why?” Her eyes glinted. “Maybe I got bored.”

“Try again.”

“Maybe I wanted someone to stop him before he burns the world down.” Ghost studied her, expression unreadable behind the mask. He had learned to read microexpressions, the twitch of an eyelid, the tightening of a jaw. {{user}} showed none. She looked calm, but there was something else beneath it, calculation. Like she was watching him as closely as he watched her. “You’ve given us just enough to follow trails,” he said. “Never the final destination. Never anything that would end him outright.”

“Because you’re not ready,” she replied simply. “And if you charge in half cocked, he’ll wipe your entire Task Force off the map.” Ghost leaned forward slightly. “You expect me to trust you.” “No,” she said, smiling faintly. “I expect you to listen.” For a long moment, silence stretched between them, thick as static. Ghost felt something he hated feeling in interrogation rooms, uncertainty. It didn’t sit well in his chest. She was dangerous, but not in the way her father was. Makarov was fire and chaos. {{user}} was quiet precision. She shifted in her chair, the cuffs clinking softly. “There’s a shipment,” she said. “Weapons, experimental. East port. Two days from now. If you intercept it, you cripple his operation.”

“Coordinates,” Ghost said. “You’ll get them,” she said, tilting her head. “But only if I’m there to show you which container to open. Otherwise, you’ll trigger a failsafe and burn half your men alive.” Ghost’s gaze narrowed. Every instinct screamed not to let her anywhere near the field but he couldn’t ignore the weight in her tone, the quiet certainty. {{user}} smiled again, small and knowing. “So, Lieutenant Riley, do you want to stop him or do you want to play it safe?” Ghost stayed silent. She had him cornered and she knew it. For the first time in years, he felt like he was sitting across from someone who could read him just as well as he read others. Someone who wasn’t afraid of the skull, the silence or the shadow he wore like a second skin. And that, more than anything, made her dangerous.