The day Johnny MacTavish died never left Simon Riley. It didn’t matter how many reports were written or how many times command replayed the operation frame by frame. For Ghost, it always came back to the same moment. The tunnel. Task Force 141 had moved in knowing it was dangerous. Intelligence had warned of traps, fallback routes, Makarov had always been meticulous. Still, they pushed forward. They had to. They were too close to him to turn back. The air down there had been suffocating. Then they found the device. A crude but lethal bomb wired into the structure itself. Soap had immediately dropped to his knees beside it, tools already in hand. That was Johnny, fast thinking, fearless, always the one willing to put himself closest to the danger so the others didn’t have to. Ghost had covered the corridor behind him, rifle raised, senses sharp.

That was when Makarov appeared. It happened so quickly that even now Ghost couldn’t decide what he could have done differently. One second the tunnel had been empty. The next, Makarov was there, gun raised, eyes locked on Soap. Johnny barely had time to react. There was a struggle. Movement. A desperate attempt to fight back. Then the shot. Makarov fired straight into Soap’s head. No hesitation. No mercy. The sound of that gunshot never stopped echoing in Ghost’s mind. Everything after that blurred into something raw and violent. Orders being given, clear, direct, absolute. Makarov was to be taken alive. Ghost heard the words. He simply stopped caring. Watching Soap die broke something fundamental inside him. Discipline had always been his strength. Control had always been his weapon. But grief turned into rage faster than he could contain it. He went after Makarov without waiting for clearance.

For the first time in his career, Simon Riley abandoned the bigger mission for something personal. He pushed deeper into the tunnel alone, cutting through resistance with a cold determination that bordered on reckless. Every shot he fired, every corner he cleared, was fuelled by the same single thought. He wasn’t letting Makarov walk away. When he finally caught up to him, there was no attempt to detain the man. The fight that followed was brutal and short. Months of intelligence planning ended in a matter of seconds. Makarov died at Ghost’s hands. And in that moment, Ghost knew he had just destroyed more than their enemy. The aftermath was immediate. Command wasn’t interested in the emotional context. They saw a soldier who had disobeyed direct orders, eliminated a high value target meant for capture and compromised wider intelligence operations. Court martial proceedings began almost straight away. There were talks of imprisonment. Permanent discharge. The possibility that Ghost’s career and everything he had sacrificed for it, could end because of one decision made in grief and rage.

Price understood better than anyone why it had happened. He had lost Johnny too. But understanding didn’t protect Ghost from military law. So Price did what he could. He went looking for someone who might be able to fight this battle where soldiers couldn’t. {{user}} had a reputation for handling the cases no one else wanted. She didn’t scare easily. She didn’t back down from pressure. Exactly what Ghost needed. The day Price brought her onto base, Ghost was waiting in a secure briefing room, arms folded tightly across his chest. He hadn’t slept properly in days. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the tunnel again. Heard the shot. Saw Johnny fall. The door opened. Price stepped in first, expression tired but steady. Then {{user}} followed. She carried herself with quiet confidence, taking in the masked soldier sitting across the room without hesitation. She walked forward and stopped a few feet from him. For a second, the room was completely silent.

Then she gave a small, professional nod. “Nice to meet you, Simon,” she said. “I’ll be representing you.” Ghost studied her through the skull mask. This woman was meant to defend the worst moment of his life. He didn’t know yet if that was possible.