CHAPTER 30: BEYOND DANGER

Ahce never expected her phone tracker to sound an alert from him, of all people.

The notification cut through her quiet evening, a sharp electronic chime that felt out of place in her small apartment. On her screen, Richard’s signal flashed red, blinking in steady intervals like a slow, deliberate heartbeat.

For a moment, she only stared, confusion knitting her brows. Richard had told her he’d be busy with school for a few days, unreachable. His tone had been calm, reassuring. She believed him. She always believed him.

Something must have happened to him!

But the alert kept pulsing.

Location: Unknown Zone.

Status: Critical.

A hollow ache spread across her chest. "Why... why is he in danger?"

Logic tried to soothe her. Maybe it was a malfunction. Maybe the battery died. Maybe the connection dropped. But dread crept under her ribs the longer she stared at that tiny, stubborn red dot.

Her mind rewound to the morning he left. The way he kissed her forehead. Soft. Gentle. Almost like a goodbye he didn’t want her to notice.

She closed her laptop with trembling fingers. Her life, the ordinary one her students saw every day, began to fall away piece by piece. She grabbed her jacket, phone, and charger. Within minutes, she was making decisions most people would agonize over for weeks.

Indefinite leave from teaching. Novel updates prerecorded. Scheduled posts queued. Reader messages pre-written. Her public life was put on pause. Because if Richard was in danger, she wasn’t going to sit behind a desk pretending a red blinking dot wasn’t carving through her sanity.

I need to find him!

I will save him if needed.

By the time she reached the airport, the sky had dipped into twilight, painting everything in wounded streaks of red and gold. She boarded the plane to City A with her heart hammering hard enough to rattle her bones. She didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. Her eyes stayed fixed on her tablet, watching Richard’s signal glitch in and out like a breath fading in the cold.

When the plane touched down, someone was already waiting.

A woman stood at the gate, tall and composed, posture as sharp as the knives she kept hidden in her sleeves. Her brown eyes followed Ahce’s every step, calculating, assessing.

"Miss Nine," she greeted softly, bowing her head. "Welcome back."

Ahce exhaled, tension loosening by a thread. "Thank you, Shina. It’s been a while."

Shina handed her an encrypted phone and a sleek black ID card. Metallic letters gleamed beneath the light:

ZEIREN.

The world’s largest assassin organization.

To the public, Ahce was simply Ms. Shang, the outstanding teacher, the novelist who wrote with tenderness, a woman who lived gently.

But behind Zeiren’s reinforced glass and shadowed corridors, she was Grandmaster Nine. A specialist. A ghost in the system. The kind of hacker who could unravel an entire agency before they even knew she’d breached the first firewall. And right now, she wasn’t here for a job.

She was here for Richard.

Shina walked beside her as they left the terminal.

"Your suite has already been prepared at Base Tower," she reported. "Do you wish to rest before..."

"No." Ahce’s reply was swift, already turning into a command. "Take me to the tech division."

Shina hesitated. "Of course."

The car sliced through City A’s neon haze. Towering glass structures climbed into the night sky, their reflections shimmering across wet asphalt. Drones hummed overhead, and electronic billboards cast the streets in shifting colors. Ahce barely saw any of it.

Her attention was locked on the blinking red signal.

When they reached Zeiren’s headquarters, guards scanned her card and stepped aside instantly. Inside, chilled air rippled across her skin, sterile, buzzing with electricity, alive with data streams.

The moment Ahce entered the cyber ops wing, analysts scrambled to their feet.

"Grandmaster Nine!" one of them blurted. "We weren’t informed."

"No pleasantries," she cut in. "I need a live trace. ID code: R-0287."

The team moved. Fingers flew across keyboards. Dozens of screens lit up. Her tracker synced, the signal breaking apart into static fragments before reforming, weak and flickering.

"Signal’s unstable," a tech muttered. "Looks like it’s inside a blackout zone. Maybe underground."

Ahce’s pulse stumbled.

"Stabilize it."

"We can try, but..." The tech paused, swallowing. "If this is tied to a classified operation, the kind run by The Division, any attempt to breach their field could trigger detection."

The Division.

Zeiren’s rival in the shadows.

The government’s dark-ops ghost unit. Stories of human experimentation followed them like rotting perfume.

Was that where Richard had gone?

It can’t be.

Why did he keep this a secret from me?

He doesn’t trust me.

Ahce’s voice dropped, cold and quiet. "Do it anyway."

"Miss Nine..."

"That is an order."

The room fell silent. Machines hummed. Code streamed across panels. A thin trace reconnected, flickering across the digital map until it landed on a desolate sector near the border of two abandoned districts.

[RESTRICTED.]

[NO-CIV ACCESS.]

[LIVE-OPS TERRITORY.]

Richard’s last known location.

Ahce leaned forward, her breath fogging the edge of the screen.

"Hold on," she whispered. "Wherever you are... I’m coming."

Behind her, Shina spoke carefully. "Miss Nine... will you notify the Council?"

"No," Ahce said. "Not yet." She straightened. Her eyes gleamed with a fire her students had never seen. "This isn’t Zeiren’s mission."

Her heart hardened with resolve.

"This is mine."

Sleep never came.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Richard’s blinking signal, red and relentless. She saw him trapped, lost, bleeding in some forgotten corner of the world. The thought carved at her until dawn bled across the horizon.

She was already inside Zeiren’s underground hangar before the first ray reached the surface. The air smelled of metal and fuel, the cold bite of engines waiting to be unleashed. Her breath curled like smoke as footsteps approached behind her.

"Miss Nine," a familiar voice greeted. "You called."

She turned.

Three shadows stepped into the light.

Ash, tall and razor-bright, eyes like polished steel behind wire-framed glasses.

Mira, soundless as dusk, her rifle slung casually as though it were an extension of her own bones.

Ryo, young but fiercely loyal, was watching Ahce with the raw worry of someone who still believed she was more human than myth.

"I need your help," Ahce said.

Ash arched a brow. "Rescue mission?"

"Yes."

"Personal?"

"Yes," she answered without wavering. "My husband is missing."

A quiet dropped over the hangar, heavy, respectful, dangerous.

In Zeiren, personal attachments were considered vulnerabilities.

But they also understood something else.

A Grandmaster protecting someone she loved was not a weakness.

It was a responsibility.