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The briefing room air tasted of rust and old sweat.

The humid North Carolina night clung to everything like a second skin, thick and unrelenting, as if the darkness itself refused to let go. Fort Liberty’s Restricted Combat Staging Area lay buried deep in the pine barrens, a fortress of concrete, razor wire, and secrets that no satellite would ever see. Motion-activated floodlights swept across the perimeter in harsh, sweeping arcs, their beams catching on the coiled razor wire that hummed with ten thousand volts. The air reeked of jet fuel, wet earth after a recent downpour, scorched propellant from the ranges, and the faint, acrid bite of cordite that never quite washed out of the uniforms. In the distance, heavy transport trucks growled over gravel roads, their headlights cutting pale tunnels through the fog. Occasional pops of automatic gunfire echoed from the night-fire ranges: short, disciplined bursts that sounded less like training and more like predators clearing their throats.

This was no ordinary Army post. This was the black underbelly where Operation Extinction Protocol lived.

Black Level Classification.

The designation itself was a death sentence on paper. No digital trail. No after-action reports filed through normal channels. If the wrong ears heard the words, entire teams vanished. Families received quiet condolences and folded flags, and the world moved on none the wiser. Only a handful of men and women in the entire country even knew the operation existed. And tonight, every soul inside Briefing Room 7 carried that knowledge like a live grenade.

The bunker was buried three stories beneath reinforced earth and lead shielding. No windows. No natural light. Just the low, blood-red combat lighting that turned every face into something carved from shadow and bone. Twelve elite operators from various Tier-1 units sat or stood in rigid formation, their plate carriers already strapped tight, magazines seated with soft metallic clicks that echoed like punctuation in the heavy silence. The room smelled of gun oil, stale coffee, and the sharp tang of barely contained adrenaline. Shoulders brushed. Boots scraped. Eyes flicked toward the center of the room with instinctive wariness.

Hades Squadron.

They didn’t sit with the others. They claimed the middle of the space like wolves in a den of attack dogs. Five men and two women, all dressed in matte-black tactical gear that seemed to drink the red light. Their presence pressed against the room like a physical weight. The other soldiers kept a visible distance, two feet of invisible buffer that no one acknowledged but everyone respected. No one wanted to stand too close to the ghosts who only appeared when every other option had already died screaming. Hades didn’t follow rules of engagement. They wrote new ones in blood and left nothing but ash behind.

Caruso stood like a statue of obsidian and scar tissue beside the briefing lieutenant. His massive arms, thick cords of muscle honed by years of violence, were folded over his broad chest, stretching the black tactical shirt taut across shoulders built for breaking men and monsters alike. Even in human form, something primal lingered beneath his skin. A jagged scar ran from his left temple, curving down behind his ear and disappearing beneath his collar like a lightning strike frozen in flesh. His face was stoic, unyielding, a mask carved from battlefield granite. Dark eyes, nearly black in the red light, scanned the room with predatory patience. Sweat beaded at his temples from the stifling humidity, but he didn’t wipe it away. He never did.

The lieutenant’s voice cut through the tension like a KA-BAR through flesh.

“Operation Extinction Protocol. Black Level. That means this room is the only place on Earth where this mission exists. If any of you breathe a word outside these walls, you won’t live long enough to regret it.”

He clicked the remote. The projector hummed to life, casting grainy thermal footage onto the far wall. Something enormous moved through dense jungle canopy too fast, too wrong. The creature’s silhouette warped the heat signatures around it.

“InGen and Biosyn’s cast-off failures. D-Rex specimens. Theropod hybrids. Genetic abominations they refused to acknowledge or terminate. They dumped them on Site C like garbage and hoped the island would swallow them. It didn’t. They’re breeding. Evolving. Three recon teams are already gone. No bodies recovered. Just final transmissions full of screaming.”

A ripple of unease moved through the gathered soldiers. One operator from Delta shifted his weight, knuckles whitening around the sling of his suppressed rifle. Another, a broad-shouldered Marine, shot a hard, sidelong glare toward Hades Squadron. The look said everything: We clean up your messes, and you still get the glory. No one spoke it. Not with Caruso standing there.

Caruso’s nostrils flared subtly. Beneath the overwhelming stench of sweat, fear, and gun oil, another scent threaded through the room, sharp, feminine, electric. Dangerous. It coiled low in his gut like a live wire. He didn’t know her face. Command had buried her identity even from him. All he knew was that she was the newcomer, and she was lethal enough to warrant total classification. His jaw tightened a fraction. The primal part of him, the part that wasn’t entirely human, stirred with wary interest.

The lieutenant continued, voice low and gravelly, each word measured.

“Hades Squadron has point. Containment and elimination. The rest of you are support and perimeter security. There are no rules of engagement. Anything that moves and isn’t wearing our patch is a target. Collateral is authorized and expected. Burn what needs burning. Salt the earth behind you. Leave nothing breathing that shouldn’t be.”

He paused, letting the weight settle.

“Some of you are new to this depth of black work. Let me be crystal fucking clear. Hades doesn’t hesitate. They don’t negotiate. They don’t lose sleep over innocents caught in the crossfire. They do what it takes. Always. If you can’t stomach that, get the hell off my tarmac right now. No shame in it. You’ll just be dead weight where we’re going.” 

The silence that followed was absolute. No one moved. The red lighting painted every face in shades of blood and shadow. Tension crackled in the air like static before a storm. Caruso felt the weight of every stare—some fearful, some resentful, some quietly awed. He ignored them all. His focus remained on the mission. On the scent. On the unknown woman whose presence prickled at the edges of his awareness.

The lieutenant killed the projector. “Gear up. Wheels up in fifteen. Dismissed.”

Chairs scraped back. Boots thudded against concrete. The room erupted into controlled, lethal motion, the metallic rattle of weapons checks, the soft clack of magazines being seated, the low mutter of final comms verifications. The other operators gave Hades Squadron a wide berth as they filed out, their movements tight with barely concealed tension. One man muttered something under his breath as he passed, but Caruso’s sharp gaze made him swallow the rest.

Outside, the night had grown heavier. The two massive Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion helicopters squatted on the floodlit tarmac like armored dragons ready to devour the sky. Their rotors began their slow, thunderous spin, whipping up stinging cyclones of dust, pine needles, and jet exhaust. The downdraft battered against body armor and exposed skin, a physical roar that vibrated deep in the chest and skull. The smell of burning kerosene mixed with the earthy rot of the surrounding pines.

Hades Squadron moved like wraiths across the tarmac. Heavy plate carriers sat over layered kevlar body armor. Suppressed battle rifles loaded with high-round ammunition were strapped tight across broad backs. Utility belts bristled with fragmentation grenades, flashbangs, medical kits, and military-issue KA-BAR knives riding low and ready for silent work. Night vision units sat flipped up on helmets, faces streaked with black and dark earth camouflage paint. Every piece of gear was worn, familiar, comforting in its lethality.

Caruso brought up the rear, his powerful frame moving with deliberate, predatory grace. The weight of his gear grounded him, the familiar press of nylon and cold metal against sweat-slick skin. His mind was already on Site C, the island graveyard of corporate nightmares, where failed science had birthed monsters that now hunted in the dark.

As he gripped the cold metal handhold and hauled himself into the troop bay of the lead King Stallion, the rotors screamed into full fury. The entire aircraft shuddered with raw, mechanical power. The downdraft howled like a banshee. Caruso’s gaze snapped sideways across the tarmac, just a fraction of a second, catching a blur of dark skin and sleek, purposeful movement as the newcomer disappeared into the black maw of the second helicopter.

His brows slammed down. Jaw tightened. A low, involuntary growl rumbled deep in his throat, swallowed by the rotor wash. Who was she? Why did her scent cling to him like a warning and a promise at once? The stoic mask cracked for half a heartbeat.

“Caruso!” The lieutenant’s voice cracked like a whip over comms. “Get your fucking head in the game, soldier!”

Caruso tore his eyes away, dropped into the reinforced troop seat, and locked the five-point harness with a savage metallic click. The helicopter lurched violently upward, clawing for altitude on screaming rotors. The base lights shrank rapidly below, pinpricks of defiance against the vast, waiting dark. Ahead lay miles of black Atlantic, then Site C.

An island of abandoned horrors. D-Rex and worse. Failures that refused to stay dead. And somewhere in the second bird, flying parallel through the night, the dangerous unknown flew with them. The training mission had begun.