Chapter 534: Why is she here?

"Ghost."

Red whispered the name from the front passenger seat as though saying it too loudly might make the revelation real.

He turned toward Khan.

Khan gave him a sidelong glance before returning his attention to the road. His hands remained firmly wrapped around the steering wheel.

"Ghost," he echoed, glancing into the rearview mirror. "She... she’s Ghost."

In the back seat, Ashley paused halfway through turning a page.

"Correction." She lifted her gaze and met Khan’s through the mirror.

"I’m not Ghost. Ghost is me." Her lips curved faintly. "There’s a difference."

Ghost hadn’t created Ashley Di Carpio.

Ashley Di Carpio had created Ghost.

Red twisted around in his seat. "How?"

Ashley raised a brow.

"How did you become Ghost?" he pressed. "Was it your idea? Did someone teach you?"

Ever since leaving the secret floor, Red and Khan had been unusually quiet. Ashley had assumed they were still processing the revelation.

Apparently, they had merely been holding back their questions.

Ashley glanced down at the document in her hands. "I didn’t want Marshal giving me more work."

Khan’s brows drew together.

Red stared at her. "That doesn’t make sense. Becoming Ghost gave you more work."

"It did," Ashley agreed. "But tell me—did Marshal ever order Ghost around?"

Red opened his mouth, only to stop.

"Did Dominion?" she continued. "Did anyone in the underground ever force Ghost to accept a job?"

"That’s because no one knew how to contact Ghost," Red argued.

"Exactly." Ashley leaned back against her seat. "When you work for someone like Marshal, you never show him everything you can do. The moment he realizes how useful you are, he’ll keep finding more ways to use you."

Her voice remained calm, almost indifferent. "So, I gave him enough to keep me alive—but never enough to make me indispensable."

Silence filled the car.

Red slowly faced forward, but his gaze remained unfocused.

Now that Ashley had explained it, her decision made perfect sense.

People could easily look at the woman she had become and wonder why someone so capable had never simply walked away from the Di Carpios.

But Ashley hadn’t always been this woman.

She had been a child conditioned to seek their approval. She had spent years believing that if she remained obedient, worked hard, and made herself useful, the family she called her own would eventually recognize her worth.

She hadn’t created Ghost because she was ready to escape them.

She had created Ghost because some part of her already knew she needed a place where Marshal couldn’t reach her.

"So that’s how Ghost was born," Red murmured.

"Mhm." Ashley lowered her gaze to the document again. "I started accepting small jobs without revealing my identity. I helped one person, disappeared, then showed up in someone else’s business."

She flipped the page. "Sometimes I worked for people who were enemies. Sometimes I ruined the work I had previously helped create."

Red looked back at her.

Ashley shrugged.

"I had to make sure no one found a pattern. Ghost couldn’t appear loyal to any person, organization, or country."

Ghost had no master, no permanent ally, and no identity anyone could threaten.

Red studied her with a faint frown.

She spoke so casually about becoming one of the most feared figures in the underground, as though she were explaining how she had picked up a harmless hobby.

Khan drew a deep breath. "We’ll get Memphis."

Ashley’s eyes rose from the document.

"Of course we will."

There wasn’t a hint of doubt in her answer.

"The problem is that we still don’t know what he wants," she continued. "We also haven’t confirmed whether he was responsible for Isabella’s disappearance."

She closed the document and turned toward the window.

"Or Raka’s abduction." The scenery outside blurred past, reflected faintly against the glass. "Then there are the child abductions being blamed on Ghost."

Red’s expression shifted.

"Now that you mention it..." He frowned. "While you were taking control of Black Dragon Corporation, Master was investigating those abductions."

At the time, Red hadn’t understood Lucian’s interest.

Ghost was more than capable of protecting their own reputation. Even after becoming Dominion’s ally, Ghost’s problems weren’t necessarily Dominion’s responsibility.

Yet Lucian had quietly poured resources into the investigation.

Red shut his eyes briefly.

Of course.

Lucian hadn’t been protecting an ally.

He had been protecting his wife.

"How did I miss every single sign?" Red muttered bitterly.

"The accusation itself doesn’t concern me," Ashley said.

Red looked back at her. "You’re being accused of abducting children."

"I’ve been accused of worse."

The casualness of her answer made Red’s face twitch.

Ashley kept her attention on the passing scenery.

"What concerns me is why they chose Ghost," she continued. "Are they simply using a feared name because it makes the story believable? Or do they know there’s a person behind Ghost they need to keep occupied?"

Khan’s gaze sharpened. "You think the accusations are a distraction."

"It’s possible." Ashley drummed her fingers against the closed document. "If the authorities believe Ghost is responsible, they’ll use their resources to hunt me. Meanwhile, I’ll be forced to waste time protecting my identity and clearing my name."

"Leaving whoever is behind the abductions free to continue," Red finished.

"Exactly."

The pieces were there.

The child abductions.

Isabella’s disappearance.

Raka’s sudden presence in Marshal’s downfall.

Memphis’s proxy.

They still didn’t know whether one person connected all of them, but there were too many unanswered questions to dismiss the possibility.

Red turned forward again.

"Either way, Memphis is trouble," he said solemnly. "He needs to be dealt with."

"He will be," Ashley replied.

"But we need Omen first," Khan said. "Boss, can’t you find him yourself?"

Ashley looked at his reflection in the mirror.

"You’re Ghost," he added, as though that explained everything.

"Normally, I could trace his IP address and locate him," Ashley answered. "But Omen knows how I work. If he’s genuinely gone into hiding, he’ll make sure every trail I find leads somewhere useless."

Red frowned. "Then how are Gin and Warriyo supposed to find him if you can’t?"

Ashley smirked. "Omen has one weakness—his ego."

The word lingered inside the car briefly.

"If Omen believes the person searching for him is beneath his level, he gets careless," Ashley explained. "He can’t resist showing off. He’ll leave clues just to prove he’s smarter than them."

"And if you search for him?" Red asked.

"He’ll take it seriously." Ashley’s smile faded. "He’ll use every trick he knows, disappear completely, and waste days of my time simply because irritating me entertains him."

Was she confident she could find Omen?

Eventually.

But Memphis was still somewhere in the shadows, and Ashley couldn’t afford to spend days playing Omen’s games.

"Besides, Gin and Warriyo are skilled enough," she added. "Don’t you trust your men?"

Khan and Red fell silent.

A moment later, they nodded.

"Of course we do," they answered together.

"So do I." Ashley’s expression softened briefly. "We don’t know what Memphis is preparing. We don’t know how far his influence reaches or how many people he already has in place."

Her tone hardened with every word.

"But we have time to prepare, and we’re going to use every second of it."

Khan tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Ashley looked between the two men. "Whatever happens next, our people will be the ones left standing."

There was no arrogance in her voice, only certainty.

"No exceptions."

Khan nodded once.

Red turned to look at her.

"Yes, Madam."

Then, the towering Black Dragon Corporation building appeared ahead, its dark glass reflecting the midday sky.

Red settled back into his seat while Ashley reopened the document on her lap, a satisfied smile touching her lips.

The men were ready.

Now, she only needed to find out what Memphis was preparing them for.

*****

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the world...

Julius sat motionless behind his desk.

His hands were clasped beneath his chin, and an untouched cup of coffee had long since gone cold beside him.

The report before him was only a few pages long. Yet he had been staring at it for nearly an hour.

The failed operation had cost him more than a target.

Many of his men had returned injured. Some hadn’t returned at all.

He was the one who had approved the operation. He had sent those people into danger believing he had enough information to bring them home safely.

He had been wrong.

And as their commander, their blood rested on his hands.

Throughout his career, Julius had suffered losses. It came with the work. But never this many in a single night.

He would carry those deaths for the rest of his life.

The only thing he could still do for them was find the person responsible.

But the deeper he dug, the less sense everything made.

Julius lowered his hands and reached for the document.

"What’s going on?" he whispered.

What he had in his hand was an arrest report from years ago. His eyes moved toward the photograph attached to the report.

A young woman faced the camera, her expression unreadable.

Julius knew that face.

His fingers tightened around the edge of the paper.

"Why... is she here?"

Beneath the photograph was a name.

Ashley Di Carpio.

-END OF VOLUME III-