Season 1 Recap

Ethan Carter witnessed the assassination of billionaire Victor Langston and was falsely accused of the crime. Branded New York's most wanted fugitive, he was hunted by the police, a ruthless serial killer known as The Ghost, and the secret criminal organisation The Dominion.

With the help of Olivia Bennett, Detective Marcus Reed, and FBI Agent Isabella Cruz, Ethan uncovered a city-wide conspiracy, defeated The Dominion, exposed its leader, Adrian Blackwood, and finally cleared his name.

Just when peace seemed to return, Ethan received a chilling message...

"The Dominion was only the beginning."

Now, a far more dangerous enemy has emerged.

Welcome to Season 2: The Last Witness – Shadow Protocol.

Enjoy the journey, and don't forget to Like, Comment, Share, and Follow for more!

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Season 2

"You're doing that thing again."

Ethan looked up from his laptop. "What thing?"

"The staring-at-nothing thing." Olivia dropped into the chair across from him, sliding a coffee across the table. "You've been doing it for a week."

"I'm fine."

"You said that yesterday, too. And the day before that." She studied him, unconvinced. "It's been six months, Ethan. Blackwood's dead. Whitfield's awaiting trial. You cleared your name. You're allowed to actually live now."

"I know."

"Then act like it."

Ethan wrapped both hands around the coffee cup, letting the warmth ground him the way it hadn't in months. "It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

He hesitated, and that hesitation told her everything before he said another word.

"There's another message," he admitted. "Two nights ago. Same as before — unknown number, no name."

Olivia's easy expression vanished. "What did it say?"

"Not much. Just a time. A location." He turned the phone toward her. "Tonight. Ten o'clock. Pier 41."

"That's insane. You're not seriously considering going."

"I considered it for about ten seconds before deciding I had to."

"Ethan—"

"If I ignore it, they come to me instead," he said. "I'd rather choose the ground."

She stared at him, torn between fear and the stubborn respect she'd carried for him since a laundromat months ago. "Then I'm coming with you."

"No."

"That wasn't a request."

He almost smiled, despite everything. "Fine. But you stay back. Whatever this is, it's not the Dominion. Whoever sent that photograph months ago — the old symbol, the stone carving — this is something else entirely."

"Something worse."

"Maybe."

Pier 41 sat abandoned at the edge of the Hudson, container cranes looming overhead like skeletal giants against the night sky. Ethan arrived at 9:54, pulse steady despite the churn in his stomach, every lesson from the last war replaying automatically through his muscles.

Nobody was there.

He waited, scanning the shadows between shipping containers, and at exactly ten his phone buzzed once.

**Unknown Number:** *Turn around.*

He spun, and a figure stood twenty feet away, having appeared from nowhere with unnerving silence. Tall, dressed entirely in black tactical gear, face concealed behind a featureless mask.

"You're not Shadow Protocol's welcoming committee, I take it," Ethan said, forcing steadiness into his voice.

"I'm the opposite of a welcome," the figure said, voice modulated, mechanical. "Consider this a courtesy. Most people don't get warned before we come for them."

"Warned about what?"

"You made an enemy without realising it. Damien Voss doesn't forgive people who dismantle organisations he's invested in."

"I don't know who that is."

"You will." The figure's hand drifted, unhurried, toward a blade sheathed at the thigh. "Shame. I was told to give you a choice before this started."

"What choice?"

"Walk away from everything you've built these last six months. Disappear properly this time. Or don't, and find out exactly how far Shadow Protocol's reach extends."

Ethan's jaw tightened. "I'm done running."

"Pity," the figure said. "I quite liked you."

Three more shapes dropped from the container stacks above, boots hitting concrete in perfect unison, weapons already levelled.

Ethan's stomach dropped — not police, not Dominion remnants, something faster, better trained.

"Ethan!" Olivia's voice cracked through the night from somewhere behind the containers. "Get down!"

He didn't hesitate. He dropped as gunfire erupted, sparks screaming off metal where he'd been standing a half-second earlier, and rolled behind a stack of rusted drums as the masked figure closed the distance with terrifying speed.

"You should have taken the offer," the figure said, blade flashing.

Ethan caught the wrist on instinct, months of hard-earned training finally paying its debt, and drove a knee up into the figure's ribs.

The impact barely registered — whoever this was, they were built differently to anything he'd faced before.

A fist connected with his jaw, snapping his head sideways, and he tasted blood immediately.

He staggered back, barely dodging the next strike, blade whistling past his ear close enough to feel the air split.

"Ethan, move!" Olivia screamed again, and he glimpsed her sprinting along the pier's edge, phone raised, recording everything.

He grabbed a loose length of chain from the ground and swung it hard, catching the figure across the shoulder, buying half a second he desperately needed.

He sprinted for cover behind a shipping container as bullets chased him, sparking off metal in a deafening rattle.

"Cut them off!" one of the shooter barked. "Don't let him reach the road!"

Ethan's lungs burned as he cut left, then right, weaving through the maze of containers, Olivia somewhere ahead of him now, both of them running for their lives through a labyrinth of rusted steel.

A hand grabbed his collar from behind and yanked him sideways into a narrow gap between containers. He spun, fists raised on instinct—

"It's me!" a voice hissed. Not Olivia. A stranger, mid-thirties, athletic build, dressed like he'd walked straight off a military base. "Isabella Cruz sent me. Move, now, or you're both dead in the next sixty seconds."

"Who are you?"

"Noah Kane. Explanations later." He shoved a compact pistol into Ethan's hand. "Cover the exit. I'll get Olivia."

Gunfire tore through the gap they'd just vacated and Ethan pressed his back to cold steel, heart hammering, weapon shaking in his grip as boots pounded closer through the maze.

The masked figure rounded the corner first, blade already rising and Ethan fired without thinking, the shot going wide as the figure closed the last few feet between them with impossible speed.

"Last chance," the modulated voice said, blade pressed suddenly against Ethan's throat, cold and unforgiving. "Walk away, or Damien Voss finishes what tonight started."

Behind them, sirens wailed in the distance, and the figure's masked head tilted, listening, calculating.

"Consider this a warning shot, Ethan Carter," the figure said, stepping back into shadow as quickly as they'd appeared. "The next visit won't be nearly so polite."

They vanished between the containers, leaving Ethan gasping against cold steel, blood trickling down his neck from a cut he hadn't even felt happen — and somewhere behind him, Olivia's scream cut through the night, sharp with a terror that told him this had only just begun.

Ethan's legs nearly gave out as he sprinted toward the sound of Olivia's scream, blood still trickling warm down his neck, adrenaline the only thing keeping him upright.

He found her pinned against a container wall, Noah standing between her and two of the black-clad shooters, weapon steady despite the chaos, dropping one attacker with a controlled shot to the shoulder before the second retreated into darkness.

"You're hit," Noah said, glancing at Ethan's neck without lowering his weapon.

"I'm fine."

"You're not, but it'll keep." Noah scanned the shadows once more, then jerked his head toward the pier's exit. "We need to move before the rest of them regroup."

"Who are you people?" Olivia demanded, still catching her breath. "That thing back there wasn't human. I've never seen anyone move like that."

"Later," Noah said. "Car's two minutes out. Walking distance turns into a very bad idea if we stand here talking."

They moved fast through the container maze, Ethan's hands still trembling from adrenaline, Olivia gripping his arm like she might lose him if she let go.

Noah led them to an unmarked SUV idling at the pier's access road, engine running, doors already unlocked.

"Get in," he said. "Both of you."

"Not until someone tells me what's happening," Ethan said.

"Agent Cruz will explain everything. That's not my job." Noah's expression softened slightly. "But if it helps, that thing back there was Ghost Squad. Elite mercenary unit. You're lucky to be walking away with just a scratch."

Ethan and Olivia exchanged a look, and finally climbed in.

They drove in tense silence through Manhattan's late-night streets, eventually pulling into an underground parking structure beneath a nondescript federal building.

Isabella Cruz waited near the elevator, older around the eyes than Ethan remembered, a lanyard now marking her as something more senior than the agent who'd once betrayed him.

"You're alive," she said, relief plain in her voice. "That's more than I expected, given what just hit that pier."

"You knew," Ethan said. "You knew they'd come for me tonight."

"I suspected." Cruz gestured for them to follow her toward the elevator. "I've been tracking chatter about an organisation calling itself Shadow Protocol for three months. I didn't have proof they'd already made you a target until an hour ago."

"And you let me walk into it anyway?"

"I sent Noah as backup the moment I confirmed it," Cruz said. "I'm sorry it wasn't sooner. This organisation moves faster than anything I've encountered, Blackwood included."

The elevator descended two levels below street level, opening into a secure command centre humming with monitors and quiet, focused activity.

Marcus Reed stood near a central table, looking healthier than Ethan had seen him since the bridge, though a slight limp remained as he crossed the room to shake Ethan's hand.

"Good to see you standing," Reed said.

"Good to see you walking," Ethan replied.

"Barely," Reed admitted, "but I'll take it."

Cruz gestured them toward the table, where a holographic display flickered to life, revealing a web of connections spanning continents. "Shadow Protocol isn't like Blackwood's network. Blackwood ran a city. This organisation runs governments. They've got assets in intelligence agencies across three countries, unlimited funding, and an AI system capable of manipulating financial markets in real time."

"And they want me dead," Ethan said. "Why?"

"That's what we don't know yet," Cruz admitted. "But whatever it is, it's personal. That figure who came after you tonight — we believe that's Black Viper. One of the deadliest assassins currently operating. Shadow Protocol doesn't send their best against random targets."

"So I'm not random."

"No," Cruz said carefully. "Which is why I'm asking you to join a task force we've assembled to stop them before this becomes something none of us can contain."

"I already fought one war," Ethan said. "I nearly lost everyone I love doing it."

"I understand if you say no," Cruz said. "But if Shadow Protocol has already decided you're a target, saying no doesn't make you safer. It just means you're facing them alone instead of with people trained to help."

Olivia's hand found Ethan's, steady despite everything. "You don't have to decide tonight."

"No," Reed agreed. "But whatever you decide, decide fast. Because whoever attacked that pier tonight wasn't testing your resolve. They were testing our response time."

A technician at a nearby console straightened suddenly, urgency flashing across her face. "Agent Cruz, you need to see this."

Cruz crossed to the console, scanning the screen, her expression darkening with each passing second.

"What is it?" Ethan asked.

"A convoy," Cruz said slowly. "Military transport, moving experimental weapons technology through Brooklyn tonight, under heavy federal escort." She looked up, meeting Ethan's eyes with grim certainty. "Shadow Protocol's chatter just spiked around its route."

"They're going to hit it," Reed said.

"Tonight," Cruz confirmed. "Which means we don't have time for you to think this over, Ethan. I need an answer now."

Ethan looked around the room — Olivia's steady grip on his hand, Reed's determined resolve, Noah already checking his weapon near the door, Cruz waiting with the weight of an impossible choice balanced entirely on his response.

"I'm in," he said.

Cruz nodded once, already moving toward the door. "Then suit up. We roll in five minutes."

The alarm blared through the command centre before anyone reached the door, red emergency lighting flooding the room, and the technician's voice cracked with alarm.

"The convoy's already under attack!"

The command centre erupted into controlled chaos, agents scrambling toward monitors as live satellite feed flickered onto the main display, showing chaos unfolding on a Brooklyn overpass in real time.

"Convoy's pinned down," the technician called out. "Two vehicles disabled, escort taking heavy fire."

"Get tactical teams moving," Cruz ordered. "Reed, Noah, with me. Ethan—"

"I'm coming."

"You've had one night of training and a knife wound," Cruz said. "You're staying here."

"That's not up for debate," Reed added, already strapping into gear near the door. "You'll get your chance. Tonight isn't it."

Ethan wanted to argue, but the certainty in their voices left no room for it.

He watched them go, the elevator doors sealing behind them, and turned instead toward Olivia, who'd claimed an empty console and was already scrolling through files with the same restless focus he remembered from months earlier.

"You're not just sitting here either," he said.

"Not a chance." She didn't look up. "If Shadow Protocol's stealing military technology, there's a paper trail somewhere. Contracts, shipping manifests, something. I've spent six months tracking corruption for a living. I'm not about to stop now."

They worked through the night, Ethan largely useless beyond fetching coffee and reading over her shoulder, until nearly dawn when Olivia sat back suddenly, staring at her screen with an expression he'd learned to recognise.

"What did you find?"

"A shell company," she said. "Meridian Defence Logistics. Registered eighteen months ago, no public assets, one government contract worth an obscene amount of money for a company nobody's ever heard of."

"Shadow Protocol?"

"I think so. The registration details route through three jurisdictions before disappearing entirely, same pattern as the old Dominion shells, except cleaner. More careful." She pulled up a second document. "Here's the interesting part. Meridian Defence Logistics won a contract to transport experimental weapons technology across state lines. Guess which convoy that contract covers."

Ethan's stomach dropped. "Tonight's convoy."

"Tonight's convoy," Olivia confirmed. "Which means Shadow Protocol didn't just attack a random shipment. They created the very company responsible for moving it in the first place."

"They wanted access."

"They wanted control," Olivia corrected. "And there's something else." She hesitated, scrolling further down the document. "The company's incorporation paperwork lists a secondary contact. Someone who signed off on internal logistics approval."

"Who?"

She turned the screen toward him, and Ethan felt the floor tilt slightly beneath his feet.

His own name stared back at him from the screen — Ethan Carter, listed as a logistics consultant for Meridian Defence Logistics, a signature that wasn't his scrawled beside it with unnerving precision.

"That's not possible," he breathed. "I've never heard of this company. I've never signed anything like this."

"I know," Olivia said quickly. "It's forged. Has to be. But Ethan, if this document ever reaches federal investigators without context, it links you directly to the company responsible for exposing that convoy."

"They're framing me again."

"Building a paper trail," Olivia said. "In case they need one. Same pattern as Blackwood, except cleaner, more patient. They're not rushing this."

Ethan's phone buzzed against the console, and both of them froze.

*Unknown Number* *Enjoying the research? You'll find plenty more with your name attached, should the need arise. Damien Voss doesn't improvise. Everything has a purpose.*

"They're watching us right now," Ethan said, scanning the room instinctively.

"Or they're watching the network," Olivia said, already pulling up a diagnostic window. "Ethan, this connection isn't secure. Someone's monitoring our search history in real time."

The elevator doors chimed, and both of them spun, tension coiling tight, but it was only Cruz, returning with Reed and Noah, all three looking exhausted but intact.

"Convoy's secured," Cruz said, though her expression carried little relief. "We lost two agents. Shooters vanished before backup arrived, same as the pier."

"We found something," Ethan said, gesturing toward the screen. "A shell company. It's tied to the convoy, and it's got my name forged onto the paperwork."

Cruz's expression sharpened as she scanned the document. "Meridian Defence Logistics."

"You know it?"

"I know the pattern," Cruz said grimly. "Shadow Protocol builds legitimate-looking infrastructure months, sometimes years, before they need it. This isn't a rushed frame job, Ethan. This is a long game."

"Why me?" Ethan asked, frustration finally breaking through his exhaustion. "I dismantled one conspiracy. Why does that make me worth this kind of attention?"

Cruz hesitated, exchanging a glance with Reed that Ethan didn't like at all.

"What?" he pressed. "What aren't you telling me?"

"There's something in the Dominion files we recovered months ago," Cruz said carefully. "A reference buried deep in Blackwood's private communications. We didn't understand its significance until tonight."

"What reference?"

Cruz pulled up a scanned document, highlighting a single line buried among hundreds of others.

*Protect the witness. Shadow Protocol has expressed interest. Do not interfere with their timeline.*

Ethan stared at the words, the floor tilting beneath him a second time that night. "Blackwood knew about Shadow Protocol. He knew they were watching me, and he protected me from them."

"It would seem so," Cruz said quietly.

"Why would Blackwood protect me from anyone?"

"I don't know," Cruz admitted. "But it means Shadow Protocol's interest in you predates the Dominion's collapse entirely. Whatever they want from you, Ethan, it isn't new. It's been building for years."

The console beside Olivia suddenly flared red, an alarm chirping sharply through the quiet room.

"That's not possible," the technician said, staring at her screen in disbelief. "Someone's just accessed our internal server. From inside this building."

Cruz's head snapped up. "Lock it down. Now."

But it was already too late — the lights flickered once, then died entirely, plunging the command centre into darkness, and somewhere in the sudden black, a familiar modulated voice crackled through the room's intercom system.

"Hello again, Ethan," Black Viper said. "Miss me?"