First Blood

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.

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