THE LAST EXTRACTION
The Last Extraction is a gritty war-zone adventure about Captain Ethan Cross, a special-ops soldier whose helicopter is shot down during a secret mission in a lawless country called Kandara. Left for dead, Ethan discovers that his mission was never meant to succeed. The scientist he was sent to extract-Asset Orion-holds information about a powerful technology capable of collapsing entire nations without open war.
Hunted by rebel militias and betrayed by his own government, Ethan teams up with Dr. Mara Vale and chooses to protect the truth instead of following corrupt orders. As time runs out and violence closes in, Ethan fights through ambushes and loss to ensure the secret reaches the world.
At its core, the story is about survival, betrayal, and moral courage, one man risking everything to do what's right in a world driven by lies and power.
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Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2 – NO WAY OUT
Gunfire followed them into the forest.
Ethan didn't look back. Looking back got people killed. He ran low, boots pounding damp earth, branches whipping his face, the sounds of engines, shouting, and gunfire fading into layers of trees. Dr. Mara Vale stayed close, moving faster than he expected. The child she had carried earlier was gone-left safely with others who had escaped in the opposite direction.
After five minutes, Ethan slowed. After ten, he stopped.
He raised a fist. Mara froze instantly. Good instincts.
They listened. Only the wind. Insects. Distant thunder that wasn't thunder at all. Mortars.
Ethan crouched, scanning the underbrush, rifle raised. The forest felt alive, waiting for the next death to fall.
"You didn't answer me back there," he said quietly. "Why are you here?"
Mara swallowed, dirt streaked across her cheek, her eyes steady. "Because Kandara wasn't supposed to turn into this."
"That doesn't answer my question," Ethan said, glancing over his shoulder, scanning for shadows.
She hesitated. Then reached into her jacket and pulled out a slim, laminated ID card, cracked at the edges.
UNITED NATIONS – SPECIAL MONITORING DIVISION
Ethan exhaled sharply. Figures.
"I was embedded as a humanitarian observer," she said, "unofficially tracking Orion."
His eyes narrowed. "You knew he was here?"
"Yes. And you weren't the first team sent to get him."
"How many?" Ethan asked.
Mara didn't answer immediately. That was answer enough.
Ethan stood and started moving again. "Where is he?"
"An old water treatment facility. Underground. About eight kilometers east."
"That's a long walk."
"We won't make it on foot," she replied, urgency in her tone.
Ethan stopped, glaring. "Then you better have a better idea."
She pointed through the trees. "There's a supply road. If we can intercept a vehicle-"
A burst of automatic fire cut her off.
Ethan shoved her down as bullets ripped through the trees where their heads had been seconds earlier. He rolled, fired twice with precision, then pulled her up and dragged her behind a fallen tree.
Three militia fighters emerged from the smoke, spreading out, rifles raised, scanning the forest.
"They're sweeping," Mara whispered.
Ethan nodded, calm now, focused. "On my mark."
The first fighter stepped too far. Ethan fired, and he fell silently. The second turned, startled, before a shot found its mark. The third barely reacted, but Ethan was already moving, sprinting through the underbrush.
They didn't stop running until they reached the dirt supply road, the setting sun casting long shadows between twisted trees. Dust rose behind them, but for a moment, it seemed the forest had swallowed their trail.
Mara's hand gripped his sleeve. "You realize," she said, voice low, "once we reach Orion, there's no extraction coming for us."
Ethan didn't answer immediately. His mind raced-every scenario he could imagine involved blood, betrayal, and impossible choices. "Yeah," he finally said, "I figured that out when they left me to die."
A battered pickup rattled into view along the road, kicking up dust. Ethan raised his rifle instinctively. Mara grabbed his arm.
"Wait," she said. "If we take it, they'll know. It's too risky."
"They already know," Ethan replied. He stepped onto the road. The truck screeched to a halt. Inside, armed men stared at them, calculating, unsure.
Ethan counted in his head. Three seconds. Two. One.
Then, almost imperceptibly, he moved, pushing Mara behind him. The men hesitated, just long enough for him to fire a shot through the windshield. Chaos erupted. Tires squealed, bullets ricocheted, and in the confusion, Ethan and Mara slipped into the cab, throwing the driver out and taking control of the vehicle.
The pickup surged forward. The forest blurred. The air was thick with gunpowder smoke, dust, and the smell of burnt engine oil. Mara clung to the dashboard. "I can't believe you just did that," she whispered.
"Believe it," Ethan said. "Or die trying."
Night fell hard, swallowing the land around them. The road stretched like a ribbon through a valley of shadows. Somewhere in the distance, the mountains loomed-silent witnesses to the chaos unfolding below.
Hours passed. They drove in tense silence. Mara finally spoke. "I need to know why you're doing this. Why you care about Orion. You don't even know him."
Ethan didn't answer immediately. He kept his eyes on the road, every shadow a potential threat. "I don't care about him," he said finally. "I care about the people who will die if he's caught. That's enough."
Her eyes softened slightly. "Then we're the same. Kind of."
They didn't speak again. Not yet. Not while the sound of distant artillery punctuated the darkness.
At 2 a.m., they stopped in the dry bed of a small creek to rest. The truck hidden under overhanging branches. Ethan kept watch while Mara scouted the perimeter. Every shadow felt alive. Every crackle of the underbrush a warning.
Then Mara returned, face pale. "We're not the only ones headed for the facility," she said. "They know he's still alive. Everyone wants him."
Ethan exhaled slowly, loading another magazine into his rifle. "Good. Then we'll beat them there."
The forest around them whispered. Somewhere, a lone howl split the night. Ethan thought about his team, about the helicopter, about everything he had lost.
And he thought about what they would face tomorrow-the facility underground, the secrets it held, the power it could unleash.
He tightened his grip on the rifle.
"Tomorrow," he said, voice low but steady, "we make sure no one dies who doesn't have to."
Mara nodded. For the first time that night, there was something like trust in her eyes.
The war was far from over. But at least, for now, they had a plan.
Above, the stars struggled to pierce through smoke and ash. Somewhere in Kandara, a secret powerful enough to change the world waited. And Ethan Cross was determined to reach it first.
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9.7
Eighteen months ago, the man I loved shattered my heart, claiming everything between us was a mistake. Now, he's back, a ghost of his former self, a rookie tryout in my pro esports team. And I will make him regret crawling back.
Clifton, captain of a legendary esports team, was secretly battling a severe wrist injury that threatened his career, every match a fight against his own body. He pushed through the pain, ignoring doctors' warnings, desperate to maintain his god-like status.
His world was already on the edge, but nothing prepared him for seeing Justice Terry again in the team basement. Justice, pale and trembling, his eyes wide with naked terror, was now a rookie tryout.
Clifton had spent a year and a half trying to forget that rainy Chicago alley, the raw revulsion in Justice's eyes, the whispered "it wasn't real" that had left him heartbroken. Justice had vanished, and Clifton had erased every trace. Now, the boy who once looked at him like he was the sun was back, flinching at his touch, displaying a deep, primal fear. Amidst sponsor pressure and whispers of being "washed," Clifton saw Justice's return as a chance for vengeance. He publicly humiliated Justice on a live stream, forcing him into a suicide mission, then coldly benched him.
Yet, the satisfaction never came. Instead, a hollow emptiness and a torrent of questions: What had truly happened in the past? Why was Justice here, and what trauma had carved such fear into his bones?
Clifton, unwilling to be fooled again, swore to uncover every secret and every lie. He would force Justice to explain why he had returned, even if it meant tearing down everything they both had left.
8.7
Aria Blackwood grew up as the Alpha's daughter. Everyone expected her to lead. She was taught to stand tall, never bow.
Then came her eighteenth birthday. In front of the whole pack, her mate rejected her.
Rafe Daniels didn't just break her heart-he shattered the bond and turned it into a battlefield.
Five years later, Silver Crest has fallen. Aria's father is gone. Her pack has surrendered. And Aria? He keeps her alive for one thing: to serve in the house of the man who wrecked her world.
Rafe calls it mercy, this humiliation. He thinks she's beaten.
Let him think it.
She drops her gaze, but she catches every whisper. She carries out orders, but she's always plotting. And that mate bond-they both feel it burning, whether they want it or not. Aria just turns that fire into something sharper.
Revenge.
She was never supposed to kneel. She was born to rule. And she's going to take her throne back-even if she has to destroy the man fate chose for her.
9.7
Giana woke up drugged and burning with fever in a luxurious hotel suite. Standing before her was Cornel Stark, the most ruthless billionaire in New York.
Memories of her past life stabbed into her brain. In that life, her adoptive family and her fiancé Gary had stolen her inheritance and left her to die a brutal, agonizing death.
She also remembered how fighting Cornel only made him more violent. So this time, she didn't scream.
She endured his brutal punishment, escaped the moment he let his guard down, and swallowed a Plan B pill on the freezing streets.
Returning to her adoptive family's mansion, she faced the people who had destroyed her. Her fiancé and her stepsister put on masks of fake concern, secretly mocking her.
Instead of throwing a useless tantrum like before, Giana deliberately threw herself down the steep wooden stairs.
She smashed her head against the marble floor, using her own blood to shatter their plans and win back her mother's trust.
She thought she had finally taken control. She was ready to crush the people who had betrayed her and live for herself.
But she didn't understand why the billionaire she had just escaped was suddenly turning her life upside down.
When she woke up in the hospital, her room wasn't filled with her family's fake tears, but an ocean of blood-red roses.
The heavy door swung open, and Cornel Stark walked in, his gray eyes locking onto her with a dark, predatory hunger.
"Remember this feeling, Giana. Every breath you take belongs to me now."
8.3
I took the fall for my sister and endured three years of torment in prison.
My knee was shattered, my body covered in scars, and I almost lost my life in that "accident".
On the day I was released, clinging to the last shred of hope, I ran toward my fiancé Benito’s Maybach—only to hear his cold voice: "Your existence is just a nuisance."
It turned out that the beatings and cigarette burns in prison were all arranged by him, paid for with his money. It turned out that the sister I had protected with all my heart had long been switching my medicine behind my back, hoping I would be completely crippled.
At the family gala, they joined hands to strip me bare in front of the flashing camera lights. My father slapped me hard across the face and roared: "Why didn’t you just die in prison?"
I smiled and tore apart my tattered dress, then dialed the number I had hidden in my heart for three years—the man who only understood blood for blood, his voice hoarse and alluring: "Turn around."
This time, I will no longer be a toy to be manipulated.
I will tear off their masks and burn the Stafford family to the ground.
By the way, I will take back everything that belongs to me—including him, the one hiding in the shadows.
7.8
VANESSA
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. But for me, that's not enough. I want it to hit so hard they beg for their lives.
Five years ago, my own husband left me to die in a fire. I watched him walk away, his eyes full of hate. In my last moments, I thought about how unfair it was, that I was dying while the people who did wrong were free. As if some higher power heard me, I was saved.
Now, I'm back and my only purpose is to give Ethan Croft exactly what he deserves. He took everything from me, and now I will take everything he loves, in the most painful way possible.
I have it all planned out. But there's something or someone else I didn't plan on. Ceron Morrison. He's tall, dark, and dangerously handsome. He's a mystery and a distraction I can't afford. He's a threat to the revenge I have sworn to complete.
But no matter what comes my way, I'll make Ethan pay. I'll burn his entire world to the ground, even if it means I get burned in the flames, too.
CERON
Vanessa Ashford has taken over my mind without even trying.
The first time I saw her, she was putting a thief on the ground at the airport with a single, perfect kick. I was captivated. As the heir to a powerful family, I'm used to getting anything I want. And I want her. I want to know her secrets.
Vanessa has built high walls around herself, but I am not a quitter. As I slowly peel back the layers, I'm discovering a past filled with pain. I can see the fire of vengeance burning in her eyes, a fire so strong it could destroy her.
My family wants me to secure our legacy with a sensible, strategic marriage. But all I can think about is the woman who wears her revenge like a custom-made gown. I know I should walk away. But something in me can't stand the thought of her facing the darkness alone.
The real question is, when she finally plays her last card, will I be the one to save her? Or will I just become another victim caught in the crossfire?
9.0
For years, I exhausted myself trying to be the perfect, obedient heiress of the ultra-wealthy Carlisle family.
But my reward wasn't their love. Instead, I was abruptly branded a fake, thrown out of the estate, and sent to a brutal black-site prison to take the fall for someone else's crimes.
My cold CEO brother, Julian, didn't lift a finger to save me. My carefully selected boyfriend, Connor, sold me out without a second thought.
In that maximum-security cell, I was stripped of my dignity. I ate moldy, insect-infested bread, and my soft hands were covered in thick, ugly scars from fighting off murderers.
I watched inmates get beaten half to death over a single cracker, while my so-called family continued their pristine, luxurious lives on the outside.
"She's just a parasite, let her rot."
I died in that dark cell, completely abandoned. The sheer exhaustion of trying to please them, of trying to be flawless, washed over my final moments like a physical sickness.
I didn't understand why my absolute loyalty was repaid with such ruthless cruelty.
Then, water rushed out of my lungs in a violent, burning surge.
I opened my eyes to the pristine blue pool of the Carlisle estate, my body completely unscarred. I had reverted to being fifteen again.
This time, I was done playing the perfect daughter. If my fate was a prison cell, I was going to spend my remaining freedom tearing their perfect world apart.