Once

"Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day"

- William Shakespeare, Richard II

__________________

THE REAPER FILE -- CLASSIFIED DOSSIER

[TOP SECRET -- MI6/BLACK OPERATIONS DIVISION]

Clearance Level: ALPHA BLACK

Eyes Only: Directorate Level Personnel

SUBJECT FILE: BARNES, GABRIEL ("REAPER")

OPERATIVE STATUS: ACTIVE / ROGUE POTENTIAL

AGENCY AFFILIATION: SAS -- SPECIAL AIR SERVICE

LAST VERIFIED ASSIGNMENT: OPERATION BLACK SWAN [SEE: FILE 001-A THROUGH FILE 003-F]

MISSION OBJECTIVE:

Monitor, neutralize, or contain foreign operative:

Subject: VETROVA, NATALIA ("SWAN")

Threat Level: EXTREME

Risk of Alliance Compromise: CRITICAL

Psychological Vulnerability Indicators: CONFIRMED

NOTES:

Barnes demonstrated operational drift during deep field missions Istanbul, Milan, Lisbon.

Unauthorized personal connection to target suspected.

Psychological evaluations inconclusive: classified "high-functioning liability."

FINAL DIRECTIVE:

"The Reaper doesn't miss. Ensure he doesn't start now."

--Directorate Order D-17 / Eyes Only

__________________

[TOP SECRET -- MI6/BLACK OPERATIONS DIVISION]

Clearance Level: ALPHA BLACK

Eyes Only: Directorate Level Personnel

SUBJECT FILE: VETROVA, NATALIA ("SWAN")

OPERATIVE STATUS: ACTIVE -- UNCONFIRMED ROGUE

AGENCY AFFILIATION: SVR (FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE, RUSSIA)

LAST VERIFIED SIGHTING: NATO Summit Perimeter -- [REDACTED AIRFIELD]

MISSION OBJECTIVE:

Monitor for intent to compromise NATO security infrastructure.

Confirm suspected defection attempts.

Authorize neutralization if extraction becomes impossible.

Threat Level: EXTREME

Psychological Profile: CLASSIFIED -- POTENTIAL EMPATHIC FRACTURES DETECTED

NOTES:

Subject is fluent in English, Russian, French, and Italian.

Primary tactics:

Psychological manipulation.

Seduction and embedded asset conversion.

Precision termination operations ("no prints, no traces").

Behavioral Deviations Recorded:

Lisbon, Portugal: unexpected hesitation during termination window.

Vienna, Austria: uncharacteristic rescue of foreign operative (Subject: BARNES, G.).

Munich, Germany: deviation from exit protocol; compromised mole with lethal force without secondary clearance.

FIELD RISK ASSESSMENT:

Subject may have developed personal emotional ties inconsistent with SVR operational standards.

Monitoring agency recommends immediate reassessment: high probability of dual loyalty or unclassified motives.

FINAL DIRECTIVE:

"If Swan flies too far from the pond, clip her wings before she learns how to land."

--Directorate Order S-8 / Eyes Only

__________________

(POV: Gabriel "Reaper" Barnes):

__________________

FILE 001-A | OPERATION: IRON VEIL

LOCATION: Montenegro Airfield

DATE: 15 March

TIME: 0700 HRS

STATUS: MISSION PENDING

OBJECTIVE: Confirm Subject: VETROVA, NATALIA. Intervene if threat exceeds clearance level.

The scope hums in my ear like a heartbeat I no longer trust.

Wind's steady--seven knots, southeast. Distance: 1,900 meters. Angle of elevation: two degrees, give or take. Easy math for someone like me. I've taken harder shots in worse conditions. But not like this. Not with her in the crosshairs. Not with my finger trembling like it forgot who the hell I am.

It's almost funny.

This wasn't the life I was supposed to have.

My father made damn sure of that.

Military man to the core--Queen's Guard, stiff upper lip, medals he never wore because pride got you killed faster than a bullet. He spent every penny, every last breath, trying to carve me a different future. Best schools. Best tutors. Best lies. Wanted me behind a desk, not a rifle. Wanted me safe.

I threw it all back in his face.

I chose Sandhurst. I chose boots on the ground and blood under my nails. When I volunteered for the SAS, he didn't even come to the ceremony. Said he didn't raise a son just to watch him die for someone else's orders.

We never talked about it after that.

We didn't talk about much, after that.

MI6 was supposed to be the clean version. The sharp suit, the polished lies, the detached patriotism.

I should've known better.

You can't polish a weapon like me. You can only hide it in the dark and hope it doesn't remember how to bite.

And now here I am.

Rifle loaded.

Heart empty.

Pointed at the only person who ever made me think maybe there was a way out of all this.

She's laughing again. Natalia Vetrova--codename Swan--perched beside a NATO general like she belongs there. White wine. Designer sunglasses. A scarf the color of arterial blood. If the intel's right, and it usually is, she's about to turn him. The man's got enough clearance to cripple half the defense infrastructure of Europe. And she--she's not bluffing this time. Not seducing for intel. Not playing a part. She means it. Which means I've got a decision to make.

I shift my weight slightly, careful not to rattle the gravel beneath me. The rifle stays steady. Breath in. Hold. Breath out. My finger hovers just shy of the trigger, not quite ready to commit the sin.

I glance at the black cord bracelet on my left wrist--frayed, worn smooth at the edges.

The only thing left from the last time I believed in something.

Funny.

Ten years ago, I wore this to remember Brenda.

Now I talk to it like it's her ghost.

"You wouldn't understand," I whisper to it. "Or maybe you would."

Natalia didn't do anything to me. Not really. She didn't lie. Not more than I did. She didn't pull away. Hell, she was the one who wanted more. Marriage. Escape. Peace.

But this... this thing she's about to do?

It's not personal.

It's treason.

It's betrayal on a scale that breaks nations.

And I can't ignore it.

Even if part of me would rather put this bullet in my own head..

People think betrayal comes with broken glass and screaming. Truth is, it sneaks up quiet. Dresses itself in familiar smiles and shared beds. Breathes you in, and when you're not looking, guts you clean.

That's what this is. That's what she is. The second woman I ever loved. And now I have to erase her like bad handwriting on a death warrant.

The Reaper of Death. That's what they call me. A whisper in the halls of command. A threat in the mouths of war criminals. I've never missed a mark. Never second-guessed the kill. But I also never imagined I'd find someone after Brenda. Someone who made the noise stop. Made the killing feel like a bad habit I could finally kick. Until now.

Natalia lifts her glass, lips curled into that knowing smirk. I wonder if she knows I'm here. Part of me hopes she does. Maybe she'll walk away. Maybe she'll give me a reason not to pull this trigger.

But deep down, we both know the score.

You're here because you want to know how it got this far.

How a man who was trained to forget learned to love again--

--and how that love became just another target.

Alright. I'll show you.

But don't expect a fairytale.

Don't expect forgiveness.

This is the story of how love dies quiet.

With a breath held too long...

And a bullet born screaming.

The trigger's cold against my finger, but the memory still burns.

Five months ago, I was standing in the Syrian desert, sweat in my eyes and blood on my boots, chasing a ghost I hadn't even met yet.

You want to know how it ends?

First, you have to see how it really started.

__________________

FILE 001-B | OPERATION: SAND ECHO

LOCATION: Northern Syria Outpost

DATE: 05 November (5 months prior)

TIME: 0027 HRS

STATUS: OBJECTIVE COMPLETED

OBJECTIVE: Neutralize arms broker. Secure intel asset

The desert never sleeps. It just changes the way it watches you. In the day, it blinds you--heat boiling the horizon into a blur, haze clawing at your throat until you forget your own name. At night, it breathes against your neck. Whispers secrets in the wind. And if you stop listening--if you stop moving--it folds you into its silence and forgets you were ever there.

I crouched outside a compound stitched together with rust and stubbornness. Northern Syria. Off every map that mattered. The kind of place built for men who didn't want to be found, and who deserved even less. Intel said a Russian arms dealer was holed up inside--moving black-market drones to Iranian proxies.

My orders were simple: confirm the bastard's presence.

Kill him.

Burn everything else to ash.

I moved like a stitch ripped through black cloth--silent, fast, inevitable. One guard at the rear--out cold before he even finished blinking. Another on the roof--dropped with a suppressed shot, the pop swallowed whole by the desert's infinite indifference.

I don't think about them anymore.

Not their faces.

Not their names.

They were obstacles.

And I've never had much patience for obstacles.

The main structure sagged under its own filth--warped wood, rust-gnawed sheet metal, concrete baked brittle and splintered by years of merciless sun. I breached through the back--no finesse, no ceremony.

Found the dealer cross-legged on a threadbare carpet, counting blood money with fingers too soft for this kind of work. His bodyguards laughed in the next room, arguing about football.

They didn't hear a thing.

Two shots.

One to the throat--so he couldn't scream.

One to the face--so no one would ask for an open casket.

Clean. Mechanical. Forgotten before he hit the ground.

I moved fast after that. Satellite phone. Laptop. Hard drive tucked under a prayer mat, like he thought Allah was running tech support. I set a small charge on the munitions stash--just enough for fireworks.

Figured the locals would blame it on rival smugglers.

They always do.

Before I exfiltrated, I cracked open the laptop.

Most of it was garbage--encrypted dead weight.

But one folder stood out.

Unmarked. Hidden under five layers of false trails.

I dug. I broke through.

The first word that greeted me: Swan.

It stopped me cold.

You don't get moments like that often in the field--when the blood's still drying on your hands and the reek of gun oil clings to your skin--and then something slithers in sideways, all wrong.

A name.

A codename.

Something that doesn't belong.

Swan.

At the time, it meant nothing to me.

Just another ghost buried in a dead man's sins.

But now?

Now it howls.

Back at the outpost, I uploaded the files to MI6 under priority flagging--red-labeled, encrypted, shuffled off to analysts who'd pick it apart like carrion birds tearing at the bones.

I didn't wait for orders. Didn't stick around for the aftertaste.

The job was done.

At least, it was supposed to be.

Still, the name followed me.

I'd seen plenty of aliases--Viper, Kraken, Widowmaker.

Names built to terrify or taunt.

But Swan...

Swan felt different.

Elegant. Untouchable.

The kind of lie that wears a silk dress and smiles at you while it slips the knife between your ribs.

I remember standing outside the compound right before detonation.

The wind kicked up, hot and sour, carrying sand like razors across the sky until the stars themselves bled into smoke.

I watched the place burn.

Watched a man's empire crumble to ash in less than two minutes.

It should've felt like victory.

It didn't.

It felt like the match had only just been struck.

Like I'd kicked open a hornet's nest wrapped in silk and dared it to sting.

Funny thing about mirages:

They don't lie.

They just make you hope that what you're seeing is real.

I thought Swan was a ghost.

Turns out, she was real.

And even back then--covered in blood, lungs full of grit, hands already moving toward the next kill--I was already falling into her orbit.

Long before I ever laid eyes on her.

That name--Swan--haunted every satellite ping and whispered dead drop after that.

By the time I made it to Istanbul, I wasn't chasing answers anymore.

I was chasing her.

And lying to myself about what I hoped I'd find.

__________________

FILE 001-C | OPERATION: BLACK WATER

LOCATION: Istanbul, Turkey

DATE: 14 November

TIME: 2145 HRS

STATUS: CONTACT ESTABLISHED

OBJECTIVE: Monitor target activities; identify rogue actors.

Istanbul smells like secrets and old blood. Spice, salt, sweat, and the ghosts of empires rotting slow in the alleys.

If there's a city where a handshake can start a war, it's here.

And if you're dumb enough to come looking for truth in a place like this, you deserve what you get.

I wasn't here for truth. I was chasing a whisper across a wire. A thread from Syria that led straight into this concrete hive of knives and nicotine. Satellite bounce said a meeting near the Bosphorus. Same broker. Same filth. Black market drone components--sold to anyone willing to pay in blood and crypto.

I checked into a hotel so run-down even the rats looked like they needed a drink. Waited for my contact.

He was late.

Typical CIA.

When he finally slithered through the door, he looked like something a wet bar towel coughed up. Face like a used napkin. Stank of desperation and bad bourbon.

"Back off, Barnes," he said before his ass even hit the chair. "You're not cleared for this op. We've got someone inside."

I just stared at him over my tea. Didn't say a word. Didn't have to.

We weren't friends.

We weren't allies.

We were two hammers arguing over who got to break the glass first.

He kept talking anyway. "You show up, you risk blowing the whole thing."

I told him I'd take that risk.

He called me a bloody idiot.

He wasn't wrong. But idiots live longer than heroes in this business.

The meet was set for a penthouse across the canal. Flashy, loud, dripping in rented gold and broken promises. A riverside club crawling with mercs who thought earpieces and cheap suits made them invisible.

They didn't.

From my rooftop, I watched three cars pull up. Lazarenko climbed out of the second--fat on stolen money and bad cigars.

And then I saw her.

She stepped out of the third car like sin wrapped in silk.

Tall. Raven-black braid. Mirrored sunglasses catching the sun just enough to blind you if you stared too long.

Sidearm tucked under a tailored jacket like a promise she knew how to keep. Not a bodyguard. Not a mark.

Something else.

The kind of danger you don't clock until it's already got a knife in your ribs.

I didn't know her name yet. Didn't need to. I knew she wasn't one of ours.

And I knew she didn't give a damn who saw her.

I went in low and quiet. Maintenance corridor. Badge stolen from a man who wouldn't be needing it anymore.

No fireworks. No heroics. Just another shadow moving through the cracks.

Inside, it stank of cheap cologne and cheaper intentions.

Lazarenko was holding court, thinking he was invincible.

But the tension in the room said otherwise.

Too many earpieces. Too many guns. Too many exits planned that no one intended to use unless it all went sideways.

It went sideways faster than even I expected.

Gunfire ripped through the air like the roof had torn open.

Someone jumped early. Maybe greed. Maybe fear. Didn't matter.

Blood was already on the floor, and Lazarenko was scrambling for cover like a rat under a floodlight.

And her?

She moved through it like it was just weather.

Two shots--clean, clinical--dropped a sniper off the mezzanine.

A knife flicked through another man's throat without slowing her stride.

It was poetry.

Ugly, perfect poetry with blood for ink.

I moved without thinking. Covered her left.

We didn't speak. Didn't need to.

Some rhythms you're born knowing--you just don't realize it until it's slicing bodies beside you.

She glanced at me once--calculating, clinical--and said, "You're not one of his."

Accent blurred. British? American? Didn't matter.

I gave her a nod. "Neither are you."

She smirked--barely. A flicker. A challenge. Then she was gone, chasing Lazarenko down a hallway lined with bodies and bad decisions.

I let her go. Not because I couldn't follow.

Because for the first time in too many years, I wanted to.

I didn't know her name. Didn't know what side she was playing.

But the second our knives carved air in the same breath, I knew one thing:

She wasn't a ghost. She was real.

And God help me...

Something in me had already started to burn for her.

I should've walked away. Should've let her disappear into the night like the bad idea she was.

Instead, we met again.

Over cold tea.

Over a broken informant.

Two wolves sizing each other up--

Not sure if we were hunting the same prey...

or each other.

__________________

FILE 001-D | OPERATION: MERCURY GLASS

LOCATION: Istanbul (Grand Bazaar District)

DATE: 15 November

TIME: 0315 HRS

STATUS: INTERROGATION COMPLETE

OBJECTIVE: Extract local intelligence on SVR/Swan activities.

The tea was cold. Bitter. The kind you drink in silence because everything else in the room is louder than words. We sat across from each other in a crumbling café near the Grand Bazaar--her in a silk blouse that dared the morning light to touch her, me in a nondescript jacket that could've belonged to a tourist, a merc, or a ghost. The man between us was shaking. Broken nose. Swollen lip. Eyes darting between the Reaper and the Swan like a rabbit caught between two wolves who weren't sure if they were hungry yet.

"He says someone's targeting both SVR and MI6 assets," I said flatly, translating his Turkish through cracked lips.

Natalia raised a single brow, elegant and amused. "And you believe him?"

"I believe he's scared. Which means someone made him that way."

She sipped her tea, unbothered by the blood on her sleeve. "Or it's just a performance. Men like him are born liars. They die the same."

We'd tracked the same lead. Different sources. Same name: Mesut Kaya. Street broker. Former logistics runner for Turkish intelligence turned freelance peddler of half-truths and dirty whispers. She got to him first. I got there second. Now we were sharing a table with a man who reeked of sweat and betrayal, trying to convince us the game had changed. That there was a new player--someone with reach, and an appetite for chaos.

"He's not lying about the kills," I muttered. "Three dead in the last week. One of them was ours. The other two? Yours."

Her fingers tensed slightly on the cup. A tell, but only if you knew where to look.

"Then perhaps we're not the ones hunting anymore," she said. "Maybe we're the game."

"Unlikely," I replied. "You don't look like prey."

She smiled. Slow. Dangerous. "Neither do you. But you lie like an American."

I let that one hang.

She thought I was CIA. She hadn't said it, but the questions were there--in the way she watched me reload, the way she didn't flinch when I broke the man's finger to make him talk, the way she studied my eyes like she expected stars and stripes hiding behind the blue. I didn't correct her. Better she chase the wrong ghost. I'd spent a lifetime perfecting the art of being underestimated.

Kaya finally passed out--pain or relief, I couldn't tell. She stood first, brushing dust from her slacks with bored grace. "You have a habit of showing up where you're not wanted."

"And you have a habit of stabbing people before they speak," I said.

"Efficiency," she replied, slipping on her sunglasses. "You should try it sometime."

She turned and walked out without another word.

I stayed behind. Not for him. He'd told us everything he knew--or everything we'd let him keep. No, I stayed because something caught my eye. A napkin. White linen. Lipstick stain at the edge. Her glass had barely been touched, but she left the imprint behind. I stared at it a moment, then folded it and slipped it into my pocket. No reason. Just instinct. Something to remind me this moment happened.

Later, I told myself it was evidence. A precaution. Something a good soldier would do.

But the truth?

The truth is, I kept it because it smelled faintly like her perfume.

And I was already in deeper than I wanted to admit.

Back in London, I handed Alden the kind of report that gets filed and forgotten--clean, clinical, sanitized of everything that mattered.

I told myself it was operational discretion.

Truth was, I just wasn't ready to share her with anyone else.

__________________

FILE 001-E | DEBRIEF: WIDOWMAKER TRACE

LOCATION: MI6 HQ London

DATE: 20 November

TIME: 0900 HRS

STATUS: DEBRIEF INCOMPLETE

OBJECTIVE: Confirm or deny field contact with 'Swan.'

London always feels colder when you've been carrying bodies in your wake. Grey skies, wet pavement, and that damned drizzle that never quite becomes rain. MI6 headquarters was sterile as ever--polished floors, glass walls, and smiles that didn't reach the eyes. I walked in soaked from Istanbul, bone-tired but wired. The kind of edge that doesn't fade until the blood does. My boots echoed through the corridor like war drums no one wanted to hear.

Alden was waiting in the debriefing room, sleeves rolled, tie loose. Deputy Director of MI6's Omega Division. The man who signs the orders that don't officially exist. He gave me that look--the one that says he's not sure if I'm back from the field or just passing through before I disappear again.

"You've been off comms," he said. "We got some chatter. Messy in Turkey."

"Messy, but done," I replied.

"And the girl?"

"What girl?" I asked, like I hadn't already memorized the curve of her jaw and the way she moved like a whisper before a storm.

I gave him the report. Clean, surgical. Lazarenko's escape, Kaya's intel, dead ends and dead men. All of it true. Just not all of it. Natalia didn't make the page. Not by name. Not by shadow. I told myself it was strategic. Operational security. Need-to-know. Truth is, I didn't want her name on their radar. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Alden watched me with the calm of a man who's read too many reports from too many dead operatives. "You're good, Barnes. Too good to let something like sentiment rot your gut. But just in case--there's a whisper going 'round. Russian operative. SVR. Codename Swan. She's moved through five operations in the last year, left no prints, no trail. Just corpses. You seen her?"

I met his eyes and said nothing. The silence stretched.

He raised an eyebrow. "That's not a no."

"Just means I'm listening."

He stood, walked to the window, backlit by the London sky. "You've never been the type to go soft. Don't start now. We lost one of ours in Warsaw last week. Neck snapped. Efficient. Clean. Like a ballet. Some think it's her. If it is, she's good. Widowmaker good."

I should've said something. Instead, I asked for reassignment. "Put me on her. Let me trace it."

He studied me for a beat, then nodded slowly. "You sure?"

"No," I said. "But I'm the best chance you've got."

I walked out of that room feeling the weight settle across my shoulders. Not orders. Not duty. Guilt. The kind that seeps through your skin and roots itself in your spine. It felt like her again--Brenda.

Ten years gone, and I still heard the sound of screeching tires when I closed my eyes. Still saw the way her hair fell across her face in the wreck. I was on mission when she died--extraction in Sarajevo. The call came mid-breach. I froze. First time in my life. My team paid the price. Two wounded. One never walked again. That was the day the Reaper was born. Because the man who loved Brenda didn't make it back.

Now I was staring at another fork in the road. Another woman. Another warning.

Brenda had been the light. Natalia was the flame.

And I was the shadow between them.

One had already burned me.

The other...

I wasn't sure if I wanted to be saved or consumed.

So when intel said she'd resurface in Milan, I didn't hesitate.

Didn't ask for backup.

Didn't tell Alden.

I just packed my gear and walked straight into the fire.

__________________

FILE 001-F | OPERATION: SILK DAGGER

LOCATION: Milan, Italy (Palazzo del Leone)

DATE: 29 November

TIME: 2030 HRS

STATUS: ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE

OBJECTIVE: Confirm Subject: VETROVA at trafficking gala.

Milan wears its corruption well--tailored suits, glittering heels, champagne chilled just enough to blur the lines between predator and prey. The Palazzo del Leone was hosting a gala no one would speak of in polite circles. Art exhibit on the surface. Underground market beneath. The kind where women vanished behind closed doors and were never seen again, sold in whispers and wire transfers. My source said Natalia would be there. I didn't expect her to be the goddamn centerpiece.

She walked in like she owned gravity. Long gown, slit too high for decency, elegance sharpened into a weapon. Her hair was pinned up, not a strand out of place, and her eyes--those cold grey storms--swept the room like searchlights. To everyone else, she was just another model-turned-mistress. To me? She was a tactical nuke in heels. And the way the other guests looked at her--leering, toasting, offering smiles lined with teeth--it made something coil in my gut. Something ugly. Something I didn't want to name.

I kept to the shadows, nursing a drink I wasn't drinking. Watching her flirt with an Italian arms investor whose watch probably cost more than my rifle. She laughed at something he said. Threw her head back just enough to show her neck. I knew that move. I'd seen her do it before--just before stabbing a man in the throat in Istanbul. But tonight, she looked... happy. And it messed with my focus. I wasn't there to feel. I was there to observe. Track. Report. Except I hadn't reported her last time, and I wouldn't tonight either. Which made me a liability. I just didn't care.

I didn't realize I'd been staring too long until she turned her head--slow, deliberate--and locked eyes with me from across the ballroom. No flicker of surprise. No fear. Just the slightest quirk of her lip. Then she broke eye contact and began walking. Not toward the man. Not toward the exit. Toward me. My grip on the glass tightened. She was a hundred feet away, then fifty, then ten--and suddenly her hand was in mine.

"If you're going to stalk me," she whispered, pressing close, "at least pretend to be charming."

And before I could reply, we were on the dance floor.

I don't dance. Ever. Not since Brenda. But Natalia didn't ask. She moved like smoke, hands sure, eyes sharper than the dagger I knew was strapped to her thigh. I matched her step for step, more muscle memory than style. Around us, Milan's elite twirled and laughed, oblivious to the fact that a British ghost and a Russian serpent were orbiting each other in plain sight.

"You clean up well," she said under her breath, lips barely brushing my jaw.

"You still haven't told me your name," I replied.

"Maybe I like secrets."

"Maybe I don't."

She smiled. Not the dangerous one. Not the practiced one. A real one. Small. Human. Honest.

It broke something open in my chest that had been welded shut for a decade.

When the song ended, she didn't let go.

"You shouldn't be here," she said.

"Neither should you."

She looked up at me, and for just a breath, the room fell away.

Then she stepped back, turned, and disappeared into the crowd.

I stood there, still holding the warmth of her in my hands.

And for the first time since Sarajevo, I forgot what it meant to be the Reaper.

Because for the first time since Brenda...

I didn't want to be.

But the world doesn't give you peace for long.

Especially not in places like Milan--where beneath the polished glass and gallery lights, monsters buy lives with diamonds.

And the only waltz worth dancing ends in broken crystal and blood on the floor.

__________________

FILE 001-G | EXTRACTION: CRIMSON TIDE

LOCATION: Milan (Safehouse Outside City)

DATE: 29 November

TIME: 2255 HRS

STATUS: HOSTILE ENGAGEMENT

OBJECTIVE: Extraction under duress. Secure operative withdrawal.

Glass shatters before the music stops. That's always how it begins--elegance crumbling in a heartbeat, gunfire cracking like percussion over a waltz. The chandelier above us exploded first, raining down crystal and powdered plaster. People screamed. Men in tuxedos hit the ground or reached for weapons they thought made them brave. The art dealer at the center of the trafficking ring was already dead, a hole blooming crimson in his chest. And Natalia? She didn't duck. She moved.

I was two steps behind her, pistol drawn before the first echo faded. I couldn't tell who fired the kill shot. Maybe her. Maybe someone else with less patience. It didn't matter. Chaos was currency now, and she was cashing out. She ducked through the gallery's rear exit, gown torn, blood on her cheek--someone else's. I followed. Not because I was supposed to. Not because I was ordered to. I just... did. Like instinct. Like gravity.

We shot our way through a wine cellar. Left three armed men bleeding on the steps. At one point, she spun and fired past my head, nailing a shooter on the mezzanine. I turned, stared, said nothing. She smirked. "You're welcome." I didn't say thank you. But I remember thinking it. Somewhere between the adrenaline and the smoke.

We stole a motorcycle from a valet who pissed himself before we even spoke. The drive through Milan's back alleys was all screech and fury--her hands wrapped around my waist like they belonged there, blood drying on her knuckles. We didn't speak. There was no room for it. Not until we hit the safehouse ten kilometers out. A converted farmhouse with locked windows and a cot that smelled like rust and silence.

Inside, we peeled off ruined clothes in tired, mechanical gestures. I handed her a med kit. She ignored it and reached for a rag. I watched her press it to a graze on her shoulder, eyes glassy, mouth set.

"Why do you keep doing this?" she asked.

"Doing what?" I replied, knowing exactly what she meant.

"This," she said. "Risking everything for missions that don't care if you make it back. For people who won't remember your name."

I didn't answer. Not because I didn't have one. But because mine had been buried under a gravestone marked Brenda a long time ago.

She looked at me then. Really looked. The mask gone, just a woman with blood on her collarbone and a question in her throat. "I stopped asking why years ago. The job was easier when I stopped needing a reason."

I moved closer. "You flinch when I lie to you... but not when I sew you shut," I said quietly.

"That's backwards," she murmured. Her eyes softened, just for a beat.

"You're welcome to stop saving me," I offered, not entirely joking.

She smiled--tight and tired. "You're welcome to stop needing it."

She reached for my arm--grazed by a bullet during the escape--and cleaned it in slow, deliberate movements. Her fingers were gentle. More gentle than I deserved.

"You never flinch," she said softly.

"I used to," I whispered. "A long time ago."

She traced the rope burn on my neck--still faint, still there. "You wear ghosts like medals," she said.

"Better than feeling like a corpse," I said, but the line had no edge tonight.

We didn't sleep that night. Not really.

She sat near the window, shoulder pressed to the frame. I stayed by the door, pistol propped beside me.

Between us: silence. Grief. A slow kind of unraveling.

But for once, it didn't feel like war.

It felt like the first time I'd let someone look straight at the wreckage...

And not look away.

__________________

FILE 001-H | OPERATION: VEILED SONATA

LOCATION: Lisbon, Portugal

DATE: 03 December

TIME: 0410 HRS

STATUS: SUCCESSFUL INTEL ACQUISITION

OBJECTIVE: Disrupt rogue NATO broker network.

Lisbon greeted us like a city too tired to ask questions. Narrow alleys, sun-baked tiles, and shadows that stretched like old regrets. The kind of place that swallowed people whole and never gave back the same version. Our target had resurfaced there--a NATO contractor gone rogue, selling access codes to the highest bidder. Natalia found the lead. I verified it. And for the first time since this mess started, we weren't circling each other from opposite rooftops. We were a team. Or at least something close enough to pretend.

We met in cafés and park benches, posed as tourists with maps and tired smiles. She wore sunglasses big enough to hide behind, and I carried a paperback I never read. Between dead drops and fake rendezvous, we shared bitter espresso and stories we didn't finish. She told me about a childhood ballet recital that went sideways. I told her about Brenda's laugh--just once. Neither of us asked the obvious: What happens when the mission ends? Maybe we were afraid to hear the answer.

At night, we planned. Intel exchanges. Routes. Escape options. There was always a whiteboard between us, figurative or not, keeping the feelings compartmentalized. But the cracks were showing. She laughed once--really laughed--when I botched a Portuguese phrase trying to sweet-talk a baker into selling me off-schedule pastel de nata.

I remember freezing--because the sound of her laugh reminded me of Brenda's. For one awful second, I almost said her name. Almost told Natalia about the morning Brenda danced barefoot in our kitchen to that same stupid jazz song.

But I didn't. Because I didn't know if I was remembering...

Or replacing.

We tracked the broker to a luxury marina just before midnight. Natalia infiltrated the dinner party. I handled security suppression. He never saw it coming. One minute he was toasting the future of global surveillance, the next he was face down in caviar with a poisoned pinprick just beneath his jawline. Clean. Quiet. Classic Natalia. By sunrise, his files were ours, and Lisbon was none the wiser.

Afterward, we sat on a rooftop with a view of the river, sharing a bottle of red too expensive to appreciate. No disguises. No weapons. Just two operatives pretending, for a moment, to be something else.

A record player crackled to life in the next apartment over--faint jazz, distant saxophone and static. Natalia froze for a heartbeat, then stood and shut the window with surprising force.

"You hate jazz?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Too honest."

I laughed. "You keep saying things like that, people might think you're human."

She sat beside me. Close, but not touching. "Do you still see her?"

The question landed like a blade between my ribs. I didn't need to ask who.

"Only when I close my eyes too long."

Natalia nodded. "Me too."

"I was never supposed to trust you," she said quietly, eyes on the water.

"Likewise," I said. "Yet here we are."

"Don't read into it," she added. "Spies lie to themselves better than they lie to anyone else."

"I'm not reading. I'm just listening."

She smiled. A tired one. The kind that says she's been at war long before I ever arrived.

When we stood to leave, I expected her to vanish again. She always did.

But this time, she hesitated. Walked right up to me, placed a hand lightly on my chest.

"If you ever want to disappear..." she said, eyes sharp and soft at once, "you know how to find me."

And then she was gone.

I stood there longer than I should've, the echo of her touch still warm through my shirt.

In that moment, I realized something terrifying.

She hadn't just disappeared into Lisbon's shadows.

She'd left with a piece of me I wasn't sure I'd ever get back.

__________________

FILE 001-I | AFTERMATH REPORT: ECHO FROST

LOCATION: London Flat

DATE: 06 December

TIME: 0200 HRS

STATUS: DEBRIEF AWAITING

OBJECTIVE: Finalize operational closure and exit planning.

The plane touched down in Heathrow under clouds the color of bruises. London hadn't changed. Still cold. Still wet. Still indifferent to the ghosts that walk through it. I stepped off the tarmac and felt the weight settle back on my shoulders like an old coat I thought I'd burned. But this time, it didn't fit the same. Something was different. Something in me was different. For the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about my next assignment, or who I might have to kill. I was thinking about Lisbon. About her.

Back at my flat, I sat in the dark and didn't turn on the lights. Just listened to the radiator knock and the wind claw at the windows. The quiet should've been comforting. It wasn't. Silence had always been my ally, my armor. But now it felt... unfinished. Natalia had slipped into my life like smoke under a door. And now that she was gone, everything smelled like her. The tea I didn't drink. The towel I hadn't used. Even the damn soap in the shower. It was absurd, but it was true. She was everywhere and nowhere all at once.

I started researching in the middle of the night. Old habits. I pulled up dark web vendors, encrypted forums, the kind of places I usually scrub for threats--not salvation. New IDs, clean passports, financial networks that didn't trace. I found everything I needed to disappear. I even mapped the safest routes. Two in Eastern Europe. One through the Balkans. Another over water. I logged it all, memorized it, deleted the history.

I told no one. Not even Alden. Especially not Alden.

A few days later, the message came. No subject. No name. Just coordinates and a date. Two weeks from now. Somewhere in the Peloponnese. Simple, elegant, silent. Just like her.

"We'll be ghosts. Together."

It shouldn't have hit me the way it did. I've read death threats with more poetry. But that one line lit something in my chest I hadn't felt since Brenda died. Hope. Not the loud, cinematic kind. The quiet, insidious sort. The kind that slips past your defenses and starts building a life in the spaces you swore were dead.

I started to see it. A cabin in the hills. A view of the sea. No more missions. No more lies. I'd cook breakfast, she'd critique my eggs, and we'd argue over how to hang the laundry. It wasn't realistic. It wasn't even sane. But I let myself feel it. Just for a minute. I let the fantasy breathe.

Every instinct told me it was a mistake. Men like me don't get peace. We are the war.

But I'd seen something in her eyes in Lisbon--just before she walked away. She wanted it, too. A way out. A life not measured in body counts and burnt intel. Maybe we'd earned it. Or maybe we were just two tired killers pretending to be human for one last act.

Either way, I packed a bag. Nothing much. Just enough to leave quickly.

And when I slipped Brenda's bracelet onto my wrist that night, I didn't do it out of grief.

I did it because I wanted her to come with me--just a little.

I wanted her to know that if I disappeared...

I wasn't doing it to forget her.

I was doing it because, for the first time since she died...

I finally believed I might survive.

That dream lasted four days.

On the fifth, a folder arrived--no digital trail, just my name and a stamp in red.

URGENT.

Inside: her face. Her laugh.

And a list of reasons to pull the trigger.

__________________

FILE 001-J | DIRECTIVE: SWANSONG

LOCATION: MI6 Safe Room

DATE: 07 December

TIME: 0645 HRS

STATUS: PRIORITY DIRECTIVE RECEIVED

OBJECTIVE: Terminate Subject: VETROVA if confirmed defection imminent.

The file was already waiting when I walked into the safe room. Cream-colored folder. No digital trail. Physical only--means it came from high up or someone didn't want it logged. My name scrawled across the front in Alden's tight handwriting. One word stamped in red across the cover: URGENT. I didn't sit. Just stared at it, keys still in hand, like opening it would be the moment I stopped being a man and started being a weapon again.

I peeled it open anyway. I always do. That's the job.

First page: image. Black and white. Surveillance still. Natalia. Smiling. Leaning across a table toward a NATO general with clearance levels that require entire floors of encryption. My pulse skipped. I've been shot, stabbed, burned--and none of it ever made my hands shake. But they were shaking now. Because I knew that expression. Knew the look in her eyes. It wasn't seduction. It was something worse. It was real.

Second page: decrypted comm logs. Keycard transfers. Financial anomalies. A slow bleed of secrets routed through diplomatic blind spots. All signs pointed to a turn. Or worse, a deep game she hadn't told me about. If this had been anyone else, I'd have read the file and loaded my weapon before the coffee got cold. But this was Natalia. My Natalia. And for the first time since Sarajevo, I hesitated.

Alden's note at the bottom was short and clinical:

"If she's compromised, neutralize. Full discretion. No blowback. Assume the worst."

No mention of Lisbon. No sign they knew what she meant to me. Which meant they didn't know. Or they were testing me.

Either way, they'd handed me the bullet.

Now they were waiting to see if I'd fire it.

I spent the next six hours trying to prove the file wrong. Checked every angle, pulled every thread. But it all led to the same place: a private airfield in eastern Europe. Natalia scheduled to meet with the NATO liaison in less than 48 hours. If she flipped him, it wouldn't just compromise operations. It could fracture the alliance. People would die. A lot of them. And all that hope I'd let myself feel?

It curdled. Fast.

I told no one. Packed my bag. Cleaned my rifle like it was just another Tuesday. Except it wasn't. This was supposed to be the day I disappeared. The day I stopped being The Reaper.

But ghosts don't get happy endings. They get assignments.

__________________

Present Time: 15 March

On the roof. Prone. Rifle set.

Target in sight: 1,900 meters. Wind southeast.

She's laughing again.

I remember that laugh.

And now I have to end it.

__________________

FILE 002-A | DEEP TRACE: OPERATION CLASSIFIED HEARTS

LOCATION: London, MI6 (Private Terminal)

DATE: 09 December

TIME: 0315 HRS

STATUS: [DATA DISCREPANCY DETECTED]

OBJECTIVE: Verify Subject: VETROVA, NATALIA -- Confirm allegiance.

The file sat on my desk like it knew what I wouldn't say out loud. I'd opened it a dozen times, maybe more. Natalia Vetrova. SVR. Codename: Swan. The evidence wasn't just convincing--it was surgical. Surveillance footage, intercepted messages, travel patterns, aliases. If MI6 had painted her as a ghost, this was her exorcism. But even with all that in front of me, I hadn't said a word. Not to Alden. Not to anyone. I told myself I needed more time. But the truth? I didn't want to confirm what I already knew.

I cross-referenced everything. Scrubbed through MI6 intel, SVR defector interviews, backdoor chatter from Langley. Her name came up like a knife in soft fabric--never loud, but always deliberate. I built a timeline, one operation at a time. Geneva. Prague. Warsaw. Her fingerprints weren't on any of them, but her ghost was. Men who'd died clean. Secrets that vanished. Patterns that looked a hell of a lot like hers. The more I read, the more my hands clenched--around the truth, around the hope that perhaps she was playing both sides for something better.

What a joke. Hope. That's the first casualty in our line of work, and yet there I was, resurrecting it like a lunatic whispering to bones. I didn't delete the files, but I didn't forward them either. Kept them on a locked drive, buried behind ten layers of encryption even Alden couldn't breach without sweating. It wasn't about protecting her--not really. It was about me. About needing to believe that I hadn't let my guard down for a lie in heels and a pearl earring.

I told myself I was doing my job--cross-checking, verifying, making sure the intel was solid. But it wasn't orders I was following. It was instinct. Worse--it was guilt. Every photo of her face, every transcript that hinted at betrayal, felt like a blade under the rib. I wanted to believe I was being thorough. But in truth, I was digging for a reason not to end her.

Late at night, when the flat went quiet and the radiator tapped like old memories, I'd sit at my desk and wonder: what if she already knew? What if she saw me back in Milan or Istanbul and recognized more than just the uniform? What if she saw through all of it--the grief, the ghosts, the guilt I wear like a second skin? What if she stayed anyway?

That thought twisted something sharp in me. Because if she knew who I was--what I was--and didn't run? Then maybe she wasn't playing me at all. Maybe she was just as tired of running as I was. Maybe those moments in Lisbon weren't part of some long con. Maybe they were real. And if they were... how the hell do I put a bullet in someone who gave me that?

I didn't sleep much that week. I'd wake up with her name on my tongue, her laugh in my ears, and the stench of cordite still clinging to the back of my throat. I should've called it in. Should've raised the alarm and let the professionals do their job. But I didn't. I couldn't. Because somewhere between the safehouse and the rooftop, between the kiss she didn't finish and the life we almost talked about, I'd stopped being The Reaper.

And started becoming the man who needed her to be innocent.

Even if it meant lying to myself.

Even if it meant dying for it.

___________________________

FILE 002-B | GHOSTWALKER ACCESS: OPERATION A GAME OF NAMES

LOCATION: Prague, Czech Republic (Black Alley)

DATE: 12 December

TIME: 2310 HRS

STATUS: [FIELD AGENT BREACH]

OBJECTIVE: Observe target movements. No interference authorized.

She shouldn't have been there. Not in that alley, not during that hour, not when she had every reason to stay hidden. But there she was--Natalia Vetrova, codename Swan, the phantom MI6 had never quite caught--pulling me out of a surveillance kill box like I was the one who didn't know the rules. I'd been tracking a NATO subcontractor through Prague's twisting backstreets when the ambush hit: two shooters, clean formation, tactical spacing. Professional. I didn't flinch. I moved. But not fast enough. The third man would've nailed me in the spine--if she hadn't shot him first.

I didn't have time to ask why. She just ghosted past me, whispering, "You're welcome," like I'd dropped my keys instead of almost dying. Then she vanished--heels clicking once, twice, gone. And all I could think was: she's not just reckless. She's compromised. She came back for me, and in our world, that means one of two things--emotional attachment, or suicidal stupidity. Either way, it's fatal.

Later, I intercepted audio from a dead SVR channel. Prague. Her voice, colder than usual, but fraying at the edges if you knew how to listen. She told her handler the Brit had disappeared. Said the trail had gone cold. Said she was moving forward solo. A clean report, professionally delivered. But I heard it--something under the surface. A hesitation. A fracture. She wasn't just lying to him. She was trying to lie to herself.

I've heard her voice enough to know when it starts to crack. Just enough breath in the wrong place. Just enough pause between syllables. Her handler bought it, but he wasn't listening the way I was. He told her to continue the op. That her extraction depended on finishing the contact flip. That if she hesitated again, "we'll consider alternate options." I knew what that meant. So did she. SVR doesn't send flowers. They send cleaners.

I should've pulled back. Reported it. Forwarded the comm logs straight to Alden and let the machine chew her up. But I didn't. I kept listening. I kept watching. And I kept remembering the way her hand had brushed my shoulder after the firefight in Milan, like she wasn't sure if she was checking for wounds or permission. She didn't ask for either. Neither did I.

I started reviewing old footage. Her hits. Her setups. Her disappearances. Patterns began to fray. Her efficiency was still flawless, but the choices? Sloppier. Emotional. There was one camera frame--Berlin, two months back--where she hesitated on a mark. Just for half a second. Long enough to wonder. Long enough to care. That hesitation used to be mine. Now it was hers.

You don't survive this job with feelings. You bury them. You fold them into your ribs and pretend they're armor. But I'd seen the crack, and now I couldn't unsee it. Worse--she'd seen mine. And instead of exploiting it, she'd saved my life. Not once. Twice. The first in Milan. The second in Prague. And if there's one thing I know about Natalia Vetrova--it's that she never does anything without a reason.

That's when I started calling her by name. Not "the Swan." Not "the asset." Not "the target." Just Natalia. Quietly. In my head.

Because once a ghost has a name, she stops being a mission.

And starts becoming a memory you're not ready to lose.

___________________________

FILE 002-C | FIELD REPORT: JOINT OPERATION KILL SHARED

LOCATION: Vienna Underground Network

DATE: 17 December

TIME: 0145 HRS

STATUS: [UNSANCTIONED ALLIANCE CONFIRMED]

OBJECTIVE: Neutralize arms transfer -- without field fraternization.

We weren't supposed to cross paths again. Not officially. Not off-book in a freezing Viennese train tunnel two levels beneath the city, the air thick with diesel and unspoken consequences. But there she was--Natalia--waiting at the edge of the platform like a phantom with a loaded pistol and a plan I hadn't been briefed on. The op was simple enough: intercept a weapons transfer disguised as a humanitarian drop. But of course, nothing ever stays simple when she's involved.

The tunnel lit up fast--bullets, blades, bodies. She took the east flank. I handled west. One of us shouted "left!" right as the other dodged low, and somehow we moved like we'd trained together for years. Back-to-back, we bled and breathed and fought like dying wasn't an option. When my knife slipped, she was there. When her clip ran dry, I covered her reload. Not a word spoken, but every motion spoke volumes.

I caught a blade in the shoulder near the end. Clean slice, just under the collarbone--enough to remind me I'm not as fast as I used to be. I kept moving until the last man dropped, but by then I was starting to see double. She dragged me into a service alcove, pushed me down onto a crate, and didn't ask permission before tearing open the wound like she owned it. "Hold still," she said, voice flat but too careful. Like maybe she wasn't just talking to my arm.

I didn't flinch. Not from the sting of alcohol, not from the needle, not from her fingers pressed against the skin I usually keep under Kevlar and silence. That surprised us both. For a decade, I've jerked away from every well-meaning hand, every medic, every woman who thought she could reach what was buried under Brenda's ghost. But Natalia didn't try to reach. She just was. Quiet. Focused. Human. And that was somehow worse.

I looked at her hands as she worked--steady, graceful, lethal. The same hands that had taken lives were now stitching flesh back together like she was holding something delicate. Like maybe she didn't want me to fall apart. She tied off the thread and sat back, eyes searching my face for something I wasn't ready to name. "You've lost blood," she said. "More than you think." I nodded once. "Still here." That made her mouth twitch--half-smile, half warning. "For now."

We didn't talk after that. Not about the op. Not about the way her touch lingered a second too long on my wrist. We just sat in the quiet hum of the underground, two killers catching their breath and trying to remember what breathing even felt like. The silence wasn't awkward. It was earned. Like we'd both finally stopped running--for five minutes, at least.

When I finally stood, my shoulder aching like memory, she handed me my coat without a word. I pulled it on, slower than usual. She didn't look away as I moved. And I didn't hide the wince. Didn't pretend. That was the difference now--no masks. No armor. Just breath and blood, and something fragile suspended in the space between us.

I don't know what changed down there. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But when her hand brushed mine as we walked into the night, I didn't pull away.

Because for the first time in ten years...

I didn't want to.

___________________________

FILE 002-D | INTERCEPT: DINNER THAT WASN'T

LOCATION: Vienna (Undisclosed Fine Dining Establishment)

DATE: 18 December

TIME: 2015 HRS

STATUS: OPERATIONAL DRIFT RECORDED

OBJECTIVE: Monitor asset interaction for psychological compromise.

We were halfway through a bottle of wine neither of us liked when I realized this was a terrible idea. Dinner, I mean. Candlelight, linen napkins, the kind of place where the menu doesn't list prices because if you have to ask, you don't belong. Natalia chose it, of course. Said she wanted to try something "normal." As if either of us had any clue what that meant anymore. I wore a suit that still smelled like cordite. She wore red. Of course she did. Like a warning.

The waiter asked if we were celebrating anything. She said "a temporary ceasefire." I think he thought it was a joke. I didn't laugh. Neither did she. We ordered food we barely touched and talked around the silence like it might explode. She asked if I'd ever considered retirement. I said I'd consider it if the world stopped needing ghosts with guns. She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

Halfway through her glass, she raised it and said, "To second chances." Then stopped. Glass midair, lips parted like the words got stuck somewhere behind her teeth. I watched her, not the toast. She blinked once. Twice. Then lowered the glass without drinking. I didn't ask why. Didn't have to. We both knew there are some lies even wine can't help swallow.

"You don't believe in peace, do you?" she asked softly. Not accusing. Just curious.

I shook my head. "Peace is a fairytale for people who've never seen what war does to the ones who survive it."

She stared at me like she was reading a dossier. "You know, I've met monsters. Patriots. Liars. Lovers. But never anyone so tragic and brave at the same time."

I scoffed, but not because I disagreed. Just didn't like hearing it out loud.

The tension in the room thickened, heavy with things we weren't saying. Our eyes kept meeting, then darting away. Every time our hands brushed--reaching for a fork, a napkin, the check--it felt like defusing a mine. And still, we stayed. Neither of us moved. Not forward. Not away. Just close enough to feel the heat, not the flame.

We laughed, once. Over something small. I don't even remember the line. But it came out of both of us at the same time--sharp, startled, almost human. And then just like that, the laughter faded into quiet. She looked at me. Really looked. I leaned in. She didn't stop me. Her eyes dropped to my mouth. I held my breath.

And then we both retreated--simultaneous, like a well-rehearsed extraction. I reached for the glass. She reached for the door. No apologies. Just silence. The kind that says not yet. Not here. Not like this. The moment passed. But it didn't vanish. It waited.

As I watched her slip into the night, heels clicking like punctuation, I realized what that dinner really was. Not a date. Not a disaster.

It was foreplay for spies--calculated longing disguised as civility.

And if restraint is a weapon, then God help me.

She's already won.

___________________________

FILE 002-E | ALERT: GHOST PROTOCOLS INITIATED

LOCATION: London HQ -- Shadow Directive Channel

DATE: 19 December

TIME: 0630 HRS

STATUS: STAND DOWN ORDER ISSUED -- [BREACH PENDING]

OBJECTIVE: Terminate surveillance. Let kill team proceed.

Alden slid the file across the table like it was just another day in the business of sanctioned murder. No ceremony. No raised voice. Just that low, patient tone of his that always made the worst news sound like a weather report. "She's been flagged," he said. "Asset compromised. Another agency's taken interest. Langley wants her off the board. Quietly." His fingers tapped the desk--three beats, then still. "You're to stand down. Effective immediately."

I nodded. Calm. Composed. Every inch the obedient ghost I've spent years pretending to be. I even added a clipped, "Understood," for effect. Then I left the room with my pulse pretending to behave and my thoughts already fifty steps ahead. Because what Alden didn't know--what I couldn't tell him--was that I'd booked a ticket to Berlin three hours before he called the meeting.

No one knew where I was going. No mission file, no comms trail. I pulled the old extraction kit from the locker--burner phone, unregistered weapon, false ID with a German passport and the name "Thomas Avery." Not my worst alias. A little obvious if you knew what to look for. I didn't care. This wasn't about blending in. This was about getting to her before the kill team did.

I sat on the plane with a quiet certainty that felt like betrayal in my gut. Not to the agency. I'd stopped caring about protocol months ago. No--this betrayal was to the version of myself who always followed orders, who believed in clean lines and clean kills. The Reaper doesn't flinch. He doesn't feel. He finishes the job and vanishes. But I wasn't him anymore. Not completely.

I thought about her the whole flight. The way she laughed that night in Lisbon, the way her hands didn't tremble when she stitched me back together in Vienna. I thought about the look on her face when she couldn't finish that toast. "To second chances." God, what a fucking mess. She wasn't innocent. But she wasn't the enemy either. Not to me. Not anymore.

And maybe that's what scared me most. Not that she'd been marked. Not that I might have to stand between her and a kill order. But that I didn't know if I'd stop the bullet...

Or take it for her.

Berlin was cold when I landed. Steel and glass and static. The kind of city where shadows live long after the sun rises. I moved like I always had--quiet, careful, unseen. But this time, I wasn't looking for a target. I was looking for her. Not to interrogate. Not to neutralize. Just to find her. To make sure she was still breathing. To give myself time to figure out what the hell I was going to do if she wasn't.

And somewhere between the checkpoint and the safehouse she didn't know I knew about, it hit me.

I wasn't on a mission anymore.

I wasn't following orders.

I was following her.

And for the first time in my life, I had no idea what that would cost.

___________________________

FILE 002-F | [DATA CORRUPTED] UNDER FIRE

LOCATION: Berlin Freight Yards

DATE: 21 December

TIME: 0047 HRS

STATUS: MISSION FILE CORRUPTED

OBJECTIVE: [REDACTED]

The ambush hit just after midnight. Train yard outskirts of Berlin--rusted steel, oil-slicked tracks, fog rolling in like it knew what was coming. I was supposed to be eyes only. Watch from a distance. Get in, get her out before the kill team made their move. But plans rarely survive proximity to Natalia Vetrova. Especially when she shows up three minutes early and they're already waiting for her.

First shot came from the scaffolding--high caliber, close range. Professional. She ducked behind a crate. I returned fire from the loading platform, my heart already rewriting every excuse I'd rehearsed. Smoke grenades bloomed around us. Someone barked orders in English. Another voice cursed in Russian. This wasn't an arrest. It was a cleanup. One bullet at a time.

She saw me before I spoke. Eyes wide--anger first, then something worse: recognition. I took out one of the shooters flanking her blind side. She didn't thank me. Just shouted over the chaos, "Why are you here, Gabriel?!" I couldn't answer. Not because I didn't know--God, I did--but because saying it out loud would make it real. And right now, the only thing keeping us alive was pretending we were still the people who walked away from each other in Lisbon.

We moved like instinct. Back-to-back again. Rhythm perfect, breath synced like a metronome of mayhem. I covered her reload. She nailed the sniper nest. We didn't speak. Didn't need to. When the path to the perimeter collapsed under gunfire, she grabbed my wrist and yanked me toward the maintenance hatch. "Drainage," she mouthed. I nodded. No argument. Just trust.

The tunnel was half-flooded and stank of iron and old water. We waded in silence, boots sloshing, bruises blooming under soaked clothes. She moved ahead, one hand on the wall, the other on her side where a round had glanced her ribs. I didn't ask if she was okay. We both knew better. Pain's a constant. Survival is the real question.

We collapsed behind a maintenance grate a hundred meters out--hidden from the yard, buried in dark. My breath came shallow, pulse still a thunderclap in my ears. She leaned against the opposite wall, soaked hair clinging to her jaw, mascara streaked like war paint. Her lips parted, like she wanted to speak, but no sound came. She looked at me--like really looked--and something between us gave way.

She moved first. Just a shift. A lean. Her fingers touched my neck, and I didn't flinch. Her lips brushed mine--hesitant, unsure. I didn't move away. I didn't stop her. I leaned in. Let it happen. No tactics. No calculation. Just heat and ache and surrender. Her mouth tasted like blood and breath and the kind of grief that can't be spoken.

We didn't speak. We just sat there--wet, broken, clinging to something neither of us deserved but both of us needed.

And for once, there was no Reaper.

No Swan.

Just Gabriel.

And Natalia.

Still breathing.

Still here.

Still ourselves, even if only for a moment in the dark.

___________________________

FILE 002-G | BLACK SITE RECORD: SHADOWS IN THE LIGHT

LOCATION: Zurich Safehouse Delta-7

DATE: 22 December

TIME: 0510 HRS

STATUS: UNAUTHORIZED CONTACT -- NO DEBRIEF LOGGED

OBJECTIVE: [UNSCHEDULED INTERPERSONAL ENGAGEMENT DETECTED]

Zurich was quiet the way graveyards are quiet--peaceful, but not comforting. The safehouse was nestled in the outskirts, just far enough from the city to be forgotten. Concrete walls, blackout curtains, and a silence so thick it made every breath feel like a confession. Natalia moved through it like smoke, shedding the bloodstained layers of the last two days with a grace that shouldn't have survived what we'd been through. I watched her from the threshold, unsure if I was still the man who deserved to stand in the same room.

She didn't speak at first. Just stood in the bathroom doorway, holding a towel to her ribs, the streaks of blood fading into fabric. "Do you want me to lie to you?" she asked suddenly.

I blinked. "About what?"

She turned to face me, unsmiling. "About how this ends."

I could've said something flippant. Should've. But all I said was, "Not tonight."

She nodded once. Then stepped forward and pulled my shirt over my head like she'd done it a thousand times--and maybe in another life, she had.

Her hands didn't shake, but they weren't steady either. She ran her fingers down my chest like she was searching for something--damage, maybe. Or a reason not to walk away. When her fingers found the scar just beneath my ribs, the one I got in Sudan, she hesitated.

"This one," she said. "Knife?"

"Glass bottle. I slipped."

She smirked faintly. "You're a terrible liar."

I shrugged. "Old habits."

We didn't make love like it was lust. We made love like the world was ending in the morning and we'd decided to go down honest. Every movement was deliberate, a silent translation of things we didn't have the courage to say. Her lips met mine like she'd been holding her breath for years and had just now remembered how to exhale.

And when it was over--when the tremble in her jaw finally stopped, and I let myself breathe again--she traced the scar on my neck. The rope burn. She didn't ask where it came from.

"You wear it like you chose it," she whispered.

"Maybe I did."

I reached for the bracelet on my wrist--the black cord I'd worn since Brenda's wreck--and for the first time in a decade, I slipped it off. My hand hesitated. Then I placed it on the nightstand.

Not discarded. Not forgotten. Just... set aside.

A moment later, she curled against me. Her hand on my chest, her breath steadying against my neck. Like if she let go, we might vanish.

"Promise me something," she whispered.

"I'm not great at those."

"Try."

"... Okay."

"If we run--really run--don't look back. Not for London. Not for Alden. Not even for her."

I didn't answer right away.

But I held her tighter. And I didn't let go.

___________________________

FILE 002-H | CLEANUP ORDER: OPERATION ECHELON

LOCATION: Munich NATO Cyber Division Facility

DATE: 23 December

TIME: 1145 HRS

STATUS: OBJECTIVE FULFILLED -- UNSANCTIONED EMOTIONAL ENTANGLEMENT CONFIRMED

OBJECTIVE: Expose mole. Extract surviving operatives.

The plan was surgical. Infiltrate the Munich facility, extract the data, expose the mole, end the leak. A quiet end to a loud problem. Natalia moved through the op like a phantom stitched in silk--no hesitation, no wasted motion. I trailed behind, heart caught between admiration and dread. Dread that this mission might be our last... not because of failure, but because it would work. And once it did, we'd have to choose: run or disappear.

The target was a NATO liaison embedded deep in cybersecurity--clean record, polished smile, dangerous secrets. Too dangerous. Natalia reached him first. I followed seconds later--enough time to see his panic and the gun in his hand.

I disarmed him--quick, clean, efficient. He dropped hard. I looked at her, ready to call it in, when I heard it: one shot. Her gun. Her decision.

He crumpled before I could speak.

She didn't even blink.

I should have been furious. Or shocked. But I wasn't. I was tired. So was she.

"I didn't want you to have to do it," she said. Her voice was flat, but I knew her tells.

"I didn't ask you to protect me."

"You didn't have to."

She looked away. "I needed one more clean kill. Just to remind myself I could still do it."

We stood in silence beside the body--two killers watching a version of their old lives bleed out on the floor.

I walked toward her. Slowly. Like approaching a mine I hoped wouldn't go off.

She didn't flinch. But her eyes said everything. She thought I was going to ask her to stop. To be different.

Instead, I said, "Come with me."

She blinked. That rare, stunned kind of blink like I'd stabbed her but with kindness.

"I won't ask you to be someone else," I added. "I just want you to be with me. Wherever we land."

Her voice cracked--barely--but I caught it. "Even if it's nowhere?"

"I've spent ten years in nowhere. I'd rather be there with you than anywhere else without you."

She didn't kiss me. She didn't need to. Her hand found mine, fingers curling in like they remembered the shape.

We left the scene together--no regrets. No hesitations.

Just a quiet knowing:

We weren't following orders anymore.

We were following each other.

And that, for two ghosts like us, was the closest thing to salvation we were ever going to get.

___________________________

FILE 002-I | CONTINGENCY: EDGE OF TOMORROW

LOCATION: Lisbon, Portugal (Balcony Safehouse)

DATE: 27 December

TIME: 0040 HRS

STATUS: [HEARTBREAK CLASSIFIED]

OBJECTIVE: Finalize escape plan. Secure non-combatant exit strategy.

Lisbon was quiet again, just like it had been the first time--before the blood, before the betrayals, before I knew the woman I was dancing with had a body count that could match mine. Now we stood on that same balcony. No music this time. Just the hush of the ocean and the soft clink of ice melting in untouched glasses.

It should've felt like closure. Instead, it felt like something opening--something neither of us quite trusted, but couldn't ignore anymore.

We laid it all out--safe houses, IDs, cash stashed in accounts with names we didn't recognize. It was reckless. Romantic. Stupid. Honest. Natalia spoke like she was drafting a mission brief, all contingencies and checklists. But her eyes kept drifting--to the sky, the water, the place where the sun met the waves like it owed them an apology.

She touched my chest--lightly, almost absently. Over the place where I used to keep the pain buried.

"You're not who they say you are," she said, eyes fixed on my scars like they were scripture.

I didn't argue.

"Neither are you," I replied.

She looked at me for a long time--searching, waiting. Maybe hoping I'd flinch. I didn't.

There was a silence after that. Not heavy. Not uncomfortable. Just true.

"I think I love you," she said.

Not a confession. A risk.

I didn't deflect. Didn't laugh. I stepped forward until our foreheads touched.

"Don't think. Just run with me."

Her breath hitched--barely. She didn't kiss me. Instead, she laughed softly. It was a different kind of laugh than I'd ever heard from her. Not the siren's lure. Not the spy's smirk. This one was messy. Vulnerable. Free.

We stayed that way for a while. Close enough to feel heartbeats through linen.

When she finally pulled back, she said, "We shouldn't do this."

"I know."

"But we're going to."

"Damn right we are."

Tomorrow didn't feel like a battlefield anymore.

It felt like possibility.

And that terrified me more than any bullet I've ever dodged.

___________________________

FILE 002-J | FINAL ORDER: SWANSONG INITIATED

LOCATION: London, MI6 HQ

DATE: 11 March

TIME: 0645 HRS

STATUS: KILL ORDER PENDING EXECUTION

OBJECTIVE: Neutralize asset. Close all loose ends.

London felt different this time. Not colder--London is always cold--but less... punishing. Like it knew it had one last chance to break me, and it was debating whether I was still worth the effort.

It had been three months since I'd heard from Natalia. No dead drops. No burner pings. Not even a coded breath between surveillance channels. Just... silence. The kind that crawls under your ribs and whispers in your sleep.

I walked the Thames at dawn, boots wet from dew, coat collar high. MI6 headquarters loomed across the river like a monument to mistakes I'd stopped regretting. I wasn't dragging ghosts behind me this time. I was carrying one. And she was still alive.

Alden didn't look up when I walked in. Just slid a cream folder across the desk like he was passing me a menu.

"One last favor," he said.

I didn't move.

"Not a request," he added. "A contingency."

I knew before I opened it.

I opened it anyway.

Natalia.

Laughing.

Smiling over a table with the NATO contact we'd just burned an entire month of plans to take down. Her hand was on his. Her eyes soft.

Too soft.

It looked like seduction. It looked like betrayal.

It looked like everything I didn't want to believe.

I read the comm logs. The bank records. The timeline. It was all too clean. Too obvious. Like someone had built a cage and dressed it in wallpaper just for me.

Alden said something. I didn't hear it until his voice sharpened.

"She's gone rogue. You know what has to happen."

I said nothing.

"Why you?" he asked himself aloud. "Because you're the only one who won't hesitate. Or so I thought."

He thought wrong.

I left the office with the folder under my arm, my breath colder than the wind.

I could still hear her voice in Lisbon.

"If we run, don't look back."

I knew what MI6 was asking me to do.

And I knew what I was going to do instead.

Because love isn't a clean line. It's a question that keeps getting harder to answer.

And maybe I'd finally found something I wasn't willing to shoot my way out of.

The Reaper doesn't miss.

But this time...

he might choose to.

___________________________

FILE 003-A | [ACCESS ERROR] -- OPERATION: CONFIRMATION

LOCATION: MI6 Secure Terminal (London)

DATE: 11 March [ERROR]

TIME: [REDACTED]

STATUS: ANALYSIS FAILURE -- SUBJECT COMPROMISED?

OBJECTIVE: Confirm Subject: VETROVA threat. Recommend Termination Protocol Delta-1.

I didn't sleep. Didn't blink. Just ran the data again. Facial recognition. Surveillance loops. Scraped comm logs. I even re-verified the encryption signatures--twice. And every thread, every pulse of static and code pointed to the same damn truth: Natalia was meeting the general. Not just meeting--courting him. Slowly. Carefully. Like she was trying to flip a goddamn NATO commander the same way she used to fold diplomats and arms brokers like poker hands.

I stared at the footage. Hotel lobby in Montenegro. Low-res, black and white, timestamped. She kissed him on the cheek. Her smile was wide. Real. Or it looked real. But Natalia's smiles were weapons. I knew that. Had cataloged every version like a surgeon studying incisions. This one looked too easy. Too good. Too clean.

The logs backed it up. Encrypted data bursts traced to a terminal she'd touched. She'd offered access--satellite code clusters, emergency fallback protocols, secondary launch keys. Enough to light the world on fire from a backchannel no one even knew existed until now. In exchange? Safe passage. Moscow. Extraction guaranteed. She wasn't just ghosting. She was defecting. Or so it seemed.

And still... something wasn't right. The footage, the records, the pattern--it all lined up. Too perfectly. Like someone had been waiting for just the right moment to drop it all in my lap. Like someone knew I'd look too closely. That I'd question everything. That I'd hesitate just long enough for doubt to crawl into my bloodstream and start whispering her name again.

I tried to tell myself this was who she was. SVR. Swan. Trained to betray before she could drive. She'd never missed a mark. Never left fingerprints. Never said a word she didn't mean to be heard. And yet... I remembered Zurich. The way she touched my chest like she didn't think it could hold warmth anymore. The way she whispered my name like it was a secret, not a codename. That woman wasn't in this footage. Or maybe I just didn't want her to be.

I closed my eyes and breathed through the ache.

She's either betraying everything we fought for...

Or playing a game I'm not meant to see.

I reran the footage again. Slower. Focused on her face. No tells. No twitch. No code phrase slipped to the camera. Nothing that said, Help me. Trust me. Wait. Just her, composed as always, looking like she was exactly where she meant to be.

And that's what broke me.

Because either she was the best liar I'd ever met...

Or she was the one woman who never lied to me at all.

And I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

__________________

FILE 003-B | [OVERRIDE WARNING] -- BRIEFING ROOM LIES

LOCATION: MI6 Sub-Basement Room 3C

DATE: 12 March [ERROR]

TIME: 0930 HRS

STATUS: CONSENT TO EXECUTION: ACQUIRED (Under Duress)

OBJECTIVE: Assign Reaper as Point Man. Ensure compliance via classified leverage.

Alden didn't even look surprised when I walked in. Just nodded toward the chair across from him like we were about to discuss supply chain logistics and not whether I was about to kill the woman I'd nearly run from the world for. The lights were low--always were in that room. Maybe so the truth couldn't see itself reflected. Maybe just because Alden liked shadows better than people.

He slid a cup of tea toward me. I didn't touch it. "You've seen the intel," he said, voice even, unreadable. "I take it that's why you're here." I didn't answer. He already knew. My silence was confirmation. He steepled his fingers, leaned forward. "No one's clean in this war, Gabriel. But some stains are more dangerous than others." His eyes flicked up. Calculating. Measured. "And she's bleeding through the fabric."

I should've told him to shut up. Should've thrown the file back at him and walked out. But I didn't. Instead, I said what he was waiting for. "I want to be point man on the op." The words felt foreign in my mouth. Like something I used to say before Zurich, before Lisbon, before I remembered how to feel something besides recoil and regret.

Alden didn't nod. Didn't smile. Just exhaled. "Fine," he said. "But if you take this, there's no room for sentiment. No last chances. No hesitation." He opened a drawer, pulled out a secure phone. "She's in position. Summit happens in three days. We've got eyes on her, but we want yours on the trigger." He slid the phone toward me. "You know what she is now."

I picked up the phone. Heavy. Cold. Like guilt in digital form. I looked at him--really looked. Saw the lines in his face. The years of lies stacked like bones behind his eyes. And I wondered how many ghosts he carried on his conscience. How many people like Natalia he'd buried with a signature and a shrug. "You know what she is," he repeated, firmer this time.

I looked back down at the phone. The screen was blank. Waiting. Just like me.

And when I finally answered, my voice came out flat. Dead.

"I've always known."

He didn't blink. Just nodded like he'd won.

But what he didn't realize--what he never understood--was that knowing the truth and believing it aren't the same thing.

I'd seen what she could do. I'd watched her kill. Lie. Vanish.

But I'd also seen her laugh. Break. Stay.

I walked out of that room with my orders in hand and my soul already splintering.

Because this wasn't just a mission.

It was a reckoning.

And one way or another, only one of us was walking away from it whole.

__________________

FILE 003-C | [UNAUTHORIZED ADDENDUM] -- FINAL MESSAGE

LOCATION: Barnes Private Residence (Undisclosed)

DATE: 13 March [ERROR]

TIME: 0115 HRS

STATUS: INTELLIGENCE BREACH (PERSONAL)

OBJECTIVE: [NO OFFICIAL ENTRY. PERSONAL INTERFERENCE LOGGED.]

The flat was quiet when I got back. Too quiet. Not the kind that brings peace--but the kind that amplifies everything you've been trying not to hear. The creak in the floorboards. The tick of the second hand on the old wall clock. The ache behind your ribs you've trained yourself to ignore. I dropped my bag just inside the door and locked it behind me, more habit than necessity. There was no one left who cared enough to follow me home. Or so I thought.

The envelope was there. Pale cream, no return address, no markings. Just the kind of thing that screams danger when you've lived as long as I have. I stood over it for a moment, half-expecting it to hiss or detonate. But it didn't. It just waited. Like her. Like everything about her. I knelt slowly, picked it up, and slid one finger beneath the flap like I was disarming something ancient and fragile.

Inside was a single piece of paper. Handwritten.

"I meant every word. I'll wait. --N."

That was it. No coordinates. No safehouse code. Just her words. Simple. Honest. A message scrawled in ink that still smelled faintly of her. She shouldn't have known where to send it. I hadn't told her this was mine. Hadn't told anyone. But she knew. Of course she did. Natalia always knows what others miss. Always finds the softest place to cut.

I didn't sit down. Couldn't. Just stood there in the middle of the room, staring at the note like it was a photograph of the life I almost had. My hand drifted to my wrist, found the worn black cord I'd wrapped there since Brenda died. I tightened it slowly, until it bit into my skin. Pain helps. It's honest. Uncomplicated. And when it passed, I whispered her name--Brenda. A breath. A vow. A goodbye I've never said out loud.

Then I whispered another name.

Natalia.

The silence that followed didn't feel empty.

It felt crowded. Like the room was full of echoes and ghosts pressing in from the walls.

Not all of them were dead. Not yet.

Some were just waiting. Waiting for me to choose.

And for the first time since this all began, I didn't know whose name would be on my lips when the trigger broke the quiet.

__________________

FILE 003-D | [CROSS-FILE CONTAMINATION] -- SETUP

LOCATION: Eastern European NATO Airfield

DATE: 15 March [ERROR]

TIME: 0725 HRS

STATUS: TARGET ACQUIRED -- SUBJECT HESITATION DETECTED.

OBJECTIVE: Eliminate Swan. Contain political fallout.

The airfield stretched out like a wound under the morning haze--flat, sterile, humming with protocol and pretense. Tents flapped in the breeze like they had something to say. They didn't. The summit was already underway, NATO's elite clustered in folding chairs beneath temporary shelters, sipping filtered water and trading pleasantries while the world teetered on a blade's edge. I was perched high above it all, tucked into the rusted ribcage of a long-abandoned hangar with a rifle that knew too much of my history.

Natalia moved like a shadow laced in silk--clipboard in hand, headset angled just enough to suggest civilian status. No weapons visible. No wrong steps. Just another diplomatic aide in a sea of false smiles and layered agendas. But I saw it. The tightness in her jaw. The stiffness in her spine. She was in control--on paper. But something about her felt... resigned. Like she'd already decided how this day ends, and it wasn't with applause or extraction.

The general--Leclerc--sat too straight. Spoke too little. He wasn't worried. He should've been. If the intel was right, he was already halfway to treason. And if she was what the file said she was now... then this summit was just the stage for a performance that ends with silence and body bags. But my gut said different. It always has. And it was screaming at me now.

I tracked her every movement through the scope. Not because I had to. Because I couldn't not. I memorized the flick of her wrist, the shape of her mouth as she leaned in to speak to the French envoy. She was too polished. Too precise. Not like Zurich. Not like Lisbon. There, she was raw. Human. This--this was theater. Either she was running the deepest con I'd ever seen... or she wasn't acting at all. And that thought scared the hell out of me.

She reached the general's side, handed him a folder. He opened it. Nodded. No panic. No coded phrase. Just two bureaucrats reviewing death like it was paperwork. And then, as if pulled by the gravity of knowing, she turned her head. Not sharply. Not directly. Just a subtle shift toward the northwest wind. My direction.

She smiled. Just once.

Not for anyone. Not at anyone. Just the breeze. Just the moment. But I knew. God help me, I knew.

That smile wasn't part of the cover.

It was a goodbye.

Or a dare.

My finger hovered over the trigger.

And for the first time in my life, I didn't know if I was aiming to stop a threat...

Or to save the only person who ever looked at me and didn't flinch.

__________________

FILE 003-E | [DELAY DETECTED] -- THE TRIGGER

LOCATION: Sniper Overwatch (Hangar 2-A, East Quadrant)

DATE: 15 March

TIME: 0730 HRS

STATUS: [TRIGGER ACTIVATION: DEFERRED / CONFIRMED]

OBJECTIVE: [ERROR: OUTCOME UNCLEAR]

Wind: seven knots, southeast. Distance: 1,900 meters. I adjust the elevation--two degrees. Account for the Coriolis effect. Slight downward angle. A breath too slow, and the shot drifts. A breath too fast, and it clips the wrong man. My scope is a world unto itself. One circle. One truth. And in its center, Natalia Vetrova raises a glass and leans in to whisper something to the NATO general we've both been told not to trust.

She looks calm. Too calm. But not detached. There's a sadness there, threaded into the corners of her mouth, the set of her shoulders. A kind of weight only the condemned wear with grace. My pulse slows. My hands steady. My finger hovers over the trigger like it's waiting for permission from a part of me I buried a decade ago. This is what I do. I end things. Clean. Precise. No questions.

Except this time, the questions won't shut up.

Lisbon: her hand on my chest, promising ghosts could have futures.

The train yard: smoke in our lungs, a kiss like a confession neither of us could afford.

Zurich: her voice in my ear, shaking for the first time, saying she was tired.

Brenda's funeral: rain on the casket, a man who flinched too late.

The first time I heard Natalia laugh--god, really laugh.

The last time she said she loved me.

All of it--every breath, every bullet between us--sits behind my eye, ghosting the glass.

And I wonder--if I'd known this wasn't going to have a happy ending... would I still have walked into the fire?

Would I still have danced with the woman I was supposed to kill?

Loved her anyway?

Probably.

Hell, definitely.

Because even now, with a rifle trained on the only person who ever made me believe I was more than a weapon, I know this much:

If I had to do it all again, I'd stay for the journey.

I whisper the only truth I have left.

"You don't walk away from death. You learn to walk with it. Quietly."

I exhale.

My finger tightens.

I squeeze.

__________________

FILE 003-F | [CRITICAL BREACH] -- CROSSHAIRS

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

DATE: UNKNOWN

TIME: UNKNOWN

STATUS: [FILE CORRUPTED]

OBJECTIVE: [DATA LOSS: COMPLETE]

CRACK.

The shot tears from the muzzle like vengeance made manifest.

A perfect spiral of steel and death.

Catches light, slices air.

Cuts through the distance like a whispered promise with teeth.

Glass shatters.

__________________

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET -- EYES ONLY

CLEARANCE REQUIRED: ALPHA BLACK

DISTRIBUTION: Directorate Level | Omega Division | Deputy Director Alden

DATE: [REDACTED]

SUBJECT:

Final Disposition of Assets: BARNES, GABRIEL ("REAPER") and VETROVA, NATALIA ("SWAN")

SUMMARY:

Following the conclusion of active operations associated with Project BLACK SWAN, both Barnes and Vetrova are to be considered MIA (Missing In Action) as of [REDACTED].

Physical evidence recovered from [REDACTED AIRFIELD] was inconclusive.

One personal item was retrieved: a black cord bracelet, consistent with known field-wear by Subject Barnes.

No identifiable remains located.

DNA samples contaminated.

Surveillance footage corrupted beyond retrieval.

All internal records pertaining to Subject Barnes' final orders have been sealed under Directorate Contingency Order 12-F.

Field agents who encountered Barnes or Vetrova during the post-summit window have been reassigned or debriefed under Directive SILENT HANDSHAKE.

Unofficial eyewitness accounts suggest Subjects may have successfully exfiltrated NATO surveillance zones. Confirmations remain unverifiable.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Close all investigations related to Barnes and Vetrova under cause: Operational Attrition.

Burn all auxiliary documentation not archived under Omega Lock protocol.

Mark Project BLACK SWAN as COMPLETE: NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED.

FINAL NOTE:

"The Reaper never misses.

Some ghosts simply choose when not to haunt."

-- MI6 Directorate Archives

File Sealed: 0200 HRS

The End?

__________________

Notes from the Wyld:

The story of Once started as an experiment, spy fiction told through classified mission files, blending action with heartbreak and moral ambiguity. I wanted the format to feel like you were reading someone's secrets in real time. Whether I write a follow-up depends on how it's received, but I won't be answering whether the Swan got hit outside a sequel. Even my wife asked and all she got was a shrug. Some things are better left in the crosshairs.

Meanwhile, I've got two other stories in progress:

1. Unwritten Orders -- a spin-off to Melody's Silence, following Dexter as he goes undercover with a new partner to expose a tech billionaire laundering bribe money through a secluded vineyard retreat.

2. A new NYPD pilot story I'm thinking of calling it "Airspace" -- focused on a chopper pilot who becomes an unexpected viral hero, just as his past threatens to catch up with him.

And if motivation finds me, I might finally tackle my take on the literotica classic February Sucks. No promises, but the itch is there.

PS: I'm the town idiot. Tried publishing this three times, found mistakes each time. Glad I'm not a surgeon. Measure once, cut five times. Honestly, I should've called this story "Three Times".