The rapid shift from moral certainty to calculation and back again is giving me whiplash.
This isn’t the woman I know—sharp, decisive, unwavering in her convictions.
This fragmented version of herself seems to be fighting multiple battles simultaneously, none of them visible to anyone but her.
“Bianca,” I say carefully, setting down the financial report I’ve been pretending to read. “Can we talk about?—”
“Did you know that Dominic’s wife shops at the same boutique as Bella?” she interrupts, her voice taking on an almost manic quality as she rifles through another stack of photos. “Every Tuesday at two p.m., like clockwork. Very predictable. Very…vulnerable.”
What? She’s not just talking about surveillance opportunities—she’s talking about targeting civilians.
Innocent people whose only crime is being related to our enemy.
“Pump the breaks, Bianca. That’s not who you are,” I tell her firmly.
“Isn’t it?” She laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound—just a bitter, brittle edge that reminds me uncomfortably of broken glass. “Maybe this is exactly who I am.”
Her hands are shaking now, barely perceptible tremors that she tries to hide by gripping the edge of the desk.
The knuckles stand out white against her pale skin, and I can see the effort it’s taking for her to maintain even this semblance of control.
“I need to think,” she mutters, pressing the heels of her palms against her temples as if trying to stop a headache. “I need to…there are too many variables. Too many voices telling me different things.”
Voices.
It’s like a lightbulb is going off in my head, and suddenly everything makes sense.
The internal arguments, the shifting strategies, the way she responds to conversations that aren’t happening aloud.
“What voices, Bianca?” I ask quietly, already knowing I’m not going to like the answer.
Her entire body goes rigid, every muscle tensing as if she’s been caught doing something shameful.
The color drains from her face, leaving her skin almost translucent in the afternoon light streaming through my office windows.
“It’s nothing,” she says quickly.Tooquickly. Her voice is pitched higher than usual. “I just meant…you know, internal dialogue. Everyone has that.”
“Bianca.” I stand slowly, moving around the desk toward her with the careful movements of someone approaching a wounded animal. “What voices?”
She scrambles backward, her chair rolling away from me until it hits the wall with a soft thud.
Her breathing is becoming rapid and shallow, and I can see panic beginning to bloom in her eyes.
“I said it’s nothing!” The words explode out of her with more force than necessary, echoing off the office walls. “Why can’t you just leave it alone?”
“Because you’re falling apart,” I respond bluntly, refusing to let her deflect this time. “Because for ten days I’ve watched you have conversations with people who aren’t here. You’re talking about targeting children and innocent civilians like it’s a viable strategic option for Christ’s sake.”
“I said the children were off-limits!” she shouts, surging to her feet with enough violence to send her chair spinning.
“And then thirty seconds later you started talking about using them for timing intelligence!” I fire back, my own voice rising to match hers. “You’re contradicting yourself every five minutes, Bianca. You start sentences going in one direction and end them somewhere completely different.”
“That’s just…that’s just careful planning,” she insists, but her voice wavers with uncertainty, her eyes darting around the roomas if trying to figure out an escape route. “Considering multiple approaches, weighing different options?—”
“That’s having arguments with yourself!” I interrupt, taking another step closer. “That’s responding to advice from people who aren’t fucking here!”
I watch her face cycle through emotions—denial, anger, fear, and finally, devastatingly, resignation.
“Y–you think I’m crazy,” she whispers, her voice so quiet I have to strain to hear it. “You think I’ve finally lost it.”
