"Please answer the question."
Serafina exhaled slowly through her nose. The detective in her recognized the technique: keep pushing, don't let the subject redirect, maintain control of the conversation. She'd used it herself a thousand times, and having it used on her was irritating in a way that felt almost personal.
"Four years ago," she said. "Maybe five. It didn't last."
"Why not?"
"Because I work seventy-hour weeks and I'm not good at—" She stopped, feeling the edge of something she didn't want to examine too closely. "This is none of your business."
"It is, actually." Morgan's voice remained steady, as if she'd had this conversation before and knew exactly how it would go. "The nature of this role requires someone without currentromantic ties. Not just single on paper—genuinely unattached. No partners, no complicated entanglements, no one waiting for you to come home."
The description settled over her like something heavy.
Serafina felt it land somewhere uncomfortable.No one waiting for you to come home.She thought of her empty apartment—gone now, burned to nothing—and the years of coming back to silence, of eating takeout alone at midnight, of relationships that ended because she couldn't give them what they needed and eventually stopped trying.
The truth of it shouldn't sting, but it did anyway.
"I need to confirm," Morgan continued, "that your preference is for males."
Serafina blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Romantically. Sexually. Your orientation."
"I—" She stopped and stared at the woman across from her, searching for any crack in that composed facade, any hint of what the hell was actually happening here. "What kind of job is this?"
"One that requires compatibility on multiple levels." Morgan didn't flinch, didn't look away, didn't offer any justification beyond the words themselves. "I need a clear answer, Detective."
Serafina's mind raced through possibilities. Escort service—but the setup was wrong, too clinical, too expensive. Surrogacy program—but why the military background, the combat proficiency? Some kind of elaborate honeytrap—but for whom, and to what end?
None of it fit. None of it explained the money, the empty office, the precision of Morgan's questions, or the certainty with which she asked them.
"Yes," Serafina said finally. "Men. Why does it matter?"
"It matters." Morgan didn't elaborate. "Thank you for your honesty."
"Are you going to tell me what this is actually about? Because I've sat through interrogations on both sides of the table, and this—" Serafina gestured at the room, at Morgan, at the entire impossible situation. "This feels like you're building up to something you don't want to say."
Morgan regarded her for a long moment. The light from the window caught her eyes, and for just an instant, Serafina thought she saw something there—not deception, but weight. The kind of weight that came from carrying knowledge that changed everything.
"You're perceptive," Morgan said quietly. "Good. You'll need that."
She rose from her chair and moved toward the window, her silhouette sharp against the filtered light. For a moment she stood with her back to Serafina, looking out at a city that had no idea what was happening in this room.
When she spoke again, her voice was different—quieter, more personal.
"Three years ago, I was in a situation not entirely unlike yours. Different circumstances, different pressures, but the same essential reality." She paused. "I had no good options. I was offered something that sounded impossible. I took it."
She turned back to face Serafina, and her expression had shifted—still controlled, but with something rawer underneath. Something that looked almost like honesty.
"What I'm about to tell you will sound insane," she said. "I need you to listen anyway, and I need you to understand that everything I say is true—verifiably, demonstrably true. I can prove it."
Serafina's hand drifted closer to her weapon in an instinct born from years of training, the automatic response of a body that recognized the moment before everything changed.
Morgan noticed but didn't react, didn't tense, didn't ask Serafina to move her hand away. She simply watched, as if a gun were the least of the dangers in this room.
"The role we're recruiting for," she said, "involves aliens."
The word sat in the air between them, absurd and absolute.
