I hit send before I can second-guess it.
Then I put the phone face-down on the nightstand.
And wait for the smell of grilled cheese to pull me out of myself.
10
Chris
I kill the VPN and lean back, eyes fixed on the ceiling above the kitchen table. There’s a crack that runs the length of it, clean and deliberate, as if someone cut the plaster on purpose. The whole place feels temporary. Cheap tile. Rust-stained sink. A twin mattress in the corner, low to the ground, no sheets, just a bare foam pad and a folded blanket tossed on top.
The call ended, but the silence stayed. The edges of the room feel sharper somehow. Every breath is too loud. My control cracked open, and there’s nothing cushioning the aftermath—just the cold, familiar stillness that follows when you lose your grip and can’t take it back.
I shouldn’t have looked at him that long. Shouldn’t have let it hit me that hard.
“You could’ve said goodbye.”
And then Mason came back on the line, cutting off the moment before I had to respond. Before I was forced to confess that staying meant admitting it meant something.
Maybe that was the blessing. Maybe that’s the part I regret.
My gut twisted when I slipped out of Nina’s place that night in Denver. Wyatt was still asleep. I had a red-eye to catch and a week of prep before Belgrade, and nothing productive comes from lingering.
But being with him again didn’t erase anything. It just stacked, heat on heat, memory on memory, back to that first night in LA. He touched me like he still meant it, steady and deliberate. No rush. No demand. Just heat and weight and contact where he knew I needed it most. And I let him see me again, stayed long enough for him to fall asleep with his chest against my back—and then I left.
I didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t give him the chance to make it harder. I just disappeared. Maybe I did die in Mexico like everyone thought, and the man who came back is nothing but a ghost.
I snap myself out of the useless musings. Whatever I am, I still have a job to do.
Petrov’s waiting.
She thinks this is a routine handoff. Maybe a warning. Another whisper from the Americans she doesn’t trust. But the walls are closing in on her. I saw it in her last message—half-coded, buried in humor she doesn’t use unless she’s scared.
I pull on the coat and lock the door behind me. The cold outside cuts sharp as I step into it, curling at the base of my throat and crawling down beneath the collar. It clears the last of the static from my head. I breathe in, steady. Grounded. Then I start walking.
The rendezvous point isn’t a real station anymore. Just a roofed slab of concrete near the tram yard that still has signage from a line that shut down five years ago. No security cameras. No ticket window. Half the glass in the shelter is missing, and what’s left is streaked with hard water and graffiti tags.
Tatiana steps into view from behind the ruins of an old billboard, black hair whipping in the wind. She’s dressed for mobility—heavy coat, flat boots, scarf tucked tight—and wearing dark glasses that conceal her eyes but not the sharpness in her stance. Practical. Untraceable. Her expression doesn’t change when she sees me.
“You always this punctual?” she asks as she approaches.
I glance at the horizon, check the sightlines again. “Only when it matters.”
“Mm.” She folds her arms and doesn’t look at me when she says, “You look worse than the last time I saw you.”
“I’ve had better weeks.”
“You look tired.”
I don’t answer. She registers it, but her gaze lingers longer than usual. I can tell she’s trying to square the man standing in front of her with the one she saw beside Amador all those months ago. Back when my silence meant obedience.
After I got out, I needed a win. Something clean to hand the brass. She was the obvious choice. Valuable, connected, on the edge of slipping. I reached out, cautiously at first, threading the hook while she was still embedded. Turning her wasn’t guaranteed. But this? This is the close.
She tilts her head slightly, as if trying to make sense of it. I’m out. Free, technically. But I know it doesn’t show in my face. My shackles are self-inflicted now, and that unsettles her more than fatigue ever could.
She shifts her weight, scanning behind me. “So, is this just another breadcrumb, or are we pretending something bigger now?”
“It’s not a breadcrumb.”
