The world always seems quieter before something goes wrong.

That morning felt too still—no helicopters above the city, no calls from my men, not even the wind pressing against the cracked windows of the safe house. I could hear Isabella breathing in the next room, a soft rhythm that anchored me more than I would ever admit.

I should have been thinking about the meeting—about the informant waiting two districts away—but my mind kept returning to her. Every sound she made tightened something inside me. The way she exhaled, the faint scrape of her feet against the floorboards, the whisper of fabric as she moved. After everything we’d survived, it...