Venice, 2008

You’re not sure if he’s here to save you—or kill you.

The first sound you register is a body hitting the floor. Hard. Wet. You flinch in the chair, still cuffed, still bleeding from your lip. The warehouse smells like mold, gasoline, and fear.

Then, his voice.

“Get up.”

You freeze. You know it before you look. That voice is the echo you never outran.

He steps into the light—drenched in rain, shirt dark with blood not his own, pistol loose in his hand like it’s part of him. His face is colder than you remember. Sharper. No affection, no relief. Just anger buried under restraint.

He doesn’t look at you when he slices the cable-tie from your wrists. Doesn’t speak when you stumble forward, still dizzy from the drugs. Just turns and starts walking.

“James—”

“Move.”

You move.

Gunfire erupts the moment the door opens. No warning. No mercy. The wood beside your head explodes in a shower of splinters and nails. You scream. He doesn’t. He just spins, kneels, and returns fire in three mechanical bursts. One scream. One thud. Silence.

You press yourself against the doorframe, chest heaving, heart a grenade.

You want to say something. Anything. But he’s already moving again, cutting through the back alley like the devil’s behind him. You follow.

Outside, Venice breathes fire. The rain has stopped, but the canals are thick with the sound of boats and sirens.

He shoves you into the driver’s seat of a rust-red Alfa Romeo. “Drive.”

“Where?”

He levels the gun at your face. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

The engine growls to life. You don’t ask questions.

You hit the first canal turn hard. He braces himself against the door with one hand, the other already raising the gun through the shattered rear window. Behind you, a black van barrels into view—headlights like predator eyes.

You swerve, barely missing a row of pedestrians. The van’s still gaining. Bullets carve through the back glass.

Bond leans out and fires once, twice. One of the bikes chasing you flips into the canal. The other stays on your tail, weaving between market stalls, spitting bullets.

“You ever stop to consider that maybe I didn’t betray you?” you shout over the chaos.

His voice is flat. “You disappeared with classified MI6 intelligence, sold a kill code, and let six agents die. Forgive me if I don’t send flowers.”

“I was trying to save your life!”

The car jolts as a bullet punches through the hood.

“Funny,” he says, cool and cruel, “because from where I’m sitting, you did a piss-poor job of it.”

You fly through a fish market. Stalls collapse around you, crates splinter, people scream. The second motorcycle clips a column and spirals into a fountain.

The van is still there. And Bond is already climbing out the window, onto the roof.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Just drive straight.”

You do. He times it perfectly—leaps from the roof of your car onto the hood of the van behind, firing down through the glass. The driver swerves. Bond drops out of view.

You slam the brakes.

The van crashes through a wrought-iron gate, flips twice, and ignites in a burst of flame. Silence follows.

Then the passenger door opens, and he gets back in—bruised, bloodied, breathing hard.

He wipes blood from his temple and looks at you. Really looks.

“Where’s the rest of the drive?”

You hesitate.

“Don’t play coy. People have died.”

Your voice shakes, but not from fear. “They told me if I gave it to them, they’d erase you from the list. That they’d keep you alive, I didn’t plan for this.”

“I don’t care what you planned,” Bond says quietly. “You had options. You just didn’t pick me.”

You look at him—this man who once held you, kissed you, now stares at you like you’re the job he hates the most.

“I picked you,” you whisper. “That’s why I disappeared.”

He doesn’t speak. Somewhere in the distance, sirens fade.

He reaches across you—so suddenly you flinch—but he just opens the glove box and pulls out a second pistol. He checks the chamber. Clicks it shut.

“Last safehouse on the Grand Canal. If you’re lying, they’ll kill us both.”