The mission was over. Clean. Fast. Too fast.

Slade stood in the penthouse bedroom, the scent of gunpowder still hanging in the air, the silencer still warm. The target lay crumpled downstairs, forgotten.

But up here—on silk sheets bought with blood money—he was finally still.

His partner moved behind him, quiet as always, but he felt her. He always did. She didn’t need to speak. She just reached out—fingertips brushing over the thick scars that lined his spine like tally marks. A count of lives taken. Or maybe lost.

He turned slowly, took her in. Not because he needed to. Because he wanted to.

This wasn’t the first time they’d crossed the line between business and whatever this was. But it felt different here. Not softer. Not safer. Just theirs.

He kissed her like the world would end before morning. And maybe it would.

But tonight, they’d take the bed of a dead man and make something alive in it.