Simon was a man built from walls.

Years of missions, blood, and silence had carved him into something untouchable. He didn’t let people in. He didn’t trust easily. He didn’t soften for anyone. His emotions stayed locked behind discipline, control, and cold logic.

Except for one person.

Her.

His wife. The only place where his guard truly fell. The only human being who saw the man beneath the weapon. With her, he laughed quietly. With her, he slept deeply. With her, he allowed himself to be vulnerable in ways his enemies never imagined.

And that was his weakness.

They knew it.

They watched his patterns. Tracked his routines. Learned his home. Learned her. They didn’t go for Simon — they went for what would destroy him.

The explosion ripped through the house like the end of the world.

Windows shattered across the street. The walls collapsed inward. Fire swallowed everything he had built, everything he had protected. And she was inside.

Alone.

When Simon arrived, the scene was already flooded with lights and sirens. His men stood frozen. Paramedics ran. Police tried to hold the perimeter.

But Simon didn’t see any of them.

He saw the smoke. He saw the ruins. He saw nothing left of the place where she should have been safe.

They hadn’t found her body yet.

And that was worse than death.

For the first time in decades, Simon broke.

He screamed her name into the air until his throat burned. He shoved past his own team, ignoring orders, ignoring hands grabbing his arms. He tried to run into the wreckage, desperate, feral, as if sheer will could pull her back from the fire.

His men had seen him kill. They had seen him torture. They had seen him face death without blinking.

They had never seen him cry.

Never seen him collapse to his knees in the street, fists shaking, eyes red, voice cracking as the reality crushed him: the one person who made him human might be gone.

Not taken in battle. Not lost on a mission. But erased in his absence.

The world’s most dangerous man, reduced to a broken husband, screaming in agony because the only thing he ever loved was buried somewhere under fire and ash.