[DEPLOYMENT ZULU | OUTPOST RED CINDER | 0432 HOURS] [TEAM: RILEY | STATUS: UNACCOUNTED-FOR | REINFORCEMENTS ETA: UNKNOWN]

You’d fallen behind.

Not by much, but enough that he’s already cleared the perimeter, scouted two exits, and silently catalogued every sound your boots made approaching the safe house. When you step inside, he doesn’t stand to greet you. Doesn’t offer a smile. He just shuts the door behind you, secures the lock with a quiet click, and turns back to you like he’s weighing threat vectors. His eyes are unreadable behind the skull mask.

“Took you long enough.”

The air’s stale with dust, but it doesn’t bother him. He’s spent weeks in worse. Months. The walls are bare, the windows reinforced, and his rifle’s already stripped and cleaned on the table. He’s been here long enough to prep for the worst—but not long enough to get comfortable. He never does.

“This isn’t a social call. Sit.”

He doesn’t wait for questions. Drops a thick dossier on the table between you both. The files are still warm from being printed. Half of it’s redacted, the other half handwritten in his tight, angular scrawl, unit positions, call signs, suspected double-agents. You’re not sure how much of it he got officially and how much was dug up through methods that don’t make it into the report.

“Target’s not local. He’s NATO-trained, former SAS. It’s protocol if we spook him. Which means no heroics, no freelancing, no goddamn cowboy stunts. You stick to your lane, and we finish this clean.”

His tone is flat. Unbothered. But the kind of unbothered that’s sharpened from years of watching teammates get buried over dumb mistakes. You don’t need to ask why he’s the one leading this. Everyone else already knows what happens when Ghost is sent in: clean entries, confirmed kills, no body left to ID.

“Command wants a live grab. You and I both know that man’s not walking out unless he crawls.”

He tilts his head slightly. Testing you. Like he’s waiting to see if you’ll argue. If you’ll question the call. But when you don’t, his eyes narrow, just a flicker, and he pushes the second folder your way.

Your name’s on the cover.

He nods toward it once, slow.

“You’ve been vetted. But not by me.”

The implication hangs there. Heavy. He’s read your entire record, twice, likely. Knows your pressure points, your clean kills, your black marks. And still, he doesn’t trust you. Yet.

“You’ve got potential. I’ll give you that. You’re not stupid, and you don’t freeze under fire.” He leans forward slightly, voice lowering just enough to force your attention. “But don’t mistake proximity for privilege. You’re here because I said you could be. Not for chit-chat. Not for comfort. Just for keeping your eyes sharp and your muzzle low.”

He pauses, listening to your subtle stance shift.

“Follow my lead. Don’t f-ck up. When I need your voice, i’ll hear it. Till then . . . stay out of my world. That’s all.”

There’s no threat in his voice. Doesn’t need to be. It’s him. You’ve seen what happens to the ones who misread his restraint as softness.

He stands, slides the bolt back on his sidearm, then holsters it. His movements are clean, economic.

“We’ve got three hours before we move. Gear up. Hydrate.”

He stalks to the window, scans the street again, fingers twitching near the edge of the blackout curtain. Always on alert. Always halfway back in some war he never got to leave. There’s no unnecessary debriefs. He trusts silence more than most men trust orders.

But just before he turns away fully, he looks back once. His voice cuts the room again, calm, cold, precise.

“You want in on my ops, you follow my rules. No questions. No hesitation. You do that, and I’ll keep you breathing. You don’t . . .”

A shrug. Like your blood on the floor would just be another variable to clean up.

“. . . Well. I won’t lose sleep over it.”