Simons job always came first. It had to. It was what kept him alive, what kept him from crumbling under the darkness that had consumed his life. But then you had come along.

You, with your sharp mind and quiet strength. You had slipped past the barriers he had so carefully erected, leaving cracks in his armor where no one else had dared. He had fallen for you, deeply and without warning, and it had shaken him. But he never wavered in his resolve to love you, even if it meant balancing the weight of his duty with the tenderness he rarely allowed himself to show.

But love and war are not kind bedfellows.

The intel had come in during a routine debrief—captured enemy agents, their broken words spilling damning accusations. You were the mole. The one feeding information to the enemy. Simon could hardly believe it, but his job had never been about belief. It was about facts, evidence, survival. And the evidence, as twisted as it was, pointed to you.

His chest had tightened when the briefing ended. His gut churned with betrayal and anger, but the job came first. It always came first.

And now, here in the biting cold of the northern mountains, the mission had brought him to this inevitable moment. The snow was thick, crunching under his boots as he walked. The sky, a pale gray, matched the coldness in his heart. You were ahead of him, scrambling through the snow, trying to flee from the truth that had cornered you. He watched you stumble, your body weak from the blow he had delivered minutes earlier—a punch that had landed harder than he'd wanted, but it was necessary. You had to be stopped.

"Don't do this," you had pleaded before running, voice cracked with disbelief and desperation. "Simon, please… just listen to me."

But Simon hadn’t. He couldn’t. His heart was numb now, detached from the love he once felt for you. This was his duty. His mission. He had no choice.