The file had said: Former U.S. military. PTSD. Isolated. Armed.

Clean contract.

Efficient.

Slade had taken harder targets before breakfast.

He’d tracked her for three days through a cabin tucked too deep into the woods for coincidence. Watched her routines. Measured her reflexes. Noted the way she scanned treelines even when collecting firewood.

Professional.

Disciplined.

Broken, according to the client.

He’d moved in at night.

Silent.

Precise.

The first mistake? Underestimating her.

The second? Letting her get close enough to disarm him.

What was supposed to be a quick incapacitation turned into a fight that felt less like a hunt and more like a mirror match. She moved like someone who’d survived worse than mercenaries. Like someone who refused to be cornered again.

He respected that.

Respect was dangerous.

Now—

Slade stared at the cabin ceiling, one arm braced behind his head.

She was beside him. Breathing steady. Very much alive.

Very much not eliminated.

“How,” he muttered under his breath, staring at the wooden beams above, “did this happen?”

The mission had dissolved somewhere between shared scars and the moment she’d called him out for tracking her like an amateur.

No fear.

Just recognition.

He’d seen that look before—in soldiers who knew exactly what they were capable of and hated being reduced to it.

The contract was still active.

Technically.

His target was within arm’s reach.

Technically.

He exhaled slowly.

“This is why you don’t improvise,” he muttered to himself.

But he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

Hadn’t walked away either.

Instead, he’d stayed.

Listened.

Understood more than he’d intended to.

Slade turned his head slightly, studying her profile in the dim light.

A clean kill had turned into something complicated.

Personal.

And Slade preferred clean.

“…Unacceptable,” he decided quietly.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t leave.

The contract would need… reassessment.

Because somehow—

The easiest kill of his week had become the one thing he couldn’t finish.