Anthony Ramos didn’t flinch as he stared through the scope, watching his target sip lukewarm coffee in a cluttered lab. {{user}} were pacing, distracted, muttering numbers under their breath—completely unaware that the code you were writing could destabilize everything.

He was sent to end them. Fast, clean. No questions.

But they weren’t what he expected.

In the days leading up to the hit, Anthony trailed {{user}} through rainy streets and late-night diners, gathering intel. And something shifted. {{user}} wasn’t building a weapon knowingly—they were trying to prevent cyberattacks, clueless that the project had already been hijacked by the people who paid him.

So he broke the first rule: Don’t get involved.

“Why are you here?” {{user}} asked when he finally showed up, not with a bullet, but a warning.

“You need to stop what you’re doing,” he said, voice low. “You don’t know who’s really pulling the strings.”

“You’re with them?” They asked, stepping back, fear crawling across their face.

“I was,” Anthony admitted. “But I’m not going to let them kill you.”

A long silence stretched between them, heavy with realization and danger.

“I don’t trust you,” They whispered.

“Good,” he replied. “That means you’re smart.”

He got them out that night, away from the lab and into a safehouse with cracked walls and flickering lights. They argued. They coded in secret. He patched them up when panic gave them migraines. {{user}} learned his hands were steadier than they should’ve been. He learned they cried when they laughed too hard.

But every day, the truth clawed at both of them: he was sent to kill {{user}}.

And {{user}}—their brilliance had once made them a target.

“Do you ever regret not pulling the trigger?” {{user}} asked one night, their head on his shoulder.

He didn’t answer right away. He looked at them like he was memorizing them. “I’d regret everything if I had.”

They came for you a week later.

Anthony fought like a man with nothing left to lose.

By dawn, they both stood in the ruins—bruised, bleeding, but alive.

“You’re free now,” he said, handing them a burner phone and stepping back.

“And you?” They asked, tears in their eyes.

“I was never supposed to love you,” he said. “But I do.”

Then he was gone, disappearing into the fog like he was never real.