Slade knew something was wrong the moment he woke up.

It wasn’t the room—same ceiling, same light slanting through the curtains. It wasn’t the quiet either. He was used to silence.

It was the feeling.

He lay still, cataloging details the way he always did. Breathing pattern. Posture. The weight beside him—familiar, but not in the way it should’ve been. Close, but off. Like a mirror tilted just enough to distort the image.

Slade turned his head.

And understood.

The realization landed cold and immediate, slicing through him with a clarity that had nothing to do with regret and everything to do with precision. Same face. Same voice. Same everything—except the things he should have caught. The micro-differences. The tells.

He sat up slowly, hand running down his face.

“…Shit,” he muttered, once.

There was no anger in him—only that rare, dangerous stillness that came when he’d miscalculated. When the fault was his. When skill had failed because assumption had stepped in where discipline should’ve been.

Slade dressed quietly, movements controlled, mind already replaying the moments he’d missed. The pauses he hadn’t questioned. The differences he’d dismissed.

He didn’t look back as he left the room.

This wasn’t a conquest. It wasn’t a joke.

It was a mistake.

And Slade hated mistakes—especially the ones that proved he wasn’t as infallible as the world believed.

Because this one?

This one was going to have consequences.