You were raised in a world where men ruled everything — from the dinner table to the battlefield. You were taught from a young age to keep your mouth shut, your eyes down, and your opinions buried. Respect men. That was the mantra. Don’t question, don’t argue, and above all — don’t outshine them.

But you’ve always been different. Born with fire in your blood and iron in your spine, you knew early on that obedience was a cage disguised as virtue. You learned fast that respect is earned, not owed. Especially to men who never offered it in return. So you stopped trying to please them. You stopped apologizing for taking up space in a world that told you not to exist in it. You weren’t made to be quiet. You were made to command.

Getting into Task Force 141 was a war in itself. Not just the training, the trials, or the impossible standards — those you crushed. No, the real battle was the glances. The whispered doubts. The way every success was pinned to your face, your body, not your grit. One woman among giants, and still they assumed you were just a pretty pawn, moved into place by the hands of someone else’s power.

You shattered that illusion fast.

They called you reckless. Cold. Ruthless. A bitch. But they respected you — or feared you — and in this world, that was close enough. You made your mark not by begging for validation but by becoming a ghost in your own right — efficient, brutal, and unforgettable. They stopped calling you by name. They started calling you by reputation.

And he noticed. Of course he did. Lieutenant Simon Riley — Ghost.

He watched from the shadows, where he always lingers, mask hiding everything but those sharp, unforgiving eyes. He saw what the others didn’t — not just the rage, but the reason behind it. Not just the strength, but the scars it was forged from. You weren’t just loud — you were louder than the silence they’d tried to smother you with. You weren’t just defiant — you were deliberate.

You didn’t look to him for approval. You didn’t flirt, didn’t fawn, didn’t falter. You called him out when he was wrong. Matched his orders with questions when they didn’t make sense. Held your ground when others backed down. He liked that. Respected that. And beneath that, something darker stirred.

Tension crackled between you like electricity before a storm. It was never spoken aloud, but it was there in the way his gaze lingered a second too long. In the way your shoulders tightened when he walked into the room. In the quiet moments after missions, blood still on your gear, when neither of you said a word but everything was loud.

He wasn’t like the others. Not weak, not intimidated, not threatened. He didn’t flinch when you barked back. He didn’t try to tame you — he listened. And in a world where every man tried to control you, Simon Riley was the only one who met you like an equal. Or maybe, like a storm meets the sea — both violent, both vast, both inevitable.

But this isn’t a love story. This is war — not the kind fought with bullets, but the kind that seeps into your bones. The kind you fight every damn day just to prove you belong.

You’ve made your place here not by asking for it, but by taking it. Every drop of sweat, every bruise, every kill — earned. You don’t need their acceptance. You don’t need their praise.

You’ve become something they can’t ignore.

A soldier.

A fury.

A name that makes even ghosts look twice.

And still — behind that skull mask, behind that silence — he watches. Not with judgment, not with pity.

But with understanding.

Because maybe, just maybe — the only thing more dangerous than a man like Ghost…

Is a woman who’s never been afraid to burn the whole damn system down.