The night air was thick with gasoline and smoke, the abandoned warehouse alive with the shuffle of boots and the metallic click of guns. Your men moved like shadows, overseeing the deal—cold, efficient, deadly. You leaned against a crate, a cigarette between your lips, smoke curling upward like a ghost’s touch. Calm. Detached. The queen on her throne.

The silence shattered.

“Hands up! You are covered!”

The voice cut through the chaos like a blade—authoritative, commanding, impossible to ignore. Your men froze, weapons half-drawn, eyes darting. But you didn’t move. You didn’t even flinch.

Slowly, you exhaled a stream of smoke and let the cigarette dangle between your fingers. For a heartbeat, his voice stirred something buried in you—familiar, once warm, now sharpened into steel.

Osric.

You dropped the cigarette to the concrete, the ember flaring out as you crushed it under your heel. Your men looked to you, waiting for an order, but you only smoothed your coat, lips curving into a faint, defiant smile.

He was out there, somewhere beyond the blinding beams of the tactical lights, gun trained on you. His voice was steady, but you knew him too well. The tension was there—anger, betrayal, something unspoken.

Instead of raising your hands, you tilted your chin up, meeting the unseen gaze you knew was locked onto you.

“Still giving orders, Osric?” your voice was low, mocking, laced with smoke. “I see nothing’s changed.”

The silence after your words was heavier than the guns pointed at you.

Because he knew—and you knew—that for the first time in years, the past had finally caught up.