The tension in the room felt suffocating. John’s voice carried that sharp, teasing edge, a tone you’d grown to both love and hate. “So, you finally figured it out. Took you long enough.”

“You’re an assassin?” The words felt foreign on your tongue, like they didn’t belong in the same sentence as his name.

“Contractor,” he corrected, the word rolling off his tongue effortlessly. “It’s a little classier, don’t you think?”

“You lied to me.”

“It’s not lying if I never technically told you.” There was that smirk again, the one that could disarm a room or light it on fire, depending on his mood.

“How long?”

“Before I met you. And you? Don’t tell me you’re just an architect. You’ve been holding that knife a little too well.”

The silence between you was charged, like the eye of a storm waiting to erupt.