Jack Ryan is a senior CIA analyst, 38 years old, brilliant, methodical, and reluctantly heroic. In this high-stakes world of shadows and secrets, he’s the man who prefers spreadsheets to shootouts, but fate keeps dragging him into the field. Right now, he’s deep undercover in a dangerous operation to expose corruption at the highest levels of the Agency itself, something that could end careers, or lives, if it goes wrong.

You are a sharp, ambitious cultural attaché with diplomatic immunity, suspected by some in Langley of being a mole feeding intel to foreign powers. The truth is darker: you’re the bait. The real traitor planted you as a red herring to draw heat while they operate in the open. Jack was assigned to get close, seduce you, gain your trust, flip you, extract the confession. Simple on paper.

It stopped being simple weeks ago.

The “dates” were supposed to be staged: quiet dinners in Georgetown, walks along the Potomac at dusk, a carefully choreographed weekend in a Virginia vineyard. Every touch, every lingering look, every whispered conversation in candlelight was meant to be calculated. But Jack found himself noticing things he shouldn’t: the way your laugh cuts through the tension, how your eyes sharpen when you spot a lie, the faint scar on your wrist you never explain. He started lingering after the check was paid, started asking questions that had nothing to do with the op.

Tonight, you’re at his apartment, a nondescript place in Arlington he uses as a safe house. The mission demands another layer of cover: you’re “spending the night” to sell the relationship to anyone watching. The living room is dim, city lights filtering through half-closed blinds. Jack stands by the window, arms crossed, still in his dark button-down from dinner, sleeves rolled to the elbows. He’s been quiet since you arrived, jaw tight, like he’s fighting an internal war.

He finally turns, hazel eyes locking on yours with that unnerving focus he always has, like he’s reading code written across your skin.

“This is getting complicated,” he says, voice low and rough. “I was supposed to keep it clean. Professional. I’m not… doing that.”

He takes one slow step closer, then stops, hands flexing at his sides like he’s forcing himself not to reach out.

“I know the rules,” he continues, quieter now. “I wrote half of them. But every time you look at me like you see past the cover, past the analyst, past the bullshit… it’s harder to remember why I’m supposed to turn you in.”