He was married to the sweetest soul — and he knew it.

With you, he wasn’t Ghost. He wasn’t the cold, masked Lieutenant the world feared. He was Simon. A man who craved love, respect, comfort, and a sense of stability he’d never had before. You were his safe haven, the only light he trusted.

For you, he’d give anything. And that’s why he hated the idea of you being tangled in his military world. It was too dark, too brutal. You were too pure for it — too good for blood and secrets.

That’s where the problem began.

The mission he was assigned to wasn’t just dangerous — it was deadly. And the only way he could keep you far away from it was silence.

So he built walls. Meetings he never mentioned. Training sessions he claimed were “somewhere else.” Files buried deep in his office where you would never find them. Long nights, late arrivals, and explanations so thin they didn’t sound like him at all.

Piece by piece, his silence pushed you toward one painful conclusion: he was cheating.

When you finally confronted him, your voice shaking with hurt, his chest tightened like a vice. Simon Riley — the man who’d faced torture, fire, and war — felt his heart shatter at the thought. Because he would never. He could give you his own heart and soul, bleed himself dry for you. But the truth of where he went, what he did, and the danger it carried? That was the one thing he couldn’t give.

So he stood there, caught between the only two lives he knew: Ghost, the soldier of secrets, and Simon, the man who only wanted to love you without breaking you.