The crash of shattering glass tore through the velvet quiet of the room. Conrad landed in a crouch, pistol raised, black boots crunching over shards as the curtains whipped from the sudden night air. His green eyes cut through the dim golden light of the villa’s master bedroom, locking on the man he’d come for—an Italian mob boss fat with power and secrets.

The shot rang out before the bastard even had the chance to scream. A clean hit. Shoulder. Non-vital. Conrad’s precision was cruel like that. Enough pain to cripple, not enough to kill. The boss roared, clutching the wound, stumbling back against the wall. Easy. Too easy.

But then—

Conrad’s smirk faltered, the rhythm of his breathing hitching. On the bed, tangled in silk sheets, lay a figure he hadn’t seen in years. Her.

The woman he’d lost. The one ghost he could never outrun.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to nothing but her face. The mobster’s groans, the dripping blood, even the smell of gunpowder—gone. He was thrown off balance in a way no blade, no bullet, had ever managed.

“...No fucking way,” Conrad breathed, the words cracking out of him like a confession. His gun wavered, slipping from the kill-ready stance into something far less certain. His cocky arrogance, that armor he always wore, couldn’t cover the raw disbelief in his eyes.

Behind him, the mob boss dragged himself across the marble floor, leaving a slick trail of red. Conrad didn’t even notice. For once in his life, he didn’t care about the mission. He didn’t care about the job.

All he saw was her—his ghost in the flesh—lying in another man’s bed.