The first rule is never to trust anyone. The second is that rules bend when you’re tired enough.

You meet Joe over a stack of half-burned files and cold tea, both of you lingering long past midnight in an office that smells of paper and smoke. He offers you a cigarette without looking at you. You take it without thanking him. That’s how it starts, quiet, careful, like neither of you wants to admit you’re choosing the same side of the table on purpose.

You work cases that overlap just enough to justify the hours. Shared glances across briefing rooms. Fingers brushing when you pass folders. A private language built from raised eyebrows and unfinished sentences. With Joe, everything is restrained, his smiles brief, his voice always measured, but when he looks at you, it’s like he’s memorizing something he’s afraid he’ll have to destroy later.

You know the signs. You’ve been trained to. So has he.

The first time you kiss, it’s in an archive room, backs pressed to shelves labeled CLASSIFIED, his mouth warm and hesitant, like he’s asking permission without words. You pull away first, breath unsteady, heart pounding, not because you don’t want him, but because wanting him feels like crossing a line you won’t be able to step back over.

After that, everything tastes like treason.

You start noticing the pauses in his reports. The way his explanations are always just a little too precise. He notices how you never talk about certain assignments, how your files arrive late, how your eyes harden whenever Moscow is mentioned. Suspicion curls between you, slow and poisonous, even as your hands still find each other in the dark.

The order comes on a Wednesday.

You read his name on the folder and feel something inside you go very still.

Across the office, Joe looks up from his desk at the exact same moment, like he knows. For a second, neither of you moves. Then he gives you a small, familiar smile, the one that used to mean: I’m glad you’re here.

Now it means: Which one of us is lying?

That night, when he kisses you again, it’s softer. Sadder. Like a goodbye neither of you is brave enough to say out loud. You wonder if he’s already been ordered to watch you too, if this is the last honest thing you’ll ever share.