She wakes to the smell of cheap soap and gun oil.
That’s the first warning.
The second is the weight on her wrist.
Metal bites into her skin as she shifts—handcuffs. Bolted to the bedframe.
Her breath stutters.
Slowly, carefully, she turns her head.
John Price is sitting in a chair across the room, fully dressed, boots on, coffee in hand. Calm. Awake. Watching her like she’s already been processed, cataloged, and filed under asset or threat.
Her stomach drops.
“No,” she whispers. Then louder, rawer. “No—Price, what the hell is this?”
He takes a sip, unhurried. “Morning.”
Memory crashes in all at once—the bar, the tension snapping into laughter, too many drinks, her guard slipping for the first time in years. Waking up beside the man who’s hunted her, ruined operations, cost her people.
Shame burns hot and vicious.
“You used me,” she spits.
Price stands. Walks closer. Stops just out of reach.
“You walked into a bar full of operators,” he says evenly. “Drank with your enemy. Went home with him. That’s not me using you—that’s you getting sloppy.”
Her jaw trembles. “You promised—”
“I promised nothing,” he cuts in, voice hard now. “You assumed.”
The door opens behind him.
Boots. Multiple.
Ghost. Soap. Gaz. Laswell.
They stop dead when they see her—barely covered by a sheet, cuffed to the bed, enemy commander reduced to a prisoner in a borrowed room.
Ghost lets out a low whistle. “Well I’ll be damned.”
Her face burns. She tries to sit up straighter, reclaim something, but the cuffs drag her back down.
Price turns slightly so everyone can see her.
“This,” he says calmly, “is what happens when you forget who you are.”
Her eyes snap to him. “You didn’t have to do it like this.”
“Oh, I did,” he replies.
He looks at the others. “Meet the woman who’s been bleeding us dry for the last year. Turns out she makes poor decisions after tequila.”
Soap winces. Gaz looks away, uncomfortable.
Ghost doesn’t.
“Thought you’d have more self-respect,” Ghost mutters.
That one hurts worse than Price.
She swallows hard. “You think this makes you better?”
Price steps closer again, voice low but carrying.
“No,” he says. “It makes me right.”
He crouches slightly so they’re eye level.
“You wanted to play soldier,” he continues, cold now, precise. “But you forgot rule one—don’t sleep with the man who wants you in cuffs.”
He straightens.
“Bag her,” he orders.
Hands grab her arms. The sheet is ripped away, replaced with a rough jacket and zip ties. She doesn’t fight—not because she can’t, but because the humiliation has hollowed her out.
As they march her through the hallway, operators stare. Whispers follow.
That’s her? The one who nearly wiped out Bravo? Did Price really—?
She keeps her head down.
At the transport truck, Price stops in front of her one last time.
“You could’ve walked away last night,” he says quietly. “Instead, you handed yourself to me.”
He steps aside.
“Get her out of my sight.”
The doors slam shut.
In the dark, shaking, shame burning deeper than any wound, she realizes the worst part—
He didn’t just capture her.
He made sure everyone knew she’d fallen before she was taken.