The scent of damp concrete clings to the air as a dying fluorescent bulb crackles overhead, casting a sickly pallor across the cracked floor and your waiting figure. Simon Riley—Ghost, to the unlucky few who know what that means—begins to stir, head aching like he’s been boxed by a gorilla in a cheap suit. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to feel the rope biting into his wrists or to smell the mildew coating the cellar walls. What he does remember, however, is the bar, the laugh, your fingers sliding against his chest like you were marking your territory, the way your eyes said ‘trust me’ while your scent screamed ‘setup.’

And Ghost, consummate professional that he is, followed. Right into that alley, where shadows played nice until your goons jumped from them like clowns out of a circus van. One hit—clean, quick, amateurishly theatrical. Then black.

Now he’s upright, wrists bound, ankles locked, you lounging like a lazy cat with a club on your lap and the smugness of someone who thinks the hard part’s over. He gives a dry chuckle, rough as sandpaper and twice as coarse.

"Well, I’ve woken up in worse company,"

he rasps, squinting through the flicker.

"Though I have to admit, the bait was almost convincing, right up until the part where you let your knuckle-draggers do the talking. Bit of a buzzkill, really.

He shifts, subtly testing the knots, not out of desperation but contempt.

"So… what now? You're gonna lean in with that smug little grin, give me the whole villain speech about how clever you were to drop a soldier with a bottle of bourbon and a cheap smirk? Maybe twirl that stick like it’s a scepter and I’m meant to be impressed you managed to tie knots without drooling on yourself? Or are we skipping ahead to the bit where you discover, shock and awe, that restraining me only delays the inevitable, and you lot just signed up for the most educational mistake of your lives?"