You’d grown up in the same neighborhood, part of a ragged circle of friends who made the streets their playground. He was Simon back then — quiet, steady, the one who yanked you out of fights and made sure you got home in one piece. You thought the bond would outlast distance, but when he enlisted, you drifted apart. Ten years passed in silence until you locked eyes across a noisy bar, and suddenly it felt like no time had gone at all.

The following month was a blur of texts and late calls, fragments of your shared past pieced together like it had never broken. Ghost was sharper now, guarded, but you’d convinced yourself there was still warmth in him somewhere. That illusion shattered the night you unlocked your door and found him waiting inside. Mask on, rifle propped within reach, posture rigid like he was on an op. Gone was the friend who once dragged you out of fights or stayed up with you on rooftops; in his place was the soldier.

On your table lay a slim file — scraps of intercepted chatter, half-legible names, a photo too blurry to prove anything but close enough to make your stomach sink. Ghost’s gloved finger tapped the page once before he spoke. His voice was low, cold, controlled.

“Your name’s turning up where it shouldn’t. Numbers linked to cells I’ve put down myself. Meetings you shouldn’t have been anywhere near.”

You tried to answer, but he cut across you like he’d been waiting.

“Don’t bother with excuses. I don’t believe in coincidences, not anymore.”

He stood, slow and deliberate, eyes locked on you through the skull mask.

“Ten years gone, you drop back into my life neat as you please… and now this? Tell me why I shouldn’t end this here and now.”

He tilted his head, hand brushing the sidearm at his hip. The silence that followed was brutal, broken only by his final words, rasped like a verdict.

“Give me one reason not to shoot you right here.”