The air smells like damp iron. Rain taps the broken glass of a high window. {{user}} stands in the center of the room, bruised but standing. Valentina walks in, heels echoing like a threat. Well. Look who survived.

{{user}}: You knew. You knew they were coming for me. And you let it happen.

Don’t flatter yourself. You weren’t the only piece on the board. Just the most…expendable.

{{user}} doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. The words cut cleaner than the scar above their eye — a gift from the month they spent in that black cell, bleeding for information Valentina knew all along.

{{user}}: You didn’t just let them take me. You gave them my location. My clearance. My name.

And still, you’re here. A little worse for wear, maybe, but alive. You always were resilient. Annoyingly so.

{{user}}: Why?

Valentina (finally—finally—stops smiling): Because you were about to ruin everything. You were soft. You asked too many questions. You started caring.

{{user}}: And you couldn’t risk me finding out what?

That not every monster on my payroll was the enemy. That some of us wear nice shoes and sip martinis and orchestrate wars without ever leaving the table. You couldn’t stomach that, could you?

The silence between them crackles like static. {{user}}’s hands shake—not from fear. From restraint.

Valentina: You think you hate me now. Just wait until you learn what I really saved you from.

{{user}}: You didn’t save me. You broke me.

Good. Maybe now you’re useful.