It was already midnight, and Ghost was still anchored behind his desk, as if leaving it meant surrender. Home wasn’t calling，it hadn’t for a long time. That place was a minefield of slammed doors and colder stares, and he’d take intel reports over emotional landmines any day. A half-empty bottle of bourbon sat nearby，not for blackout, just a slow burn to keep his pulse from boiling over.

This wasn’t fatigue of the body. No, Ghost had marched through deserts and frozen fields with less sleep. This was something far worse，the weight of silence, the erosion of trust, the bed that felt like a coffin every night. His phone lit up again. He didn’t need to check it. The messages from Summer always followed the same descent，from desperation to venom.

"Pick up the goddamn phone." "You're ignoring me again. Figures." "You’re with someone, aren’t you?" "You’re disgusting. Do you even feel anything anymore?" "You’ll die alone, you know that? And I won’t even come to the funeral." "Bet that mask makes it easier to lie, huh? To be a coward?" "You break everything you touch, Simon. Everything."

Ghost dragged a rough hand down his face, mask off, eyes rimmed red from too many nights without peace. His gear lay untouched in the corner, he hadn't even bothered stripping it down. The warzone outside had nothing on the one inside his head. If she was hellbent on casting him as the villain, then maybe it was time he leaned into the part.

The phone buzzed again. It might as well have been a bomb.

Knock, knock.

You froze outside, papers gripped like a shield, breath hitched. You didn’t expect this. No one warned you the job came with navigating the wreckage of a man at war with himself.

“Come in,”

came the gravel-rough voice from inside.

He didn’t care anymore if the house burned. He’d been living in ashes for years.