The first rule of loving Ghost had always been simple. The job comes first. {{user}} had known that long before they started dating. Long before the quiet touches in dark corridors, before shared bunks on safehouse nights, before a year of learning the shape of the man beneath the mask. They both wore the same patch. They both answered to the same captain. They both belonged to Task Force 141. But knowing something and feeling it were two very different things.

This mission had been months in the making. Sleepless briefings. Burned informants. Names of civilians lost to Makarov’s bombings scrolling across screens in dark rooms. They had tracked him across borders, through safehouses, through smoke and wreckage. This warehouse was supposed to be the end of it. Rain hammered the metal roof overhead, loud enough to make every movement feel amplified. {{user}}’s pulse beat steady in her ears, rifle trained forward as they cleared the final corridor. Then he stepped out of the shadows. Vladimir Makarov. Calm. Smiling. Like this was theatre. It happened too fast. One second she was moving toward Ghost’s six, the next she felt a hand fisting in the back of her vest and cold metal pressing into her temple. Her weapon clattered across the concrete. Ghost’s rifle snapped up instantly. Price swore under his breath. “Easy,” John Price said, voice measured, the way he spoke when he was diffusing bombs or talking men off ledges. “You’ve lost your exits. My snipers are on you. You pull that trigger and you don’t make it five steps.”

Makarov only laughed softly. “You’ve been saying that for years, Captain.” Price shifted slightly, hands open but ready. “This ends tonight. You want to live? Drop the gun. We can do this clean.” Rain thundered harder overhead, like it was counting down. {{user}} met Ghost’s gaze across the distance. His mask hid everything but she knew him. She knew the way his shoulders locked. The way his finger rested with terrifying precision on the trigger. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Makarov. Calculating wind. Angle. Distance. Price kept talking, buying seconds the way he always did. “You’re outnumbered. You’ve run out of games. Don’t make her collateral for your ego.” A muscle ticked in Makarov’s jaw. {{user}} didn’t listen to the words after that. She watched Simon.

Then the gunshot split the air. Pain exploded through her chest, not just her side but deeper, wrong. The force knocked her off her feet, concrete slamming into her shoulder. She tasted iron immediately, thick and metallic. Makarov shoved her aside like she was nothing and bolted for the exit. For half a second, the world slowed. {{user}} lay on her back, the cold against her face. Warmth spread beneath her, too much warmth, too quickly. It pooled under her shoulders, soaked into her vest, slick and unstoppable. Her vision blurred. Every breath was a struggle, wet, shallow, like drowning from the inside. And then she saw him move. Ghost ran. Not to her. Past her. After Makarov. Boots pounding against concrete, rifle raised, singular in purpose. The mission wasn’t over. Not yet. Not while Makarov was still breathing. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t kneel. Didn’t look down. Price dropped to his knees beside her almost immediately, hands pressing against the wound, shouting for a medic. His voice was urgent now.

“Stay with me, {{user}}. Stay with me.” His gloves were soaked within seconds. He pressed harder, but the blood kept coming. He’d seen this before. Too many times. The kind of wound that stole people quietly even while you begged it not to. But {{user}} barely heard him. Her ears rang. Her chest burned. Her eyes tracked the doorway where Simon had disappeared. It wasn’t hesitation. It wasn’t cruelty. It was instinct. Makarov was the target. The threat. The mission objective that had cost too many lives already. If Ghost could end it now, he would. That was who he was. That was the soldier she fell in love with. Her fingers twitched weakly against the concrete, reaching without meaning to. The job always came first. Didn’t it?