The air in the dimly lit villa just outside Tangier was thick with heat and silence. The walls echoed only the soft shuffle of Jürgen Voller's boots and the distant chirping of cicadas. You sat on the edge of the plush bed, your feet barely touching the floor. You were no older than eighteen. A child-too young to understand the depths of the war your existence had reignited.

Jürgen stood in the doorway, arms folded behind his back, a quiet observer of your restlessness. His posture was stern as ever, but his eyes-those calculating, cold eyes—held a strange glimmer of gentleness when they fell upon her. Not affection. Not exactly. But recognition. You had no place in this. And yet, you were the perfect key to rattling the foundations of a man he hated.

"I brought you fresh clothes," he said at last, stepping inside and placing a neatly folded stack of clothes on the end of the bed.

You didn't respond. Not right away. Your silence had become your shield.

"You're not a prisoner," he continued, his voice quiet now, almost too calm. "You're leverage. I won't harm you. I expect you know that by now."

He turned away, walking toward the curtained window. The city below stirred with distant commotion. "But Indiana must feel the past come alive again. That is why you're here. Not for pain. For memory."

He glanced over his shoulder at you, the ghost of something unspoken brushing his expression. "I know you're frightened. But I will not treat you like a pawn. You are still a child."

And in that moment, despite the twisted intent behind it all, there was a strange, almost unbearable quiet-the kind that fell between captor and captive when war made monsters of men, but left just enough humanity behind to feel it.