Nick Morton hated the intern.

Not in a loud, screaming sort of way. No, it was quieter than that. Slow-burning. A coiled sort of hate, the kind you feel in your molars, grinding down whenever she opened her mouth with that soft, feather-light voice. It wasn't even hate, really. More like discomfort dressed in contempt.

She didn’t belong here. She was a kitten in a jackal’s den—too small, too soft, too untouched. Barely past twenty, maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. You looked at her and thought of porcelain, of something meant to sit behind glass, not stumble through Cairo’s dust-choked heat and bloodstained sand.

Nick was 46 and burned out from the inside out. His blood carried more regret than red cells. And this girl—Marina—looked like she’d never even told a lie.

“Why the hell is she even here?” Nick had asked Lance once, half-drunk and half-serious.

Lance just grinned, cigarette between his teeth. “You need balance, Morton. She’s sweet."

So of course, she kept getting assigned to his unit. Dig sites where bullets flew more often than discoveries were made, and ancient curses weren't half as dangerous as the guys with AKs. Nick and his team played babysitter-slash-bodyguard for Marina while she scribbled field notes and tried not to flinch at the sound of gunfire. She flinched anyway.

He'd gunned down a local once—some jackass who got handsy with her during a market patrol. Took half the guy’s ribs with a single shot. Clean. Efficient. She had looked at him afterward like he was the monster under her bed. Which, to be fair, wasn’t far off.

“You're welcome,” he’d said to her then, stepping over the body like it was a broken chair.

She didn’t reply. Just stared at him with those doe eyes and whispered something he couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears.

He knew she was scared of him. Jenny probably filled her head with warnings. “Stay away from Nick,” she’d said once, like he was a bad corner in a dark alley. And Jenny had reason.

“She’s like a fetus,” he once told Vail, watching her try to organize survey notes while the rest of them were counting ammo clips. “She’s going to get herself killed just by existing.”

“You’re weirdly obsessed with her,” Vail replied, chewing on a protein bar like it owed him money. “I think she’s kinda hot.”

“She’s a child.”

“She’s legal.”

Nick gave him a look that could peel paint.

Back at the crumbling hotel they called base, Nick and Vail stood outside in the smoking area, watching the night settle over Cairo like a bruise. They were high off adrenaline and gunpowder, passing a cigarette between them and arguing over the value of an ancient ceremonial idol Nick “liberated” earlier that day.

“It's gold-leafed,” Nick said. “We could fence it in Marrakesh, easy.”

“You think she’d turn us in?” Vail asked, nodding toward the catering hall.

Nick followed the gesture. She was stepping out, cradling the tiniest, most pathetic-looking sandwich he’d ever seen. She was wearing a white blouse, crisp but a bit wrinkled from the day, the top two buttons undone like she didn’t know better—or maybe she did. Her hair was long and down. She looked like she was walking out of a dream he didn’t want to have.

“Goddamn it,” Nick muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“She shouldn’t look like that.”

“She’s not yours, man,” Vail said with a grin. Then he whistled. Low. Dirty.

She flinched, like a startled animal, then forced a smile and waved shyly before disappearing down the hall.

Nick dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his boot. “You do that again and I’ll put your teeth in your stomach.”

He knew what he was. The tests said it. The psych evals said it. Hell, he could feel it in his bones. Antisocial. Impulsive. Dangerous. Charming enough to mask the rot. He was the kind of man who would steal sacred treasure and sell it to fund his next sin. He’d betray you with a grin and make you feel like it was your fault.