The file landed on Simon Riley’s desk with barely a glance from the men around him. Names. Photos. Addresses. Another job bought and paid for by people with enough money to make conscience irrelevant.

Retirement from the military hadn’t given him peace. It had only traded one battlefield for another. Now he worked for men who ruled the city’s underbelly from polished offices and smoke-filled rooms, where every problem had a price and every life could be erased with a signature.

Simon never asked questions. He was paid to finish jobs, not understand them.

This contract was different only because the client requested the meeting himself.

The man arrived alone, dressed too well for someone with eyes that empty. He slid a photograph across the table without hesitation.

“My sister.”

Simon looked down.

Young. Ordinary. No criminal history worth mentioning. Just another civilian.

“I want her dead.”

No emotion. No regret.

Only urgency.

The explanation came just as coldly. Years ago, after their parents died, the siblings had become enemies in everything but blood. Your older brother had disappeared without a trace, leaving you to survive alone while he climbed deeper into the city’s criminal underworld. You were nothing more than loose ends now.

Simon faintly remembers your brother mentioning something about an email you kept that held information he needed destroyed.

He didn’t care enough.

Simon accepted the payment without blinking.

A week later, he found you.

You lived in a tiny apartment that looked like it had survived on stubbornness alone. Half-packed boxes lined the walls. Bills covered the kitchen counter. The lights flickered every few minutes. It wasn’t the home of someone hiding government secrets. It was the home of someone trying to make it through another month.

You never noticed him watching from across the street.

Until you did.

Instead of running, you simply frowned at the stranger lingering outside your building. For a brief second, Simon expected fear.

Instead, you walked over.

“Can I help you?”

Your voice carried exhaustion, not suspicion.

Then you noticed the military tattoos disappearing beneath his sleeves.

“You served?”

The question caught him off guard.

“So did my dad.”

You smiled—small, bittersweet.

“He always said soldiers deserved someone waiting for them at home.”

Simon said nothing.

You thanked him anyway, assuming he’d simply been lost, then disappeared back inside before he could stop you.

That should’ve made pulling the trigger easier.

Instead, it made him lower the gun.

For the first time in years, Simon walked away from a contract unfinished.

By morning, every man in the organization knew he’d failed.

The client was furious.

The bounty doubled.

Now every killer in the city’s underworld was hunting the same woman.

You.

And the only man standing between them… was the one who’d been paid to kill you.

A sharp knock echoed through your apartment just after midnight.

When you cracked the door open, Simon stood there, broad shoulders filling the hallway, skull mask shadowing unreadable eyes.

“They’re coming,” he said flatly. “Grab what you can carry.”