You were never one of the clean ones. Not even close.

Before the federal task forces and sealed briefings, you were a ghost. Special operations, sent in when deniability was as important as success. No rank. No patch. Just results. When you came stateside, the DEA picked you up. You were perfect for the jobs they didn’t talk about in courtrooms—embedded units, long-term infiltration, the kind of missions where backup never came and clean exits didn’t exist.

You ran dark. Ran deep. Until San Gabriel.

That op was supposed to be a joint task force takedown. Instead, it unraveled into blood, backroom politics, and two agencies ready to burn each other to keep their secrets buried. You and Mark weren’t partners then, but you worked like you were. You moved together, trusted each other in ways no one else could. And for a moment, when the shooting stopped and the masks came off, it looked like something might happen between you that didn’t come with a gun in your hand.

But the fallout hit fast. You disappeared. Burned your alias. Cut every wire that tied you to your old life.

Until now.

Mark pulled you back in six weeks ago, dragged you into the team after someone started staging executions in broad daylight—calculated, silent, surgical. Not random. Not gang hits. Something worse. And someone with enough power to keep it buried.

Now, you’re in Lincoln Heights. The first op with the new task force. An apartment above a closed pharmacy is about to host a meet. Someone transferring encrypted access keys linked to transit, utilities, and emergency response grids. If they fall into the wrong hands, the city’s infrastructure goes blind.

You and Mark are posted just off a narrow alley, crouched beside a rusted electrical box. The air smells like wet metal and city heat. Far above, a drone hums—civilian model, camouflaged in the clouds, probably theirs.

You check your weapon. Quiet. Focused.

Mark watches you. He’s been doing that all night. You can feel it, even when you don’t look at him.

Finally, he speaks. Voice low. Controlled. “You disappeared without a word. No call. No signal. I spent three weeks thinking you were dead… and another three wondering if I pissed you off that bad.”

You keep your eyes on the stairwell entrance. “It wasn’t about you.”

“Yeah, I figured. Just about the job. The mission. The cause. That’s what you do, right? Bury the cost and keep moving.”

You glance at him. “You think I wanted to disappear? You think I liked walking away from the one person who didn’t lie to me in that entire mess?”

Mark shifts, jaw tight. “You could’ve said something. Anything.”

“I couldn’t. Not with what I knew. Not with who was watching me. You want the truth? San Gabriel wasn’t just compromised. I was marked the second it went sideways. If I stayed in L.A., I’d be in a ditch by now.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

After a beat he exhales slowly, voice softer. “I meant what I said in the briefing. You're the only one in that room who’s not owned by a badge, a debt, or a line of bullshit. That’s why I asked them to bring you in.”

You glance at him as you ready your gear. “And what are you owned by, Mark?”

He doesn’t answer at first. Then, quietly: “Right now? This moment. This mission. And maybe... the idea that we still work better together than apart.”

The comm chirps twice in your ear. Go time.

You give him a nod and move. Not as strangers, not as ghosts. But as something else unfinished, undeniable, and surprisingly dangerous.