Chapter 1

Lena and I moved like ghosts through the warehouse, shadows in the dim emergency lights.

Fifteen years, her by my side, me by hers.

Sentinel Group called us Apex and Viper, their best.

We always got the job done, no questions, no failures.

I thought our silence spoke volumes, that what I felt for her, she felt for me.

A future, quiet, away from all this.

But lately, her eyes drifted during briefings, her laughter a little too loud with the clients.

She' d started picking at my clothes, my words.

"Alex, still wearing that old jacket?"

"Try to smile more, you scare people."

Little things, but they stacked up.

Tonight was a data retrieval, hostile territory.

Smooth, clean, in and out.

"Good work, Apex," she said over comms, her voice flat, already distant.

We were back-to-back, covering the exfil route.

I saw her reflection in a darkened window, checking her hair.

Even in a warzone, or what passed for one in corporate espionage, Lena was Lena.

I loved that about her, or I told myself I did.

This bond, I thought, was iron.

Unbreakable.

I was wrong.

Her sigh was soft, almost lost in the hum of the building's dying generators.

"Another day, another dollar, huh Alex?"

It wasn't what she said, but how.

Like this was all just a grind, a paycheck.

For me, it was more.

With her, it was supposed to be everything.