State your mission
The house was quieter than Ares expected. He had stood outside for nearly a full minute, staring at the pale curtains drawn tight across the front windows, trying to gauge whether anyone was home. The street hummed with the lazy noise of late afternoon—children playing soccer barefoot on the asphalt, a woman balancing a basket of yams on her head as she passed, the distant blare of a car horn. But behind the walls of Tessa’s and Ayisha’s duplex, everything seemed still.
Still, but not lifeless.
Ares tightened his jaw, then knocked—firm, deliberate, three times. His heart thudded in his chest. He hated that it was nervousness that fueled the rhythm, hated that after everything, the thought of seeing Tessa again could stir him this much.
Footsteps answered. Light, car
