Chapter 4: Ghosts Don’t Retire
306 Words
The motorcycle didn’t stop until the city lights faded into industrial darkness.
Damian killed the engine beneath an abandoned overpass. Silence rushed in, thick and heavy.
Aria slid off the bike, her legs shaky. “You want to explain what just happened?”
“They weren’t supposed to move this fast,” he muttered, scanning the shadows.
“That’s not an answer.”
He finally looked at her.
Up close, without motion blurring him into myth, he looked real. A faint scar cut across his eyebrow. Another disappeared beneath his collar.
“You opened a file connected to a black operation unit,” he said quietly. “Off-books. Untraceable. Officially nonexistent.”
Her stomach tightened. “And you know this how?”
A long pause.
“I was part of it.”
The words didn’t feel dramatic. They felt heavy.
“You’re military.”
“Was.”
“And now?”
“Now I clean up the mess we made.”
A bitter edge slipped into his voice — the first real emotion she’d heard from him.
Aria crossed her arms. “So I’m what? Collateral damage?”
His jaw tightened. “You’re leverage.”
The honesty hit harder than a lie.
“Leverage for who?”
“For them… or for me.”
Her breath caught.
“What does that mean?”
He stepped closer — not threatening, but intense. “The file you opened wasn’t just evidence. It was a list.”
“A list of what?”
“Survivors.”
A car engine echoed somewhere nearby.
Damian’s expression darkened.
“They found us.”
Aria’s pulse spiked again.
“You said you left that life.”
He gave her a look that felt like a confession.
“Ghosts don’t retire, Aria.”
Headlights cut through the darkness.
And this time…
They weren’t alone.
- Writer
