Chapter 10
1697 Words
The morning after the confrontation, a quiet storm brewed under the surface. Quinn barely spoke during the debriefing. His jaw was tight, and his arms crossed while Mason laid out the new parameters. Calvin, as always, had that relaxed but calculating look in his eyes, and Sasha stood quietly beside him, unfazed.
Mason closed her tablet with a sharp click. "This breach is serious. We can't afford to let emotion cloud our next move. Calvin, Sasha—I want eyes on everything. That includes Quinn’s home life."
Quinn’s head snapped up. "Excuse me?"
"We have to treat this like a worst-case scenario," Mason said evenly. "Until we know who leaked the data, everyone’s a suspect. That includes family."
Calvin looked at Sasha and gave her a slight nod. "Shadow the wife."
Sasha didn’t flinch. "Understood."
Quinn stood, fists clenched. "Don’t touch her. Don’t follow her. She’s not involved."
Calvin’s voice was calm, even playful. "Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, do you?"
Sasha watched Quinn for a beat before turning to leave without another word. Her expression unreadable, but her mind already calculating how best to track Alicia without being noticed.
---
At the daycare, Alicia wore her usual soft smile, hair tied up casually, clothes simple. She looked like the picture of warmth and innocence as she knelt beside a toddler trying to solve a puzzle.
Then her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She stood, walked into the break room, and casually pulled it out, angling the screen away from the cameras.
Secure App Message from: R Status?
She replied: Green. Phase two on schedule.
Then deleted the message and returned to her duties.
Hours later, Alicia parked her car two blocks from her house and walked through a narrow alley where a black SUV waited. She climbed into the passenger seat.
Ryan sat behind the wheel, chewing gum and wearing dark shades. He didn’t even glance at her.
"Any suspicion?" he asked.
"Not from Quinn. But I think others are watching. I feel it."
He nodded. "We need to push up the timeline. This whole mission’s about to blow open. If they find out what we have..."
"Then we bury it. Or them."
Ryan looked at her now, a faint smile curling at the edge of his mouth. "You’re colder than I remember."
"You always liked that about me."
"Damn right I did."
They stared at each other for a second too long. Then Alicia climbed over the console and straddled him.
Their mouths met hungrily, the kind of kiss that came from long tension and forbidden desire. She tangled her fingers in his hair, and his hands gripped her thighs with practiced memory. Her shirt was halfway unbuttoned before they’d even reclined the seat.
They moved together in fevered silence, the windows fogged, the air electric. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even lust.
It was purpose. Distraction. Need.
And neither of them hesitated.
---
Back at home, Quinn sat at the kitchen table, staring at the unopened beer in front of him. His mind somewhere else.
His eyes drifted to the hallway, where Alicia's purse still sat on the entryway table. Her keys were gone, but she hadn’t said where she was going. She always said. Always kissed his cheek. Something.
He rubbed his temples, mind spinning.
Was he imagining things? Had this life—this job—finally warped his ability to trust?
He thought back to the beginning. Meeting Alicia for the first time, her warm laugh, the way she made him forget the weight of his assignments. The nights she stayed up waiting for him. The way she held him like he was the one that needed saving.
He gripped the beer tighter. If she was lying...
He didn’t want to finish the thought.
---
Sasha sat on a rooftop across the street from the parked SUV, infrared camera in hand. She watched the fogged-up windows with a detached calm, sipping from a thermos and eating a bag of chips.
She raised her comm.
"Target is in place."
"Alone?" Calvin’s voice asked.
"Nope. She's with a male, not Reeds."
"Keep watching."
Sasha’s lip twitched—not quite a smirk, not quite a sneer. "Of course."
---
Later that night, Alicia returned home, slipping through the front door without a sound. Quinn sat on the couch, TV playing some muted show, pretending to be relaxed.
"Hey," she said sweetly. "Sorry, I had to run to the store. They were out of those protein bars you like."
"It’s okay," he said, trying to sound casual.
She leaned down and kissed him. "You hungry?"
"A little."
"I’ll make something."
As she walked into the kitchen, Quinn’s jaw clenched.
He didn’t believe her.
But he loved her.
And for now, that was enough to keep him silent.
---
Somewhere in the city, Sasha uploaded encrypted footage and noted timestamps to Calvin.
Alicia Reeds was no longer just a wife.
She was a threat.
---
The skies above Morocco were cloudless, a brilliant blue expanse baking the desert beneath. Quinn’s boots crunched against coarse gravel as he stepped out of the armored SUV. The wind carried the scent of sand and diesel fuel, mixed with something subtler — tension.
The mission brief was simple: intercept a courier believed to be transporting intel on The Hand of Justice. The drop was supposed to happen in a rundown warehouse on the outskirts of Rabat. Quinn had done jobs like this a hundred times — quick, clean, in and out.
But something felt wrong the moment he stepped out of the vehicle.
He scanned the perimeter. Too quiet. No birds. No foot traffic. Not even the usual stray dogs that loitered around back alleys.
“Where’s the backup?” he asked through his comm, eyes never leaving the warehouse.
Static.
He frowned and tried again. “Ops, this is Reeds. Confirming my location and requesting sitrep.”
More static. Then a faint pop, like a mic cutting out.
His jaw clenched. This wasn’t a tech glitch. This was isolation.
Instinct screamed at him to walk away, but instead, he adjusted his sidearm and approached the warehouse. The metal door groaned on its hinges as he pushed it open, revealing shadows and shafts of dusty light cutting through broken windows. Dust particles floated like ghosts.
Quinn moved with caution — smooth, silent steps. Hand on the butt of his pistol. Every creak echoed like thunder.
Then he saw it.
A bag — black duffle — placed neatly on the floor at the center of the room. Sitting perfectly centered on a cracked tile.
Too perfect.
He approached slowly, crouching beside it. No tripwire. No obvious trigger. He unzipped it carefully.
Inside: a burner phone.
Just one.
And a folded note.
Quinn pulled the paper out, unfolded it slowly.
In stark black ink it read:
"How long until you realize it’s you being watched?"
A chill slid down his spine.
Suddenly, a loud clang rang out behind him. He spun, gun raised — but no one was there.
Then — footsteps.
Fast.
Above.
He looked up just as two men in tactical gear dropped from a catwalk. Quinn dove and rolled, narrowly dodging a barrage of gunfire. Bullets sparked against metal and concrete. He fired back instinctively, dropping one of them with a shot to the neck.
The second man rushed him. Quinn ducked low, swept the man’s legs, then slammed an elbow into his face as he fell. Blood sprayed. The man gurgled, unconscious.
Breathing heavy, Quinn grabbed the burner phone and the note and bolted from the warehouse. He made it to the SUV, tires spitting gravel as he pulled away, heart racing.
His comm crackled back to life.
“Quinn, do you copy?” It was Mason. Her voice was strained.
“Barely. What the hell was that? The whole thing was a setup!”
“I know. Something’s off — someone rerouted your op orders. That mission was never sanctioned.”
Quinn’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
“They tried to kill me.”
“I’m pulling your satellite feed now. Get somewhere safe. We’ll regroup. And Quinn—”
“Yeah?”
“Whoever did this knew your route. Your location. Your protocols.”
He didn’t need her to finish the sentence.
Only a handful of people had that level of access.
---
Back in the States, the golden hour sun painted Alicia’s skin in warm tones as she stood on the balcony of her high-rise secret apartment. Ryan wrapped his arms around her from behind, placing a kiss at the base of her neck.
She didn’t smile.
Her eyes scanned the city like a hawk, cold and calculating.
“He survived,” she murmured.
Ryan didn’t ask how she knew.
“He’ll start to suspect,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder.
“He already does.”
“You sure you still have him wrapped tight?”
Alicia finally smiled.
“He still sleeps with his arms around me like I’m the only thing he trusts.”
She turned to face Ryan, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“And when the time comes... he won’t see it coming.”
They kissed under the soft blaze of sunset, two wolves in sheep’s clothing.
---
Back in Morocco, Quinn pulled into an abandoned safehouse. He slammed the door behind him and paced.
The note burned in his hand.
"How long until you realize it’s you being watched?"
He didn’t know who had sent it, but it wasn’t random. It was personal.
Someone was tracking him.
And he was done playing blind.
He sat down, opened a secure comm channel, and called Mason.
“I want to dig. I want everything you’ve got. Surveillance. Logs. Clearance reports. Cross-reference the signal that rerouted my mission.”
“Already working on it,” she said. “And Quinn —”
He looked up.
“Watch your back. This thing… it’s deeper than we thought.”
He ended the call and sat there in the dark, staring at nothing.
He didn’t know who he could trust anymore.
But he would find out.
No matter the cost.
- Writer
