The Dossier
1387 Words
The photograph fell from Isabella's hand.
She stared at it on the floor, herself, outside a Vienna café three months ago. The angle was wrong. Too close. Like whoever took it had been sitting at the next table, close enough to hear her breathing.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the next one.
Training session. Sicily. Two months ago.
Another. Her apartment in Prague. Through the window.
Inside her apartment.
"No." The word barely made a sound. She spread the photographs across the desk, hands shaking so badly they blurred. "No, no…"
Twenty photos. Thirty. Forty.
Timestamps going back four months.
Four months.
Meeting with handlers she'd thought were secure. Weapons drills in underground ranges. The Moscow safehouse where she'd practiced that smile at three AM, alone, except she hadn't been alone. Someone had been watching.
A file folder underneath. She opened it with numb fingers.
Psychological profile. Training records. Handler rotations. Safehouse locations.
The entire Monaco operation lay out like a blueprint.
Everything. He knew everything.
Isabella's knees went weak. She gripped the desk edge, trying to breathe through the pressure building in her chest. Four months meant Adrian had known before Monaco was finalized. Before she'd left Prague. Before Viktor had told her she'd finally get justice.
Every moment of preparation, every rehearsed smile, every practiced touch, had been a performance for an audience she didn't know existed.
She wasn't the hunter.
She'd never been the hunter.
God, how long had he been watching? How long had he been…
Her stomach lurched. She pressed a hand to her mouth, swallowing bile.
Abort. The protocol said abort when the cover was blown. Signal Viktor, extract, disappear.
Except.
Eighteen years of training. One mission. One purpose. And she'd failed before she'd even started.
Don Salvatore didn't forgive failure. Not in this world. Would he believe her cover was blown through no fault of her own? Or would he think she'd been turned, that she'd wanted this, that her loyalty was…
And if she stayed. If she tried to continue. How did you seduce a man who'd watched you practice seduction techniques? How did you manipulate someone who'd been reading your playbook for months?
The mission was impossible.
But aborting meant…
She couldn't finish the thought. Couldn't let herself imagine Viktor's face when she called for extraction. Nico's disappointment. Don Salvatore's quiet rage at eighteen years wasted.
Why keep her alive?
That was the question that made her hands shake harder. Adrian could have killed her cleanly. One bullet. Message sent to the Morettis that their weapon was broken.
Instead, he'd brought her here. Given her a bedroom. Left this dossier where she'd find it.
Why?
Isabella picked up one of the photographs with trembling fingers. Herself in the Moscow safehouse, laughing at something Viktor said. The camera had caught her mid-laugh, face open, unguarded, real.
She looked so young.
When was the last time she'd laughed like that without measuring it? Without calculating the exact sound, the perfect duration?
She couldn't remember. Couldn't remember being anything except intentional.
"You're even more beautiful when you're not pretending."
Isabella spun, photograph clutching in her fist.
Adrian stood in the doorway.
"Get out." Her voice cracked. "Get out…"
"You found them." Not a question. He stepped inside, and she backed up instinctively, hit the desk. "Good."
"Good?" The word came out shrill. "You…four months? You've been watching me for…"
"Four months, two weeks, three days." Adrian closed the door behind him. "Since my intelligence network intercepted communications about Monaco."
Her breath wouldn't come right. "You knew. This whole time, you…"
"Knew you were being trained to seduce me, yes." He moved closer. Steady. Unhurried. "Knew you'd bump into me at the west bar, ten-fifteen PM. Knew exactly what you'd say, how you'd smile, where you'd touch my arm."
"Stop…"
"Knew you'd been practicing that laugh." His eyes tracked to the photograph still crumpled in her hand. "The one you think I'd find charming."
Isabella's hands shook. She tried to smooth the photo, but couldn't make her fingers work properly. "Then why…why didn't you just kill me?"
"Is that what you expected?"
"It's what you should have done."
"Should I have?" Adrian tilted his head. "Why?"
"Because I was…I am…" She couldn't finish. The words stuck.
"A weapon," he finished quietly. "Aimed at my heart."
The clinical precision of it made something crack in her chest. She looked down at the photo, herself, laughing, unaware she was being documented. Studied. Catalogued.
"So what now?" Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "You've got your proof. You know the mission. What happens to me?"
"What do you think should happen?"
"Don't…" She shook her head. "Don't do that. Don't ask me questions like I have choices here."
"Don't you?"
"No." The word broke. "No, I don't. If I abort, the Morettis will…" She stopped. Pressed her lips together.
"Kill you?" Adrian supplied. "For failing the mission?"
She didn't answer. Didn't need to.
"And if you continue?" He stepped closer. "How do you seduce someone who's been watching you practice?"
"I don't know." It came out as a whisper. "I don't…this wasn't supposed to…"
"What? Happen this way?" Something shifted in his expression. "You were supposed to have control. The upper hand. You were the hunter."
"Stop." She pressed her palms against her eyes. "Just stop."
"Why?"
"Because you're…" Her hands dropped. She met his gaze. "Because you're right. Okay? You're right. I had a plan. I had purpose. And you've been ten steps ahead the entire time, and I…" Her voice cracked. "I don't know what to do now."
Silence. Adrian studied her face like he was reading something written there.
"The surveillance," she said finally. Quietly. "How long have you been watching?"
"I told you. Four months."
"No." She gestured to the photographs. "Some of these are…they're intimate. My apartment. Training sessions. Moments when I thought I was…" Alone. "How long have you really been watching?"
His expression didn't change. "Does it matter?"
"Yes." The word came out fierce. "Yes, it matters. Because if you've known this whole time, if you've been studying me like some kind of…of specimen…then I need to know why you didn't just…" She stopped. Swallowed. "Why keep me alive, Adrian?"
"You want the truth?"
"I want you to stop playing games."
"I'm not playing." He moved closer. Close enough she could see the exact shade of his eyes, gray, like winter. "I wanted to see if you were real."
"Real?" She almost laughed. "I'm a weapon. You said it yourself."
"Weapons don't laugh like that." He nodded to the crumpled photo. "Not when they think no one's watching."
Her breath caught.
"I've seen you, Isabella." His voice dropped lower. "Not the performance. Not the seduction training. You. The girl who exists in the spaces between missions."
"That girl doesn't exist."
"She does." He reached out slowly, took the photograph from her shaking hand. "I've been watching her for months."
The words landed like a physical thing. Isabella stared at him, at this man who'd kidnapped her, surveilled her, dismantled her entire mission before she'd even started.
This man who'd kept photographs of her laughing.
"I don't understand." Her voice came out broken. "What do you want from me?"
"I want…" Adrian stopped. Something flickered across his face. "I want to know if you're a weapon. Or if you're something else."
"And if I'm a weapon?"
"Then we'll deal with that." He set the photo down carefully. "But if you're something else…" He met her eyes. "Then everything changes."
Isabella's pulse hammered. She opened her mouth. Closed it.
Behind her, she heard footsteps.
She spun.
The doorway was empty.
When she turned back, Adrian was closer. Too close. She could see the precise line of his jaw, smell his cologne, cedar, and something darker.
"You're afraid," he said quietly.
"Of course I'm…"
"Not of me." His eyes searched hers. "Of yourself. Of what happens if you stop pretending."
Her hands clenched. "I don't know how to stop."
"Then let me help you."
The words hung between them. Isabella stared at a photograph of herself laughing during training, trying to recognize the girl in the image.
Behind her, a voice said quietly:
"You're even more beautiful when you're not pretending."
Adrian was standing in the doorway.
- Writer
