The next morning, Paris had a gray cast, like the city knew what Selene was wrestling with.
She stood on the rooftop helipad of SeraphTech's tower, watching the morning fog roll over the Seine. Her breath escaped in soft plumes, a whisper against the dawn. The world felt still, but inside her mind, storm clouds raged.
She hadn't slept.
Not after the kiss. Not after the call with the Handler. Not with that icy warning still echoing in her ear.
Kill him in seven days. Or we send another.
Another assassin.
Another blade.
And the unmistakable implication: if she failed, she wouldn't just lose her position—she'd be marked for elimination.
Orchid's Fang did not tolerate broken contracts.
They trained the perfect assassins. But they demanded absolute loyalty. And Selene had never failed them—until now.
Yet something had shifted. In her. Around her.
It wasn't just the target anymore. It was him.
Alexander Voss.
The man she had been sent to kill.
And the man who kissed her like she mattered.
Get a grip, she told herself. You've done this before. Seduce, gain access, eliminate.
But it had never felt like this.
Never made her feel like she was the one being disarmed.
---
Downstairs, the atmosphere inside SeraphTech had changed.
Security teams were doubled.
Camera angles widened.
Guards checked IDs even for internal staff.
Selene noticed all of it. The company was on edge. But she didn't know why—until she passed the CEO's war room and spotted Alexander inside with two men in sharp suits and earpieces.
She lingered outside, just long enough to catch a few clipped words through the glass:
"…anonymous threats… surveillance breach… Pentagon firewalls…"
One of the men said something about a ghost protocol being activated.
Selene's blood chilled.
She stepped back as Alexander turned toward the door—and caught her reflection in the glass. Their eyes met again, his look inscrutable.
He excused himself and stepped into the hallway.
"You're up early," he said, keeping his voice low.
"I could say the same."
His eyes searched hers. "You heard some of that?"
"Enough to know someone's making moves."
Alexander hesitated, then leaned in.
"Someone hacked one of our prototype servers in Zurich. A security team tracked the breach to a shell company based in Morocco. It's gone now. Burned."
Selene's stomach turned.
She knew what that meant. Orchid's Fang was cleaning up their trails.
Fast.
Efficient.
Deadly.
"Was anything taken?" she asked, carefully neutral.
"No," he said. "But they were close."
She swallowed hard. "Have you considered the breach might have come from the inside?"
He gave her a long look. "I consider everything."
Then he turned and walked away.
Selene stood frozen in the corridor, a knot forming in her throat.
He suspected her. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he wanted to, but couldn't bring himself to believe it.
Either way, the walls were closing in.
---
By noon, Selene was in the archives wing—a secure data library beneath the main campus. She wore a visitor badge and a borrowed lab coat. Officially, she was here to "review SeraphTech's AI ethics protocols."
Unofficially, she was here to plant a microchip.
A listening device.
One she would normally use to monitor target communications.
But today, she wasn't planting it for Orchid's Fang.
She was planting it against them.
If they were sending another operative, she needed to know. She needed to hear the whispers of betrayal before they reached Alexander's heart.
He didn't deserve to die blind.
She worked quickly, discreetly sliding the chip behind the main server panel. Her pulse remained steady. Hands controlled. Every move rehearsed a thousand times before.
Until the moment she turned—and found herself face to face with a woman she didn't recognize.
Tall. Blonde. Violet eyes.
Too beautiful for coincidence.
And smiling far too calmly.
"Bonjour," the woman said, French accent thick but practiced. "Sophia Renard, yes?"
Selene stiffened.
"Have we met?"
The woman's smile widened. "No. But we will."
She handed Selene a card—matte black with nothing on it but a single silver symbol. A fang. Curved like a scythe.
Selene's heart stopped.
The calling card of Orchid's elite enforcers.
Her replacement.
"Tell your bosses you're not needed," Selene said coldly.
"I don't take orders from ghosts," the woman replied, stepping closer. "You had your chance. You hesitated. That makes you compromised."
Selene's hand twitched near her thigh, where a throwing knife was strapped beneath the lab coat.
But the blonde merely smiled and whispered, "Tick tock, chère. If you don't end him, I will."
Then she turned and walked away, heels clicking on the marble floor.
Selene stared down at the card, fury boiling in her chest.
This was war now.
Not just a contract.
But a challenge.
And she would not lose.
---
That night, Selene sat across from Alexander on his penthouse balcony, a glass of whiskey in her hand and her conscience unraveling.
He was watching her again. Like he could read her thoughts.
"Tell me something true," he said softly.
She blinked. "What?"
"One true thing. About you."
Selene exhaled slowly. Looked away.
"I never knew my mother," she said. "She died when I was six. I remember her hair. It smelled like jasmine."
Alexander's expression shifted—just slightly. "That's the first personal thing you've told me."
"And it'll be the last," she said quickly, then regretted it.
But he didn't flinch.
Instead, he took a long sip of his drink and said, "When I was twelve, my father made me shoot a man."
Selene's breath caught.
"What?"
"It was an empty threat," he said. "Or so I thought. The man was an enforcer. Tried to rob my family's vaults. My father put a pistol in my hand and said, 'Men protect what they build. Or they lose it.'"
"And did you?" she asked.
"Shoot him? No. I froze. But the man died anyway. My father pulled the trigger."
He looked out at the city, a long shadow falling across his face.
"That was the day I learned not all monsters have fangs."
Silence stretched between them.
Selene couldn't look away.
Because she was realizing something awful.
Something fatal.
She was falling for him.
Not the target.
Not the billionaire.
But the man.
And it would get them both killed.
---
Midnight.
She lay in bed with her blade beside her.
And she dreamed of blood.
Of Orchid's Fang burning her file.
Of the blonde assassin smiling as she pressed a gun to Alexander's heart.
Of herself, standing frozen—unable to move.
The next morning, Selene rose before dawn.
She slipped out of the suite, took the elevator to the 12th floor—engineering—and accessed the system override panel she'd studied earlier that week.
She needed eyes on the building.
Ears on Orchid's Fang.
She couldn't protect Alexander from both them and herself unless she started playing a different game.
She inserted her secondary listening device—a tool she wasn't supposed to have. A traitor's tool.
She uploaded a bypass.
Opened a channel.
And for the first time in years, she did something no assassin was ever trained to do.
She chose a side.
Not Orchid's.
Not the mission's.
His.