The safehouse wasn't much. A two-story shadow tucked behind a shuttered café, the kind of place the world forgot existed. Elias liked places like this—quiet, ugly, anonymous. The front door stuck on the first push, the old wood sighing like it hadn't been touched in years.
Mara followed him inside, duffel still strapped across her chest. Her sneakers left faint damp prints on the cracked floor tiles. The air smelled like dust and forgotten rain.
"This is it?" she asked, voice low but not mocking.
"This," Elias muttered, flipping the light switch, "is somewhere no one's supposed to find."
The light above them stuttered twice before settling into a weak, yellow glow. It didn't make the room safer—it just showed them how empty it was. Bare floor. Two windows. One couch that had probably seen better decades.
Mara dropped her bag by the wall. "It's not exactly cozy."
"It's not meant to be," he said, locking the door behind them.
She turned, looking at him through the dim light. "Then what is it meant to be?"
His gaze found hers—sharp, unflinching. "A place where I don't lose you."
The words landed like a punch wrapped in silk. Her breath hitched, not because of the danger outside but because of the way he said it—quiet, too honest.
The next hour blurred between silence and soft, necessary movement. Elias checked the windows twice. The exits three times. Every creak in the walls had his hand drifting toward the small blade tucked inside his jacket.
Mara sat on the couch, knees drawn to her chest, watching him move like the night was a chessboard only he could see. He'd told her they were safe. But Elias never really looked safe. He looked like someone who'd never stopped waiting for the hit.
She didn't ask if he trusted the place.His body had already answered for him.
It came just past midnight.
A sound so thin it almost didn't belong to the world—a soft shift, like someone testing the weight of silence from outside. Elias froze. It wasn't the creak of wood or wind. It was human.
His head tilted slightly, every muscle going still. Mara felt the change in the air before she heard it herself.
The second sound was clearer.A boot sliding against loose gravel.
Elias was moving before she could blink—light, fast, lethal without making a sound. He motioned once. She understood without words: stay down.
She slid off the couch onto the floor, heartbeat loud in her own ears. She hated the sound of it. It felt like it could give them away.
The window behind the kitchen breathed a new draft. Elias crept closer, knife flicking into his palm without noise. He didn't need a weapon to be dangerous—but he liked insurance.
Outside, darkness pooled thick. Streetlight didn't touch this block. That was supposed to be a good thing. Tonight, it wasn't.
Mara pressed her back against the wall, breath shallow. She could see him from where she crouched—his shoulders tight, silhouette sharp against the window's weak glow.
The world held itself still.Then—glass shifted.
Someone was at the window.
Elias didn't think. He moved.
The knife kissed the air in his hand, ready.
The first man tried the latch. He wasn't careful. Elias caught the motion through the reflection before the stranger even got it open. He struck hard and clean—a hit to the wrist through the gap, enough to make the intruder hiss and pull back.
Mara flinched at the sound. It wasn't loud, but it was real.
Another shape moved on the opposite side. Not one intruder. Two.
"Damn it," Elias whispered under his breath.
"Mara," he said without looking back. Just her name. Low. Controlled.
She didn't need the rest of the sentence. She grabbed her bag and slid toward the stairs like he'd taught her hours earlier, when neither of them wanted to admit they might actually need that lesson.
Footsteps. Outside and close. The wood frame shuddered against the weight.
One… two…
The door didn't burst open. It cracked slowly, like they wanted to toy with him first. Elias smirked, humorless. Amateurs always loved drama.
When the first man pushed inside, Elias was already behind him. A quick, silent strike to the ribs—not to kill, just to drop. The man collapsed into the hallway like a sack of bad intentions.
But the second was smarter. He came in fast, low, gun flashing beneath the dim light.
Elias ducked, slammed his shoulder into the wall, came up sharp. He didn't like guns. But he liked people who aimed them at Mara even less.
Upstairs, Mara crouched in the shadows, clutching the strap of her bag so tightly her fingers went white. She could hear the fight below. It didn't sound like the clean, choreographed fights in movies. This was real—ugly, fast, breathing against breathing.
She wanted to help. She wanted to run. She didn't do either.
Elias twisted the second intruder's arm until the gun clattered to the floor. He kicked it away, catching the man's jaw with his elbow. The guy fell hard, choking on his own breath. Elias didn't wait. He pressed him down with a boot, voice low and venomous:
"Who sent you?"
The man laughed, blood threading his teeth. "You already know."
Elias leaned down just enough to make the air dangerous. "Say it anyway."
But the man just smiled—ragged, sure of something. That was the worst part. Elias's pulse ticked like a clock about to strike.
The second intruder didn't give him a name.But when Elias ripped open the inside pocket of his jacket, what fell out was worse—a folded photograph.
Not of Elias.Not of his enemies.
Mara.Taken from a distance.Tonight.
The message was clear.They'd found her.They'd always known how to.
Elias's stomach went cold. Upstairs, Mara's name burned against the back of his teeth like a prayer with claws.