Johan POV

It started with a shipment that never arrived.

A crate of prototype rifles meant for a private buyer in Odessa. The truck had vanished from a monitored checkpoint in Turkey. No trail, no bodies. Just silence.

Then the whispers started.

A name. A man. An ex-operative turned freelancer with ties to the DEA. He was pulling strings, intercepting trades, sowing chaos.

"He's not a mole," Tiger said one night at the warehouse, voice low. "He's a ghost. And he's very close."

"Then why haven't we caught him?" I snapped, pacing the cement floor like a lion caged too long.

Arthit looked up from the monitors. "Because someone on the inside is helping him."

The words made my blood chill.

Inside. Someone trusted. Someone close.

I tried to separate my worlds. To leave the violence in the warehouse and walk into North's apartment like I hadn't broken a man's wrist an hour before. I still remembered the way North had looked at me last week, all bright-eyed and hopeful, when he surprised me with takeout and a new set of sheets "because the old ones were scratchy."

He was trying.

Loving me.

And I... I was crumbling.

The duality was eating me alive.

"Mark," he whispered that night, curling into my side. "You've been somewhere else lately. You okay?"

My arms tightened around him. I couldn't tell him the truth.

Couldn't say that I'd ordered two more bodies buried in shallow graves. That I'd torn apart my entire Bangkok cell trying to sniff out a traitor. That I woke up to coded threats left inside encrypted apps no one should have known existed.

Instead, I pressed my lips to his hair.

"Just tired. Work's a mess."

His sigh was warm. Forgiving.

But I didn't deserve it.

Another week passed. Another attack.

This time it was one of my floating docks in Eastern Europe-burned to the ground. Bodies in the water. My men.

And I missed North's university recital.

He'd asked me weeks in advance. Told me he was nervous. That he wanted me there.

I tried. I really did.

But when I showed up, hours late, still smelling of smoke and blood, the auditorium was empty. He was sitting on the stairs outside, his music folder limp in his hands.

"You didn't come."

Three words. Soft. But they hit me like a bullet.

He didn't yell.

He didn't cry.

He just went quiet.

And when I reached for him, he stepped back.

"I know you said you're busy, and I'm trying to understand, I really am," he whispered, eyes not meeting mine. "But sometimes it feels like I'm only part of your life when it's convenient."

I wanted to scream. To shake him. To say, You are my life.

But I couldn't.

Because the truth was uglier than anything he could imagine.

So I said nothing.

And watched him walk away.

Back at the warehouse, Tiger handed me a phone.

"Intercepted transmission. Audio only. Our mole's voice is on it."

I played it.

The voice was calm. Measured. Dangerous.

"Tell Johan Armani the clock is ticking. The wolf wears sheep's clothing, but sheep bite back."

I stood in the dark after, staring at the ceiling.

I'd killed for less than this. Burned cities for smaller betrayals.

But I couldn't burn him.

Not North.

He was the only thing left that made me feel human.

And I was slowly poisoning him with every lie I told.

_______________

Third person pov

The silence carved more crater on the rocky floor of the planet.

Mark had come home late again-eyes hollow, shoulders heavy with the kind of burden North could never quite reach. The food on the table had gone cold, untouched. North sat at the counter, arms crossed, the quiet pressing down like humidity before a storm.

"You didn't text," North said, voice soft but razor-edged.

Mark didn't answer immediately. He shrugged off his coat and dropped his keys into the ceramic bowl on the shelf.

"I was busy."

"That's your excuse every time now."

Mark turned, expression unreadable. "It's not an excuse. It's the truth."

"You promised to come to dinner. I waited for hours."

"I didn't ask you to."

The words hit harder than they were meant to. North blinked.

"I'm not asking for the world, Mark. Just honesty. You're shutting me out."

Mark exhaled, long and tired. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

A beat passed. Another. Johan-Mark-looked away. The mask slipped, just for a second. Then it was back.

"I told you," he said. "Some things are better left alone."

North stood slowly. "I'm not a child. And I'm not a placeholder for your silence."

Mark stepped forward. "North-"

"No." His voice cracked. "If you're going to keep pushing me out, then maybe I shouldn't be here."

The pain in Mark's chest was instantaneous. But he didn't stop him. He couldn't.

North grabbed his bag. The drawer Mark used to call his now felt like a coffin.

As the door shut behind him, Mark didn't chase.

Not because he didn't care.

But because if he said one more word, he might beg.

And Johan Armani didn't beg.

Even when the love of his life walked out the door.

Even when the war he built was the reason why.