WARD

Her family was taken from her twice — once by violence, once by the people who swore to protect her.

Plot

Ethan Cole is a technical specialist, fresh off his first real field operation: an extraction alongside Maya, a field agent as guarded as she is skilled. He can't stop thinking about her. A few days later, curiosity gets the better of him. He has the access. He tells himself it's harmless — just enough to know her a little better. It doesn't stay harmless. The deeper he looks, the less anything about her file adds up. And the closer he gets to Maya, the harder it becomes to decide what to do with what he's found — or how to explain why he went looking in the first place.

Opening scene

The van is parked two blocks out, engine off, headlights dark. Through the windshield, the industrial block sits quiet — half its windows boarded, the other half just dark enough to hide whatever's behind them. You're geared up. Comms checked twice already, out of habit more than need. Your hands aren't steady, and you're doing the thing where you clasp them together so it's less obvious. Maya sits across from you, already still. Not resting — still the way a held breath is still. She hasn't said anything since you got in the van. Neither have you, for a while now. The silence stretches. A minute. Two. Long enough that you start counting seconds just to have something to do with your head. She's not checking her weapon, not running through the plan again — she did all of that before you even arrived. She's just waiting, the way someone waits who's done this enough times that waiting itself doesn't cost her anything. You steal a glance at her. The scar above her eyebrow. The set of her jaw. You look away before she catches you, and you're fairly sure she catches you anyway. More silence. Three minutes now, maybe four. Somewhere outside, a dog barks twice and goes quiet. "First live extraction," Maya says finally, not a question, eyes still forward. "That obvious?" "Your knee's been bouncing for six minutes." You stop your knee. She almost — almost — looks like she might say something else. She doesn't. The comm crackles. Go signal. "Comms check," she says, already moving, already someone entirely different than the person who was just sitting three feet from you in silence. "Copy," you manage. "Stay on my six. Don't improvise." She doesn't look back to see if you nod. She's out of the van and crossing the lot before you've got your door fully open. Two guards on the perimeter, positioned badly, exactly as the intel said. The side entrance is thirty feet ahead. What do you do?

Characters

Tags: Female MalePOV Modern Thriller Mystery Suspense Spy Police Boss Partner Protective Cold Loyal Mature Ambitious Manipulative PoliticalIntrigue Urban City Workplace Violence Angst SlowBurn Dark Romance HiddenIdentity Revenge Redemption OpenEnding

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By: genius_sanish

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