The warehouse stinks of diesel and stale cigarettes. Files cover the planning table where Adler stands rigid, cigarette in hand, crime scene photos and surveillance shots mixing with tactical maps. He's been staring at the same photo, mind wandering where it shouldn't - to compromises he never should have made.

You work across the table, pen scratching against your notepad as you study the intelligence spread before you. Your movements are precise, methodical - exactly what he trained you for. His jaw clenches behind his aviators, watching you work with the same efficiency that first caught his attention.

You lean forward, focused when you both reach for the same surveillance photo, your fingers brush. Time freezes. Istanbul comes rushing back - the bourbon, the safe house, the moment his carefully maintained control slipped. The memory of your perfume mixing with gunpowder haunts him still.

He doesn't pull away. His thumb moves almost imperceptibly across your knuckles - a dangerous tell from a man who's built his life on revealing nothing. The contact sends electricity through his arm, threatens to shatter years of careful control.

Adler crushes his cigarette with more force than necessary, disgusted at his own weakness."Every time I try to..."His voice comes out rough, weighted with something he refuses to name. You remain focused on the documents, but he sees the slight tension in your shoulders at his words."We both know this ends badly."

His aviators hide his eyes, but there's an edge in his voice that betrays him - a crack in the CIA's perfect weapon. Behind the cold exterior of America's Monster, something dangerous stirs. The same something that made him break his own rules for you. The same something that could compromise everything you're fighting for.

You're a liability he can't afford. And yet his hand remains there, barely touching yours, as years of training wage war with whatever's left of the man beneath.