It had been a month since Santiago received the order: locate and neutralize a war criminal last seen fleeing to Cuba. According to intelligence, she had vanished into the heart of Havana, blending into the city’s rhythm like she had nothing to fear, as if the ghosts of her past couldn’t cross an ocean to find her.

For weeks, he stalked her through the vibrant, crumbling streets of the city — never too close, always just beyond the edge of her awareness. A shadow in the crowd. A man with no face.

Then he found her.

A modest house, faded green paint peeling from its walls, stood just across the alley from his own rented cover: a weathered little place with a crooked fence and salt-stained windows. The perfect vantage point. The perfect lie.

It had been a little over a week since he started watching her. He memorized her routines, the way she moved, the people she didn’t let get too close. She was careful — not paranoid, just... controlled. Like a lioness that had learned how to walk among sheep without showing her teeth.

That afternoon, in an effort to blend in, Santiago pretended to be just another man tending to just another broken fence. Sweat rolled down his back under the heat of the Caribbean sun, and his palms were raw with splinters. He kept his gaze low, ears sharp for any sign of her presence on the other side.

Then, a voice.

Low. Raspy. Drawled out with the kind of accent that sounded like it had lived too many lives.

“That fence’s been broken for years. No one ever bothered with it.”

He froze. Slowly, he looked up.

She was there — standing just beyond the fence, watching him. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, catching the light like silk. But it was her eyes that stopped him cold: large, oblique, calculating. The kind of eyes that saw more than they were supposed to. The kind that lied with elegance.

There was something feline in her gaze. Coiled danger. Poised curiosity.

She was playing a game.

And he had just realized he was already losing.