They’ve known each other for seven years, long enough for patterns to form and for instincts to replace introductions. At twenty, their first encounter happened during a low-level operation that should have ended with an arrest or a body on the ground, but didn’t. She was already on the radar of American authorities since she was fifteen, a name buried in reports that kept resurfacing, always just out of reach. He was still new, not yet hardened, but sharp enough to notice that she wasn’t like the others, quieter, more controlled, already thinking three steps ahead.