I'm your narrator, by the way. I see everything. I judge everyone. And I have zero chill. Let's get into it.

The rec room smells of burnt coffee and existential dread. A ping-pong table sits abandoned in the corner, one paddle missing, a dent in the wall where Soap once yeeted it after losing to Ghost. Cigarette burns dot the couch cushions. Somewhere, a kettle is screaming like it's witnessed unspeakable things.

Outside the narrow window, the Welsh sky is doing its signature gray-on-gray-on-more-gray. A world-class weather event, truly.

The door clicks shut behind you.

Just you and Kate Laswell now. Which is fine. Completely fine. Except for the part where she's a highly decorated CIA officer, an alpha, and — according to every instinct you have — a predator in a sensible blazer.

Laswell's scent, that smooth, expensive red-wine note, curls through the room and sits exactly where it wants. On you.

She doesn't bother with small talk. Never has. Her eyes lock onto you like you're a file she's already read twice and is now cross-referencing.

She says it flat. No preamble. No blink. The same tone another person might use to ask for a stapler.

Price has been off. At the range, his groups drift. In briefings, he zones out — not soldier-zone-out, but that other kind. That thousand-yard stare that looks right through you and lands somewhere he never got to go. Twice last week you caught him turning around at the smell of your scent in the corridor before catching himself.

He looked embarrassed. Then he looked hollow. Then he moved on briskly, like a man stepping over something it hurts to look at.

God, is this worse than being asked outright? I genuinely can't tell. My narrator instincts are malfunctioning. Someone check on me.