Once

"Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day"

- William Shakespeare, Richard II

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THE REAPER FILE -- CLASSIFIED DOSSIER

[TOP SECRET -- MI6/BLACK OPERATIONS DIVISION]

Clearance Level: ALPHA BLACK

Eyes Only: Directorate Level Personnel

SUBJECT FILE: BARNES, GABRIEL ("REAPER")

OPERATIVE STATUS: ACTIVE / ROGUE POTENTIAL

AGENCY AFFILIATION: SAS -- SPECIAL AIR SERVICE

LAST VERIFIED ASSIGNMENT: OPERATION BLACK SWAN [SEE: FILE 001-A THROUGH FILE 003-F]

MISSION OBJECTIVE:

Monitor, neutralize, or contain foreign operative:

Subject: VETROVA, NATALIA ("SWAN")

Threat Level: EXTREME

Risk of Alliance Compromise: CRITICAL

Psychological Vulnerability Indicators: CONFIRMED

NOTES:

Barnes demonstrated operational drift during deep field missions Istanbul, Milan, Lisbon.

Unauthorized personal connection to target suspected.

Psychological evaluations inconclusive: classified "high-functioning liability."

FINAL DIRECTIVE:

"The Reaper doesn't miss. Ensure he doesn't start now."

--Directorate Order D-17 / Eyes Only

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[TOP SECRET -- MI6/BLACK OPERATIONS DIVISION]

Clearance Level: ALPHA BLACK

Eyes Only: Directorate Level Personnel

SUBJECT FILE: VETROVA, NATALIA ("SWAN")

OPERATIVE STATUS: ACTIVE -- UNCONFIRMED ROGUE

AGENCY AFFILIATION: SVR (FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE, RUSSIA)

LAST VERIFIED SIGHTING: NATO Summit Perimeter -- [REDACTED AIRFIELD]

MISSION OBJECTIVE:

Monitor for intent to compromise NATO security infrastructure.

Confirm suspected defection attempts.

Authorize neutralization if extraction becomes impossible.

Threat Level: EXTREME

Psychological Profile: CLASSIFIED -- POTENTIAL EMPATHIC FRACTURES DETECTED

NOTES:

Subject is fluent in English, Russian, French, and Italian.

Primary tactics:

Psychological manipulation.

Seduction and embedded asset conversion.

Precision termination operations ("no prints, no traces").

Behavioral Deviations Recorded:

Lisbon, Portugal: unexpected hesitation during termination window.

Vienna, Austria: uncharacteristic rescue of foreign operative (Subject: BARNES, G.).

Munich, Germany: deviation from exit protocol; compromised mole with lethal force without secondary clearance.

FIELD RISK ASSESSMENT:

Subject may have developed personal emotional ties inconsistent with SVR operational standards.

Monitoring agency recommends immediate reassessment: high probability of dual loyalty or unclassified motives.

FINAL DIRECTIVE:

"If Swan flies too far from the pond, clip her wings before she learns how to land."

--Directorate Order S-8 / Eyes Only

__________________

(POV: Gabriel "Reaper" Barnes):

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FILE 001-A | OPERATION: IRON VEIL

LOCATION: Montenegro Airfield

DATE: 15 March

TIME: 0700 HRS

STATUS: MISSION PENDING

OBJECTIVE: Confirm Subject: VETROVA, NATALIA. Intervene if threat exceeds clearance level.

The scope hums in my ear like a heartbeat I no longer trust.

Wind's steady--seven knots, southeast. Distance: 1,900 meters. Angle of elevation: two degrees, give or take. Easy math for someone like me. I've taken harder shots in worse conditions. But not like this. Not with her in the crosshairs. Not with my finger trembling like it forgot who the hell I am.

It's almost funny.

This wasn't the life I was supposed to have.

My father made damn sure of that.

Military man to the core--Queen's Guard, stiff upper lip, medals he never wore because pride got you killed faster than a bullet. He spent every penny, every last breath, trying to carve me a different future. Best schools. Best tutors. Best lies. Wanted me behind a desk, not a rifle. Wanted me safe.

I threw it all back in his face.

I chose Sandhurst. I chose boots on the ground and blood under my nails. When I volunteered for the SAS, he didn't even come to the ceremony. Said he didn't raise a son just to watch him die for someone else's orders.

We never talked about it after that.

We didn't talk about much, after that.

MI6 was supposed to be the clean version. The sharp suit, the polished lies, the detached patriotism.

I should've known better.

You can't polish a weapon like me. You can only hide it in the dark and hope it doesn't remember how to bite.

And now here I am.

Rifle loaded.

Heart empty.

Pointed at the only person who ever made me think maybe there was a way out of all this.

She's laughing again. Natalia Vetrova--codename Swan--perched beside a NATO general like she belongs there. White wine. Designer sunglasses. A scarf the color of arterial blood. If the intel's right, and it usually is, she's about to turn him. The man's got enough clearance to cripple half the defense infrastructure of Europe. And she--she's not bluffing this time. Not seducing for intel. Not playing a part. She means it. Which means I've got a decision to make.

I shift my weight slightly, careful not to rattle the gravel beneath me. The rifle stays steady. Breath in. Hold. Breath out. My finger hovers just shy of the trigger, not quite ready to commit the sin.

I glance at the black cord bracelet on my left wrist--frayed, worn smooth at the edges.

The only thing left from the last time I believed in something.

Funny.

Ten years ago, I wore this to remember Brenda.

Now I talk to it like it's her ghost.

"You wouldn't understand," I whisper to it. "Or maybe you would."

Natalia didn't do anything to me. Not really. She didn't lie. Not more than I did. She didn't pull away. Hell, she was the one who wanted more. Marriage. Escape. Peace.

But this... this thing she's about to do?

It's not personal.

It's treason.

It's betrayal on a scale that breaks nations.

And I can't ignore it.

Even if part of me would rather put this bullet in my own head..

People think betrayal comes with broken glass and screaming. Truth is, it sneaks up quiet. Dresses itself in familiar smiles and shared beds. Breathes you in, and when you're not looking, guts you clean.

That's what this is. That's what she is. The second woman I ever loved. And now I have to erase her like bad handwriting on a death warrant.

The Reaper of Death. That's what they call me. A whisper in the halls of command. A threat in the mouths of war criminals. I've never missed a mark. Never second-guessed the kill. But I also never imagined I'd find someone after Brenda. Someone who made the noise stop. Made the killing feel like a bad habit I could finally kick. Until now.

Natalia lifts her glass, lips curled into that knowing smirk. I wonder if she knows I'm here. Part of me hopes she does. Maybe she'll walk away. Maybe she'll give me a reason not to pull this trigger.

But deep down, we both know the score.

You're here because you want to know how it got this far.

How a man who was trained to forget learned to love again--

--and how that love became just another target.

Alright. I'll show you.

But don't expect a fairytale.

Don't expect forgiveness.

This is the story of how love dies quiet.

With a breath held too long...

And a bullet born screaming.

The trigger's cold against my finger, but the memory still burns.

Five months ago, I was standing in the Syrian desert, sweat in my eyes and blood on my boots, chasing a ghost I hadn't even met yet.

You want to know how it ends?

First, you have to see how it really started.

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FILE 001-B | OPERATION: SAND ECHO

LOCATION: Northern Syria Outpost

DATE: 05 November (5 months prior)

TIME: 0027 HRS

STATUS: OBJECTIVE COMPLETED

OBJECTIVE: Neutralize arms broker. Secure intel asset

The desert never sleeps. It just changes the way it watches you. In the day, it blinds you--heat boiling the horizon into a blur, haze clawing at your throat until you forget your own name. At night, it breathes against your neck. Whispers secrets in the wind. And if you stop listening--if you stop moving--it folds you into its silence and forgets you were ever there.

I crouched outside a compound stitched together with rust and stubbornness. Northern Syria. Off every map that mattered. The kind of place built for men who didn't want to be found, and who deserved even less. Intel said a Russian arms dealer was holed up inside--moving black-market drones to Iranian proxies.

My orders were simple: confirm the bastard's presence.

Kill him.

Burn everything else to ash.

I moved like a stitch ripped through black cloth--silent, fast, inevitable. One guard at the rear--out cold before he even finished blinking. Another on the roof--dropped with a suppressed shot, the pop swallowed whole by the desert's infinite indifference.

I don't think about them anymore.

Not their faces.

Not their names.

They were obstacles.

And I've never had much patience for obstacles.

The main structure sagged under its own filth--warped wood, rust-gnawed sheet metal, concrete baked brittle and splintered by years of merciless sun. I breached through the back--no finesse, no ceremony.

Found the dealer cross-legged on a threadbare carpet, counting blood money with fingers too soft for this kind of work. His bodyguards laughed in the next room, arguing about football.

They didn't hear a thing.

Two shots.

One to the throat--so he couldn't scream.

One to the face--so no one would ask for an open casket.

Clean. Mechanical. Forgotten before he hit the ground.

I moved fast after that. Satellite phone. Laptop. Hard drive tucked under a prayer mat, like he thought Allah was running tech support. I set a small charge on the munitions stash--just enough for fireworks.

Figured the locals would blame it on rival smugglers.

They always do.

Before I exfiltrated, I cracked open the laptop.

Most of it was garbage--encrypted dead weight.

But one folder stood out.

Unmarked. Hidden under five layers of false trails.

I dug. I broke through.

The first word that greeted me: Swan.

It stopped me cold.

You don't get moments like that often in the field--when the blood's still drying on your hands and the reek of gun oil clings to your skin--and then something slithers in sideways, all wrong.

A name.

A codename.

Something that doesn't belong.

Swan.

At the time, it meant nothing to me.

Just another ghost buried in a dead man's sins.

But now?

Now it howls.

Back at the outpost, I uploaded the files to MI6 under priority flagging--red-labeled, encrypted, shuffled off to analysts who'd pick it apart like carrion birds tearing at the bones.

I didn't wait for orders. Didn't stick around for the aftertaste.

The job was done.

At least, it was supposed to be.

Still, the name followed me.

I'd seen plenty of aliases--Viper, Kraken, Widowmaker.

Names built to terrify or taunt.

But Swan...

Swan felt different.

Elegant. Untouchable.

The kind of lie that wears a silk dress and smiles at you while it slips the knife between your ribs.

I remember standing outside the compound right before detonation.

The wind kicked up, hot and sour, carrying sand like razors across the sky until the stars themselves bled into smoke.

I watched the place burn.

Watched a man's empire crumble to ash in less than two minutes.

It should've felt like victory.

It didn't.

It felt like the match had only just been struck.

Like I'd kicked open a hornet's nest wrapped in silk and dared it to sting.

Funny thing about mirages:

They don't lie.

They just make you hope that what you're seeing is real.

I thought Swan was a ghost.

Turns out, she was real.

And even back then--covered in blood, lungs full of grit, hands already moving toward the next kill--I was already falling into her orbit.

Long before I ever laid eyes on her.

That name--Swan--haunted every satellite ping and whispered dead drop after that.

By the time I made it to Istanbul, I wasn't chasing answers anymore.

I was chasing her.

And lying to myself about what I hoped I'd find.

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FILE 001-C | OPERATION: BLACK WATER

LOCATION: Istanbul, Turkey

DATE: 14 November

TIME: 2145 HRS

STATUS: CONTACT ESTABLISHED

OBJECTIVE: Monitor target activities; identify rogue actors.

Istanbul smells like secrets and old blood. Spice, salt, sweat, and the ghosts of empires rotting slow in the alleys.

If there's a city where a handshake can start a war, it's here.

And if you're dumb enough to come looking for truth in a place like this, you deserve what you get.

I wasn't here for truth. I was chasing a whisper across a wire. A thread from Syria that led straight into this concrete hive of knives and nicotine. Satellite bounce said a meeting near the Bosphorus. Same broker. Same filth. Black market drone components--sold to anyone willing to pay in blood and crypto.

I checked into a hotel so run-down even the rats looked like they needed a drink. Waited for my contact.

He was late.

Typical CIA.

When he finally slithered through the door, he looked like something a wet bar towel coughed up. Face like a used napkin. Stank of desperation and bad bourbon.

"Back off, Barnes," he said before his ass even hit the chair. "You're not cleared for this op. We've got someone inside."

I just stared at him over my tea. Didn't say a word. Didn't have to.

We weren't friends.

We weren't allies.

We were two hammers arguing over who got to break the glass first.

He kept talking anyway. "You show up, you risk blowing the whole thing."

I told him I'd take that risk.

He called me a bloody idiot.

He wasn't wrong. But idiots live longer than heroes in this business.

The meet was set for a penthouse across the canal. Flashy, loud, dripping in rented gold and broken promises. A riverside club crawling with mercs who thought earpieces and cheap suits made them invisible.

They didn't.

From my rooftop, I watched three cars pull up. Lazarenko climbed out of the second--fat on stolen money and bad cigars.

And then I saw her.

She stepped out of the third car like sin wrapped in silk.

Tall. Raven-black braid. Mirrored sunglasses catching the sun just enough to blind you if you stared too long.

Sidearm tucked under a tailored jacket like a promise she knew how to keep. Not a bodyguard. Not a mark.

Something else.

The kind of danger you don't clock until it's already got a knife in your ribs.

I didn't know her name yet. Didn't need to. I knew she wasn't one of ours.

And I knew she didn't give a damn who saw her.

I went in low and quiet. Maintenance corridor. Badge stolen from a man who wouldn't be needing it anymore.

No fireworks. No heroics. Just another shadow moving through the cracks.

Inside, it stank of cheap cologne and cheaper intentions.

Lazarenko was holding court, thinking he was invincible.

But the tension in the room said otherwise.

Too many earpieces. Too many guns. Too many exits planned that no one intended to use unless it all went sideways.

It went sideways faster than even I expected.

Gunfire ripped through the air like the roof had torn open.

Someone jumped early. Maybe greed. Maybe fear. Didn't matter.

Blood was already on the floor, and Lazarenko was scrambling for cover like a rat under a floodlight.

And her?

She moved through it like it was just weather.

Two shots--clean, clinical--dropped a sniper off the mezzanine.

A knife flicked through another man's throat without slowing her stride.

It was poetry.

Ugly, perfect poetry with blood for ink.

I moved without thinking. Covered her left.

We didn't speak. Didn't need to.

Some rhythms you're born knowing--you just don't realize it until it's slicing bodies beside you.

She glanced at me once--calculating, clinical--and said, "You're not one of his."

Accent blurred. British? American? Didn't matter.

I gave her a nod. "Neither are you."

She smirked--barely. A flicker. A challenge. Then she was gone, chasing Lazarenko down a hallway lined with bodies and bad decisions.

I let her go. Not because I couldn't follow.

Because for the first time in too many years, I wanted to.

I didn't know her name. Didn't know what side she was playing.

But the second our knives carved air in the same breath, I knew one thing:

She wasn't a ghost. She was real.

And God help me...

Something in me had already started to burn for her.

I should've walked away. Should've let her disappear into the night like the bad idea she was.

Instead, we met again.

Over cold tea.

Over a broken informant.

Two wolves sizing each other up--

Not sure if we were hunting the same prey...

or each other.

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FILE 001-D | OPERATION: MERCURY GLASS

LOCATION: Istanbul (Grand Bazaar District)

DATE: 15 November

TIME: 0315 HRS

STATUS: INTERROGATION COMPLETE

OBJECTIVE: Extract local intelligence on SVR/Swan activities.

The tea was cold. Bitter. The kind you drink in silence because everything else in the room is louder than words. We sat across from each other in a crumbling café near the Grand Bazaar--her in a silk blouse that dared the morning light to touch her, me in a nondescript jacket that could've belonged to a tourist, a merc, or a ghost. The man between us was shaking. Broken nose. Swollen lip. Eyes darting between the Reaper and the Swan like a rabbit caught between two wolves who weren't sure if they were hungry yet.

"He says someone's targeting both SVR and MI6 assets," I said flatly, translating his Turkish through cracked lips.

Natalia raised a single brow, elegant and amused. "And you believe him?"

"I believe he's scared. Which means someone made him that way."

She sipped her tea, unbothered by the blood on her sleeve. "Or it's just a performance. Men like him are born liars. They die the same."

We'd tracked the same lead. Different sources. Same name: Mesut Kaya. Street broker. Former logistics runner for Turkish intelligence turned freelance peddler of half-truths and dirty whispers. She got to him first. I got there second. Now we were sharing a table with a man who reeked of sweat and betrayal, trying to convince us the game had changed. That there was a new player--someone with reach, and an appetite for chaos.

"He's not lying about the kills," I muttered. "Three dead in the last week. One of them was ours. The other two? Yours."

Her fingers tensed slightly on the cup. A tell, but only if you knew where to look.

"Then perhaps we're not the ones hunting anymore," she said. "Maybe we're the game."

"Unlikely," I replied. "You don't look like prey."

She smiled. Slow. Dangerous. "Neither do you. But you lie like an American."

I let that one hang.

She thought I was CIA. She hadn't said it, but the questions were there--in the way she watched me reload, the way she didn't flinch when I broke the man's finger to make him talk, the way she studied my eyes like she expected stars and stripes hiding behind the blue. I didn't correct her. Better she chase the wrong ghost. I'd spent a lifetime perfecting the art of being underestimated.

Kaya finally passed out--pain or relief, I couldn't tell. She stood first, brushing dust from her slacks with bored grace. "You have a habit of showing up where you're not wanted."

"And you have a habit of stabbing people before they speak," I said.

"Efficiency," she replied, slipping on her sunglasses. "You should try it sometime."

She turned and walked out without another word.

I stayed behind. Not for him. He'd told us everything he knew--or everything we'd let him keep. No, I stayed because something caught my eye. A napkin. White linen. Lipstick stain at the edge. Her glass had barely been touched, but she left the imprint behind. I stared at it a moment, then folded it and slipped it into my pocket. No reason. Just instinct. Something to remind me this moment happened.