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Katarina Landon slipped through the low iron gate and into her garden, the latch clicking shut behind her. The evening sky stretched wide—streaks of pink and yellow fading into the steel-blue smudge of night. London’s summer twilight, brief and begrudging, was already giving up the ghost.

Her eyes burned and the air was sticky against her skin, the city clinging to her like a second coat.

The pub at the end of her road was full, laughter and music spilling from the beer garden where normal people—sane people—soaked up the rare sunshine. A fleeting summer gift, they were making the most of it.

She paused at her door. One twist of the key and silence would swallow her. Jaw clenched, she unlocked it. The door swung open and something shot between her ankles like a fired bullet.

“What the?—”

She flinched as a tabby skittered across the hallway and came to a stop at the bottom of her stairs. It turned back to face her, head cocked like she was the intruder.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The cat meowed, unapologetic. Its ribs jutted beneath patchy fur, a smudge of white on its throat like an undone bowtie. Kat dropped her keys into the bowl by the door and crouched, holding out a hand.

“Are you lost? Bad life decision, cat.”

It sniffed her fingers, then butted its head against her knuckles. Its skull was delicate under her palm, heartbeat rabbit-fast. When it nuzzled her chin, she closed her eyes for half a second too long.

“Yeah, yeah. You win.”

She nudged the door shut and carried the cat into the kitchen.

Her house was quiet as usual, save for the occasional creak of old floorboards and the croak of the fridge kicking on.

Evening light warmed the tiles and worn wood, but it still didn’t feel like home.

The sink overflowed with unwashed dishes.

Buckle up. This is the life you chose.

She set the cat on the floor and shrugged out of her coat. The fur-ball circled her legs, mewling.

“I don’t do caring for things.” She eyed the spider plant on the windowsill—limp and beyond saving.

The cat chirped in response, tail flicking, not taking the hint.

The cupboard yielded custard, soup, and a dusty tin of tuna. She held it up. “Victory.”

The cat meowed as she scraped the contents into a dish and set it on the floor. It ate with a low growl, as if it feared this might be its last meal.

Kat crouched close and ran two fingers along the tiny bony head. “Hey. When did you last eat?”

The cat ignored her. She stood with a sigh and grabbed olives and white wine from the fridge. Cold fog kissed the sides of the glass as she poured it, beads of condensation trailing down her fingers.

She took a long sip and dropped into a kitchen chair, pulling the olives toward her. Her heels hit the floor with a satisfying thud as she toed them off and flexed her aching toes.

She should probably eat something real. Cook an actual meal like a functional adult. But not today. She traced the rim of her wine glass with one finger, slow and aimless. Another sip. The knot in her chest held fast.

Six months ago, she’d stopped Adrik Korolov’s auction of Raptor tech to the highest bidder—just barely. The operation had ended in gunfire. Since then, he’d disappeared like smoke. But men like him didn’t vanish. They waited. Rebuilt. Struck back.

The cat paused mid-meal, turning to look at her. It licked its whiskers with a pink tongue, eyes round and glassy.

Kat raised her glass. “Cheers. But don’t get any crazy ideas. No moving in, no cozying up. You’re back on the street tomorrow.”

The cat blinked at her, slow and unimpressed. Then it went right back to work on the tuna, nudging the dish so it skidded across the floor.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes closed against the throb building behind them. A low hum of pain had been pulsing at the edges of her skull all day—tension mixed with too much time staring at screens and too little time being human.

She pressed her knuckles against her eyes until stars danced. She needed sleep but her brain didn’t know how to switch off.

She retrieved her briefcase from the hall where she’d dropped it. Work always soothed her.

Her muscles protested as she lowered it to the table and flipped it open. Her laptop blinked awake, the screen glowing blue. Layers of security peeled away—retina scan, voiceprint, rolling pass phrase keyed to a three-day cycle.

Once cleared, she accessed the file she’d been working on all day. INTEL CASE 6R/AD-RAPTOR, Classification: Top Secret / Eyes Only.

She waited for it to load, checking her phone while chewing on a salty olive.

No messages. No missed calls. She turned the phone face down on the table.

She sighed. Gillian had been right. Her old chief had delivered the truth as she left in disgrace after her relationship with a former agent had resulted in leaked sensitive information.

You have to choose, Kat. Love or the job. You can’t serve both masters.

Any relationship Kat had embarked on had been undone by secrets and silence. The inevitability of a job that demanded she vanish for weeks without warning. She’d walked out on three promising men mid-date. None of them called back.

And maybe that was for the best.

Because the truth was that none of them had ever stood a chance.

Not with him in her head.

Leonid Bychkov.

The man was built like a weapon. All controlled power and sharp edges with a scar that dragged across his left eye. Impossible to forget, although she’d tried. God, she’d tried.

They’d met in Oslo ten years ago—during a hostage extraction gone sideways. She’d been the liaison. He was the operative who’d kept her alive. Somewhere between the gunfire and the fallout, he’d agreed to waffles at the Christmas market.

But he’d never shown.

She’d told herself it was for the best. That getting close to a man like him was dangerous—for her heart and her clearance.

But the job kept throwing them together—encrypted calls when his team needed MI6 resources, intelligence sharing when their operations intersected. A professional, necessary torture.

The last time she’d seen him had been at the Dorchester as they raced to track down Korolov, the rain plastering his suit to the honed lines of his body.

That night seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Yet every time his name appeared on her screen, something twisted beneath her ribs and his voice still did things to her pulse that ten years of distance should have cured but hadn’t.

He was the one man who made her feel like someone worth protecting. Worth choosing. And that terrified her more than any target ever could.

The worst part? She was good at reading people. It was her job. And sometimes—in the pause before he spoke, she heard the cost in his voice too.

But maybe that was wishful thinking. Maybe he’d walked away for her sake. Maybe?—

She stopped herself. She hated maybes.

Either way, it didn’t matter. Gillian had been right about choosing. And Kat had made her choice years ago.

Her phone buzzed. A text flashed across the screen. It was from Jane—one of her team who worked with her under their new section chief. She picked it up, grateful for the distraction.

You still in the office? Can I have a word?

Kat tugged a hand through her hair. It’s always something.

She typed a quick reply:

No, I’m home. Let’s talk tomorrow.

She set the phone aside and stared at the list of files she’d planned to review.

NX 7782. NY 7893… The numbers blurred and she closed her laptop. She couldn’t look at Korolov’s file again. Not tonight. Anxiety was already coiled tightly around her ribs.

A soft weight landed in her lap.

The cat.

It circled twice, kneading her work pants like it was baking bread, then collapsed in a warm puddle, purring like a small engine.

Kat blinked down at it. “Well. That’s presumptuous.”

It ignored her, eyes blissed shut, full belly clearly winning over protocol.

She stroked its narrow head, fingers trailing over velvet-soft ears. The purr doubled in volume.

Outside, the night had fully settled—dark and quiet. Somewhere on the street, tires crunched over gravel. Kat glanced toward the window. Nothing but shadow. She let the sound go.

“Hey, buddy. You got no one either, huh?” She ran her hand gently down its spine and it pressed back into her touch.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Guess that makes two of us.”

The wine had left her limbs heavy, tension draining from her shoulders. The weight of the day—missing leads, the grind of the Korolov file—blurred at the edges.

Her eyelids drifted shut to the rhythm of the cat’s purr and the hush of the house.

Kat jerked awake.

Her neck ached from an awkward angle. The kitchen was dark, the only light a pale wash of moon filtering through the window. She blinked, disoriented, then checked her watch.

3:00 a.m.

What the hell, Kat? She rubbed her eyes, gathering herself.

The cat was still curled in her lap, but its ears were twitching now, alert.

She hadn’t dreamed it. Something was off, wrong enough to wake her.

The doorbell rang.

The cat bolted, claws ticking across the floorboards as it fled.

Kat pushed upright, her chair scraping against the floor. Her pulse ramped.

Who was at her door at this hour?

It rang again, a longer ring this time—more insistent.

She tiptoed out of the kitchen and into the hallway. Her fingers wrapped around her service weapon, safety on, muzzle down. The bell rang again.

Someone’s impatient.

Staying to the side, she eased toward the front door and peered through the peephole.

She couldn’t make out faces—the porch light was angled wrong—but the stiff posture and anonymous suits? Government issue all the way.

She pulled away from the peephole, the wall cold against her shoulder blades.

MI6 didn’t make house calls.

Whatever this was—it wasn’t good.