' ' Perfect Enough To Break ' '

Return To The Game

"If the target enters a secured building?"

"Smoke distraction. Breach from below. Knife to the throat before alarm can sound."

"And if you're spotted during extraction?"

"Neutralize the witness. If unable—burn the route. Reroute and erase presence."

I didn't blink.

This was muscle memory.

But then he paused.

And something in the air changed.

He didn't tap the screen again. Instead, Rumlow leaned back slightly in his chair and folded his arms, watching me the way predators wait for prey to trip.

His voice dropped lower, more curious than clinical.

"What would you do," he asked slowly, "if your teammate—or agent you were assigned with—was compromised by emotional attachment?"

I kept my posture.

But something curled low in my spine.

Rumlow didn't stop.

"Let's say—hypothetically—they hesitated. Not because of panic. But because of someone they cared about. A partner."

My spine stiffened before I could stop it.

He kept watching.

I knew this game.

He was searching for the glitch in the code. The fracture in the steel.

I forced my tone flat. "I would report it to command. Remove the liability. Weakness isn't tolerated."

A beat passed.

And then he tilted his head, eyes locked on mine like a rifle scope.

"Is that what we should do with you?"

I didn't move. But my pulse tightened under my skin. A flash of heat prickled the base of my neck. Not fear. Not exactly.

Guilt.

He waited.

I met his eyes, jaw firm. "Nothing happened."

A pause.

"Nothing will."

Rumlow didn't smile. He just nodded once, tapping something into the tablet again like it was enough.

But it wasn't.

Because the question had already done its damage. And the silence afterward felt like judgment.

I stared down at the table, and for the first time in a long while...

I wasn't sure who I was answering to.

The door hissed softly behind Rumlow as he left.

I didn't let myself shift in the chair.

One breath. Two. Then the door opened again.

Pierce.

He walked in with that same slow, patient ease. Like this wasn't a prison. Like I wasn't being watched. Like I hadn't just been dissected piece by piece by Rumlow's questions. He stepped into the room as if stepping into a family dinner — familiar, unbothered, already knowing the outcome.

"Excellent work," he said, voice low and smooth, smile curling like smoke. "Truly. You haven't lost your edge."

He didn't sit. Just walked around the table, one hand trailing along the back of the chair Rumlow had vacated.