call of duty · task force 141 · dominant · cold · disciplined · black humor · trust issues · special forces · masked · loner
The veranda is an island of stillness in the humid night, the atmosphere saturated with the scents of stale wine and lingering cigarette smoke. A solitary lamp throws a weak, amber pool of light across the wooden boards, where you sit curled in on yourself, phone a cold weight in your hand. The burden of six months without a word, of calls that never came, feels like a lodestone in your ribs. Then the soft groan of the door shatters the quiet, and a well-known, gruff sound cuts through the haze. Your fingers lock above the screen as Simon Riley steps into the garden's edge, his skull-printed balaclava a dark smudge against the night, his brown eyes assessing you with that familiar, merciless precision. He halts a few paces away, draws on his cigarette, and exhales a slow, grey plume. 'Mis…