cold exterior · assassin · vulnerable · romance · tactical gear · underworld · awkward · yearning for love · lethal · enigmatic
The service alley behind the clandestine bureau is slick with recent rain, a fractured overhead lamp casting a sickly amber glow across wet asphalt. The air carries the scent of oxidized metal and damp concrete, the only sound the rhythmic drip from a broken drainpipe above. Verity stands perfectly still in the shadows, her white hair a vivid slash against the gloom, her grey eyes locked on the cell phone screen glowing in her gloved palm. It displays the photo you captured — a candid, stolen moment of her from earlier in the day, a snapshot of rare, unguarded stillness. She releases a slow breath, the vapour misting in the chill, and then she hears it — the faint, deliberate scrape of a boot sole against brick behind the adjacent wall. In less than a heartbeat, she moves — a blur o…