Linda smiled.

It wasn't the polite smile she wore for family, or the shy, uncertain curve of her lips Alex remembered from quieter days.

This was different... radiant, secret, alive. It caught the light, softening the edge of her features, making her entire presence feel magnetic.

He hadn't realized, until that moment, how much power a single look could have. The way her eyes lingered on him... seeing, not just looking; inviting, not just hoping... left him momentarily breathless.

The room narrowed to the space between them, to that look she gave him... steady, unguarded, impossible to look away from.

His thoughts scattered, every instinct of self-control slipping through his fingers as he stood there, caught in her gravity.

He couldn't move, couldn't hide behind habit or hesitation. In that instant, Alex was utterly, helplessly entranced.

And that terrified him more than anything else.

Because if the desire was real... if this wasn't just cold necessity wrapped in rationalization... then what did that make him?

The thought arrived and fled in the same breath, too dangerous to examine.

She was happy.

God, she looked so happy it made his chest ache.

Like he'd just given her the greatest gift imaginable.

She reached for his hand. Her fingers were warm, steady, confident... a silent promise that the boundaries between them wouldn't hold, not tonight.

When she touched him, the world shrank to that single, electric point of contact.

Alex let her guide him, surrendering to her lead.

"Come," Linda murmured, voice velvet-smooth... half command, half plea.

She didn't look back, trusting him to follow, her bare feet silent on the hardwood as she moved down the hallway.

The hallway stretched before them... familiar and foreign all at once.

He'd walked this path more times than he could count.

Back then, as a teenager, he'd come here after school with Danny... sometimes to hang out, sometimes because he didn't have anywhere else to be.

He'd carried grocery bags in for Linda, helped her fix the porch light once, stayed for Sunday dinners when she insisted. It had all felt easy then. Familiar. Ordinary.

Now each step felt weighted. Deliberate. Like crossing an invisible line that kept redrawing itself further ahead.

They passed the living room doorway.

The couch where they'd watched movies as a family. Where Nina had fallen asleep on his shoulder halfway through one of their late-night marathons.

Just keep walking. Don't think about it.

Linda's hand trembled in his, but her pace never faltered. She knew exactly where they were going. Had probably imagined this walk a hundred times, building courage for each step, preparing herself for this exact moment.

Her determination was almost palpable... a current running through her palm into his.

They passed the kitchen.

The breakfast bar where Linda had made him scrambled eggs at 2 AM after he'd shown up one night looking worn out and pretending he was fine.

Where she'd handed him coffee without judgment, just quiet kindness and a knowing look that said I've been twenty-one too.

The counter where she'd taught him how to make her famous pot roast, laughing when he'd put in too much garlic, telling him it was perfect anyway.

His throat tightened, but he didn't let himself stop. Couldn't afford to.

Photos lined the hallway walls... a timeline of the family he'd been welcomed into.

Danny and Nina as kids. Holiday gatherings. Birthdays. Summer vacations.

And there... that one from two years ago. All of them at Nina's birthday party. Linda's arm around his shoulders, pulling him into the frame like he belonged there. David on the other side, grinning.

All of them happy.

All of them a family.

You're destroying this. You know that, right?

But the countdown pulsed in his peripheral vision.

[4 hours, 25 minutes remaining.]

And Linda's hand was warm in his.

And the mission... the necessity, the survival, the cold logic that had carried him through his car door and up to this house... it all still made sense in some distant, abstract way.

Just keep walking.

They reached the end of the hallway.

Linda stopped.

Alex's eyes tracked upward to what stood before them, and his stomach dropped.

The bedroom door.

Not just any bedroom.

Her bedroom.

David's bedroom.

Their bedroom.

The door was closed, ordinary and unremarkable... simple white paint, silver handle, exactly like every other door in the house.

But standing before it now, Alex felt the weight of what it represented crash over him like a wave.

This wasn't some abstract concept anymore.

This wasn't the careful rationalization from his car, the cold calculation that had let him step out and walk to the door and say her name.

This was real.

Behind that door was the bed where David slept. Where he and Linda had built a life together.

This is where they sleep.

The thought hit with devastating clarity.

This is where David sleeps every night when he comes home. In that bed. The same bed you're about to...

His throat tightened.

Linda's hand squeezed his gently, and he realized he'd stopped moving. Frozen in front of the door like it was a wall instead of a threshold.

She looked back at him, her eyes searching his face.

Hope. Fear. Determination.

Please don't change your mind, her expression said. Please. I need this. I need you to want this too.

And something in him... that cold, calculating part that had carried him this far... noted it with detached precision.

She's more afraid of rejection than she is of what we're about to do.

The leverage was still there. The power dynamic unchanged.

She'd made herself so vulnerable that walking away now would destroy her more thoroughly than anything he could do by staying.

So stay. Finish what you started. It's just a room. Just a bed. Just physical.

But his feet wouldn't move.

Because it wasn't just a room.

It was theirs.

And he was about to violate it in a way that could never be undone.

"Alex?" Linda's voice was soft, uncertain. "Are you okay?"

No. Tell her no. Tell her you can't do this. Not here. Not in his bed.

But the words that came out were different.

"Yeah. I'm... yeah."

His voice sounded strange even to his own ears. Hollow. Like someone else was speaking through him.

Linda's expression brightened with relief that made his chest ache.

She reached for the door handle.

It turned with a soft click.

The door swung open.

And Alex saw it.

The bedroom. Their bedroom.

Softly lit by a single bedside lamp... she'd planned that too, prepared the lighting to be flattering, intimate. The curtains were drawn. The bed was made with care, the comforter smooth and inviting.

It smelled like her. That same floral perfume mixed with laundry detergent and something uniquely domestic. The smell of home.

On the dresser: photos. David and Linda on their wedding day. Nina as a baby. Danny's high school graduation.

On the nightstand: David's reading glasses. A book he'd been halfway through. His watch... the one Linda had bought him for their fifteenth anniversary.

The evidence of a life lived together, a marriage maintained, a partnership built over decades.

And Alex was about to walk into it and destroy it from the inside.

Not here. Not in his bed. This is wrong. This is so fucking wrong.

But Linda was pulling him gently forward, her hand still wrapped around his, and his feet were moving despite the screaming in his head.

One step across the threshold.

The carpet was soft beneath his shoes... the same carpet David had helped him pick out when they'd renovated two years ago, asking his opinion like it mattered, treating him like family.

Another step, Linda still pulling him gently deeper into the room.

She turned to face him, and in the soft lamplight she looked beautiful and desperate and so hopeful it hurt to look at.

The door swung closed behind them with a soft click.

The sound was final. Absolute.

Like a cell door locking.

Or a coffin closing.

Alex stood in David Morrison's bedroom, holding his wife's hand, and felt the last of his rationalizations begin to crack.

Linda's eyes met his in the lamplight, bright with unshed tears of relief and want.

"Thank you," she whispered, her free hand coming up to rest against his chest, over his heart. "Thank you for being here. For seeing me. For choosing this."

Her words should have been gratifying.

Should have confirmed that he was giving her what she wanted, what she desperately needed.

Instead, they felt like accusations.

Choosing this.

Had he chosen it?

Or had he just... stopped fighting?

The countdown pulsed.

[4 hours, 24 minutes remaining.]

But for the first time since receiving the mission, Alex wasn't thinking about the system.

Wasn't thinking about power or survival or Marcus or anything beyond the immediate, suffocating reality of where he was standing.

In David's bedroom.

With Linda's hand on his chest.

About to cross a line that would change everything.

Forever.

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