The rain hadn't let up in hours. It beat down on the city like a ticking metronome, as if time itself was running out. Nora stood alone on the rooftop of the safehouse, hood up, staring across the skyline with blank eyes. The lights below sparkled like lies—pretty, easy to fall for, and always dangerous.
She pulled something from her coat pocket: a dog tag. Not hers. Not anyone's anymore.
Code: VEX-51. Status: Blacklisted. Level: Ghost.
The weight of it felt heavier than metal. It was history. Regret. A secret she had buried so deep, she almost convinced herself it never existed.
She hadn't told Adrian. Not really. Only fragments—enough to make him cautious, but not enough to make him walk away. She feared the full truth might.
But it was time.
---
Adrian was waiting for her inside, pacing. His jaw was tense, his black shirt soaked from the rain like he hadn't noticed—or cared. The air in the room was thick. Between them was a dossier.
"Tell me it's not true," he said, voice low.
Nora didn't ask how he got it. Dax had been digging for weeks. One of them finally found what she had been running from.
"I was part of the Blacklist," she said softly. "Not just targeted. I was one of them."
Adrian didn't move.
"Recruited at nineteen," she continued, walking to the table. "They called me Vex. I was good. No. I was better than good. I was the best."
She opened the file, letting the truth bleed.
"I designed internal exploits. Mapped power shifts. Even created the Shadow Trace—Blackout's virus prototype. My code caused more damage than any bullet ever could. I didn't ask questions. Until Prague."
She paused.
"That was the op they never forgave me for. I was ordered to compromise a refugee server—turn it into bait. I refused. I leaked the location to the UN. Cost Blacklist their biggest smuggling ring in Eastern Europe. Got twenty agents killed. Including my handler."
Her voice cracked, but she recovered fast.
"I went dark. Thought I could disappear. But you can't walk away from the devil and expect him not to follow."
Adrian finally spoke. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I wanted to be someone else when I looked at you."
---
A long silence passed.
Adrian didn't speak right away. He walked toward her, slow and steady, until they were chest to chest. He looked at her like she was something sacred—and cursed.
"You're not who you were," he said.
"You don't know that."
"I know you saved me in Munich. I know you had every chance to run and didn't. That's who you are to me."
Her throat tightened.
"And what if the Blacklist calls me back?" she asked. "What if I'm still one of them, deep down?"
Adrian leaned close, breath warm.
"Then I'll go with you."
---
Later that night, a message pinged Adrian's secure terminal. From an internal source. Labeled "RED WHISPER."
There's a mole in your team. One of yours is feeding intel to the Syndicate. The gala is a trap.
He stared at the screen, then looked at Nora, who'd fallen asleep with a gun tucked beneath her pillow and her hand resting lightly against his back.
Trust was a fragile thing.
---
The next day, the team gathered in the underground briefing room.
Dax, Remi, and Kaito stood around the table, eyes hard, jaws set. Adrian dropped the news like a hammer.
"There's a mole among us."
Dead silence.
Remi's hand twitched toward her sidearm.
"We've run tight ops since Berlin," Kaito said. "No one new. It has to be someone inside."
Adrian's eyes swept the room. "Dax, you said our Vienna meet got burned."
Dax shifted. "Yeah. I thought it was traffic cam interference."
"It wasn't. It was timing. They knew when and where. Someone told them."
Nora stood in the back, arms crossed, unreadable.
Then, Remi snapped. "You think it's me?"
"I don't think anything yet," Adrian said.
But Dax was sweating. Kaito was too still. And Nora—she watched like someone already knew.
---
They didn't have time to interrogate. The Syndicate gala was in four hours.
They needed to go in anyway. As bait. As liars. As wolves in silk.
---
The ballroom at the Grand Pavilion was dipped in gold and sin. Everyone wore masks—some physical, others metaphorical.
Adrian adjusted the cuff of his tuxedo and offered his arm to Nora, who stunned in a dark red gown that clung like a threat. A diamond knife glinted at her thigh.
"We're playing married tonight," he said under his breath.
Nora's lips curled. "Hope you bought a ring."
He flashed one—a sleek black titanium band.
She slid it on. "If we live through this, I'm keeping it."
---
Their alias: Mr. and Mrs. Hart, black market arms dealers from South Africa. Their target: Marcus Vale, the Syndicate's finance director.
The ballroom buzzed with tension. Powerful people laughed too loudly. Dancers spun too fast. Every chandelier cast long shadows.
Nora clinked glasses with Vale, leaning in.
"You have quite the guest list."
Vale smiled. "We're all one big family here. No secrets."
But there were secrets. Hundreds of them.
Vale's eyes flicked to Adrian. "He looks tense."
"He's always tense when I wear red," she purred.
---
Then it happened.
A ripple in the crowd. A whisper from security. Vale stiffened.
"I heard something interesting tonight," he said, sipping his drink.
"Oh?" Adrian asked, casual.
"A mole in your house. One of your own tipped us off."
Nora blinked. "We were told it was the opposite."
Vale chuckled. "You were meant to think that."
Two guards appeared behind them. "Time to go."
Adrian gripped Nora's hand. "Run on my signal."
They didn't run.
Instead, Nora grabbed the knife from her leg and threw it—straight into a guard's throat. Adrian slammed a glass into the second's face.
The room exploded.
---
Smoke. Screams. Guns. Masked chaos.
Adrian dragged Nora down a hallway. "Backup?"
"Compromised," she shouted. "Someone knew our extraction point."
"Then we've been double-played."
He stopped in the service corridor and ripped off his jacket. "This wasn't a mole in our team."
She blinked. "What?"
Adrian's eyes burned. "The mole never left. They played us both."
He tapped his ear. "Kaito, are you there?"
Static.
Nora's face darkened. "Kaito wasn't supposed to be on tonight."
Adrian's breath stilled.
Then the voice came through the comm—clear, smug.
"Miss me?"
Kaito.
---
They'd trusted him. A quiet tech genius. Always watching. Always helpful.
"I should've known," Adrian whispered.
"I did," Nora said bitterly. "He was at Prague. He worked logistics. I didn't recognize him until just now."
Kaito's voice crackled again.
"You two make a lovely couple. Shame it's all built on lies."
"What do you want?" Adrian asked.
"To see you fall. Both of you. This whole act—the gala, the mole whisper, even Dax's staged betrayal... It was all theater. The real play? Just dropped."
"What are you talking about?"
Kaito laughed.
"Blacklist 2.0. Live. And guess who's the poster boy?"
Adrian's phone buzzed. He looked.
Screens lit up across the ballroom. His face. His file. A forged Ghost record naming Adrian Cross as a Syndicate collaborator.
Bounty: $15 million.
And beside him, Nora—confirmed operative, codename: Vex.
The world was about to turn on them.
---
Outside, a chopper hovered over the balcony, its spotlight cutting through smoke and panic.
Adrian pulled Nora close.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
She nodded, lips trembling.
He grabbed her hand and ran.