For two days, Ahce had not heard from Richard.
No calls. No texts. No trace of his presence online. The silence stretched like a wire pulled too tight, until it felt as though ice replaced the blood in her veins.
At first, she had told herself that he was busy. Exams, projects, anything mundane. But as hours turned into days, that logic crumbled. Worry consumed her, gnawing away at her composure until it became a sharp, constant ache just beneath her ribs.
By the third night, she could no longer sit still. She booked the earliest flight to City X.
When she arrived, the city greeted her with its usual restlessness, neon lights flickering over gray buildings, traffic moving in endless waves, but none of it touched her. She checked into a small, anonymous hotel on the quieter side of the city, a place meant to be temporary and forgettable.
Exhaustion should have claimed her. Instead, her thoughts spun in restless loops, Richard's face, the unanswered calls, the quiet dread whispering that something had gone terribly wrong.
Then came a knock.
Huh?
A soft, deliberate sound, three precise taps against the door.
Someone's at the door at this hour?
Her breath stilled. She hadn't ordered food, hadn't spoken her name since landing. No one should know she was here.
A chill slid down her spine, cold and certain.
When she cracked the door open, a hotel attendant stood there, smiling faintly, holding a tray of food.
Food?
"Your order, ma'am."
"I didn't order anything," Ahce replied quietly. Her smile was polite, controlled, but her heart thundered against her ribs. The attendant hesitated, then nodded and withdrew.
It can't be a coincidence!
As soon as the door clicked shut, Ahce moved fast. She gathered her passport, cash, and every document that mattered, stuffing them into her bag. She would not stay long. Whoever had found her was not an accident.
She needed answers.
That night, she reached out to someone she had hoped never to contact again, a shadow from her college years, a man named Gian, known only in certain corners of the digital underworld. He wasn't part of any official system but thrived in the cracks between them, where surveillance and secrecy collided.
He owed her favors.
When he arrived, his expression was grim but efficient. He worked in silence, sweeping her belongings for trackers. Her bag. Her phone. Even the soles of her shoes. The faint hum of his scanner filled the room.
Minutes later, he looked up.
"You're clean," he said, though his brow furrowed. "Too clean. If someone's watching you, they're not using anything standard."
Relief and dread tangled inside her chest.
"Then they're professionals," she murmured.
Gian didn't answer.
Ahce leaned forward. "I need you to check something else. Hack into Richard's phone and accounts. If someone's using him to get to me…"
He raised an eyebrow but didn't question her. Within minutes, his fingers were dancing across the keyboard, the screen lighting up with code and credentials. Messages, call logs, digital receipts, all ordinary. School updates. Group chats. Payment records.
"Boyfriend's clean," Gian confirmed, sliding the laptop back toward her. "No data leaks, no external trace, no embedded spyware. Whoever's watching you isn't going through him."
Ahce's hands clenched around the edge of the table. That left one other possibility.
Her ex.
They dug into his records next. Photographs, private messages, social feeds, shallow vanity, and short-lived relationships. He was messy, predictable, but harmless.
"Nothing," Gian muttered. "If someone's after you, it's not this guy."
Ahce sat back, her body stiff with tension. The sense of being watched hadn't vanished. It had only shifted, becoming quieter, more deliberate.
Later, in a small café tucked away from the main road, the conversation turned darker.
"Ahce, putting your life in danger is not a good idea," Gian said, his tone low and sharp. "Go back to the team. They need you. Vivian's already asking why your 'vacation' is taking too long."
Ahce stirred her coffee, the liquid swirling into black circles. "Gian, you know I've retired."
He leaned forward, frustration flashing across his face. "No one retires. Not from us. The organization doesn't forget. It doesn't forgive. They can protect you and everyone around you. But you can't keep pretending you're invisible."
Her spoon clicked softly against the cup, a small metallic sound in the hum of conversation around them.
"I don't want them involved," she said. "Not again. I've built a quiet life."
Gian's eyes narrowed.
"You think they'll let you walk away? You know better. Every day you're alone, you're exposed. And if they find out you're operating outside the fold," He paused. "You know what happens."
Ahce didn't respond. She didn't need to. She had once been one of their best, the kind of operative whose presence was felt but never recorded. Her disappearance had been a calculated risk. She had paid for her silence with years of solitude.
"I'll think about it," she murmured, rising from her seat.
Gian's voice softened slightly.
"You already have," he said. "The moment you came back here."
Ahce said nothing. The bell above the café door chimed as she stepped into the night.
The streets were crowded, alive with motion, couples laughing, street vendors calling out, neon lights flickering across passing faces. She envied them, the ones untouched by secrets.
She walked until she reached the mall, its bright lights and crowds offering a fragile illusion of safety. The air smelled of perfume and fried food, of life continuing without her.
Then her phone vibrated.
The screen flickered once, then went black.
She froze.
Seconds later, a red icon bloomed across the display, a rose, its petals edged like blades.
Her breath caught.
Still the same. The organization's mark.
No message. No greeting. Just the symbol. A silent call.
Within moments, her other devices began to fail, tablet, laptop, and even her secondary phone. Each screen dimmed, replaced by that same crimson rose. Her accounts were locked, her access revoked. Their digital fingerprints spread across everything she owned.
It was their way of reminding her.
"You belong to us. You always will."
The organization's control was absolute. Secrets were currency, and no one escaped its economy. Information outlived flesh. Even death was not enough to disappear.
Ahce sat on a bench in the mall's rest area, surrounded by the noise of ordinary life. Children ran past, laughing. A mother scolded her son. Someone's phone rang with a cheerful tune. It was a world she had fought to live in, but it no longer felt real.
She stared at the rose glowing faintly on her phone screen, its crimson light reflecting in her eyes.
Then a shadow fell across her. Someone had stopped in front of her. And she knew, without looking up, that the past she had buried was no longer behind her.