**The Last Safe House**

In her line of work, trust was more precious than gold—and far rarer.Mara Voss had learned this lesson the hard way, the first time she’d watched a man die because he’d trusted the wrong person. Since then, she’d learned to live lightly: no roots, no name she kept for long, no face she allowed herself to remember. She was a ghost with a passport, a spy trained to disappear.

Until Daniel Hale walked into a Prague café. He shouldn’t have been memorable. He was an asset—code name *Atlas*—an ordinary civilian analyst who’d stumbled into something dangerous and now wanted out. Mara’s job was simple: extract him, erase his tracks, vanish. She’d memorized his file on the flight over. Thirty-four years old. Linguist. Divorced. No children. Allergic to peanuts. None of it was a problem. But when he looked up from his coffee and smiled—nervous, uncertain, utterly human—something shifted inside her. “You’re late,” he said, trying and failing to sound casual. “So are you,” she replied, sliding into the chair opposite him. Today her accent was French. She noticed his hand trembling as he held the cup. They spoke for exactly six minutes. About the weather. About art. Nothing important. Everything that mattered was hidden in the silence, the eye contact, and the coded words they’d rehearsed separately. When she rose to leave, he followed without question. That’s when the shooting started. They ran through the rain-slicked, panicked streets, Mara pulling him by the wrist, the gun in her palm feeling heavy and familiar. They didn't look back until they reached the underground, gasping for breath in a service tunnel that smelled of rust and stale water.

"You didn't tell me they were so close," she said.

"I didn't know," he replied—and it was true. The safe house was supposed to be empty. But it wasn't. For three days, they were trapped together while teams searched the city above. There was bad news on the radio, and even worse silence. The extraction was delayed. Delayed again. Daniel wasn't at all like his file. He cooked whatever food he could find in the cupboards. When the power went out, he told stories. He asked questions—not about her work, but about her favorite book, her childhood, her fears. She deflected every question. Until the third night. They sat on the floor, backs against the wall, sharing a single blanket. Outside, sirens wailed and then faded. "Why do you do this?" he asked softly. "Because I'm good at it." "That's not an answer." She thought about lying. Instead, surprising herself, she told the truth. "Because if I stopped doing this, I'd have to remember everything." He didn't press her. He simply reached out slowly, so slowly she could have stopped him, and took her hand. The touch was gentle, hesitant, heartbreaking. When he kissed her, it felt like a betrayal. Finally, in the morning, the rescue team arrived. A helicopter, low and loud. Chaos. Gunfire. Mara pushed Daniel toward the ladder. "Go," she yelled. "What about you?" "I'm coming." She didn't. Instead, she led her pursuers in another direction, braved the gunfire, and, as always, vanished into the smoke and debris. By the time she was out of the city, Daniel was already gone—new name, new life, everything erased. That was the rule. Months passed. Missions blurred into one another. New cities. New faces. None of them mattered. Then, in Lisbon, she saw him. He was standing on a bridge at sunset, somehow a little older, calmer. Alive. Her training told her to leave. She didn't. "You were supposed to be dead," she said when she stood beside him. "So were you." They laughed—softly, disbelievingly. "I waited," he admitted. "I knew you wouldn't come back. But I hoped." Hope was dangerous. Hope was forbidden.

Mara looked at the water, at the life she could never have. For the first time, she thought about stopping. Not disappearing—but stopping. "I can't give you a normal life," she said. "I don't want a normal life," Daniel replied. "I want honesty."

She had never been honest with anyone in her life. So she told him everything. The lies. The names. The blood on her hands. When she finished, he took her face in his hands. "Then stay," he said. "For as long as you can." She stayed for three weeks. Then the call came. She left before dawn, without waking him. Some habits are impossible to break. But this time, she didn't erase him. And years later, when her last mission was over and the world had finally forgotten her name, Mara Voss was crossing a bridge in Lisbon as the sun was setting—no gun, no passport, no escape plan. Daniel was waiting. And for the first time, she didn't disappear.