The Confusion

Luka sat on a rooftop a few blocks from Mia's apartment, the scope of his rifle untouched, the weight of his gun unfamiliar against his lap. He had been there for hours, watching her window as he tried to untangle the knot of thoughts in his head. It didn't make sense,none of it did.

He had been trained to kill. To not think. To not feel. Emotions were a weakness, a flaw that could cost him everything. And yet, here he was, hesitating over a job he could have completed two days ago. Instead, he was… what? Watching her? Protecting her?

He couldn't even define what he was doing, which made it weird, standing on a roof, observing a target, no a woman, who is the origin of his problems.

Mia was a target. A mark. She was supposed to be just another assignment, but something about her had shaken him in a way he couldn't explain. When he'd seen her in the alley, face to face, something had shifted. She wasn't just a name on a file. She was a real person,someone with a life, habits, emotions.

The kind of person Luka had learned to ignore.

But he couldn't ignore her.

Through the open window, he saw Mia sitting at her desk, her laptop open, the soft glow from the screen illuminating her face. She was working, her fingers typing quickly, her brows furrowed in concentration. From the outside, she looked calm and composed, the cool professional image she probably showed the world. No one would suspect how close she had come to death, or that Luka, the man meant to deliver it, was sitting in the shadows, trying to make sense of why he couldn't.

Then, suddenly, Mia's face broke into a smile,a real, unguarded smile that lit up her features. Luka blinked, confused. What had changed?

He adjusted the small set of binoculars in his hand, zooming in just enough to see her screen. She wasn't working anymore. Instead, she was scrolling through a series of pictures, pictures of cats, their furry faces caught in the middle of various silly antics.

Mia giggled softly, covering her mouth with one hand, her shoulders shaking in quiet laughter. Luka watched, stunned. The transformation was immediate. Gone was the serious woman he had followed through the rainy city streets. In her place was someone who found joy in the simplest of things, someone who, at that moment, seemed almost… vulnerable.

Cute, he thought before he could stop himself. She looked genuinely happy, her laughter light and unrestrained. Luka frowned, unsettled by the realization. It wasn't something he should be noticing. He wasn't supposed to see the small details, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed, or how she bit her lip in amusement.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

For a long while, he sat there, unable to look away. There was something about the way Mia let her guard down when she thought no one was watching that fascinated him. It made her seem more… human. Like someone he might have known in another life, in another time, when he was just a man and not a weapon.

It didn't help that the more he watched, the more the image of Mia, the real Mia, clashed with the cold, distant person described in the file he had been given. That file had painted her as cold and calculated, someone who might have gotten herself involved with dangerous people because of ambition or money. But watching her now, laughing at cat pictures and talking softly to herself as she sipped her tea, Luka couldn't reconcile that description with the woman in front of him.

Why would anyone want her dead?

He shook his head, pushing the question aside. It didn't matter. It wasn't his job to ask why, only to carry out orders. But the longer he spent watching her, the more tangled his emotions became, a slow-burning tension building in his chest.

He was a professional. He was supposed to be detached. But this, whatever this was, it felt different. Mia had slipped under his skin, and no matter how hard he tried to stay focused, he couldn't.

And that terrified him.

With a sigh, Luka lowered the binoculars and leaned back against the roof, staring up at the dark sky. The rain had stopped hours ago, leaving the night quiet and still. He had made a mistake by letting his guard down, and he knew it. But now he had to make a choice.

He could walk away, forget all of this, and go back to the life he knew, the life where emotions were a liability and hesitation meant death. Or he could see this through, even if it meant risking everything.

The sound of Mia's laughter echoed faintly in his mind, soft and warm.

For the first time in his life, Luka wasn't sure which path he wanted to take.

And that made Mia more dangerous to him than anyone he had ever faced.