Shreeya

He was built to follow orders. That’s it. No one ever told him what to do if he started catching feelings for his target.

Agent Eren Valis—yeah, that Eren, the spook nobody can pin down—moves like a rumor through the system, ghosting his way into a fancy foreign university. He’s supposed to sniff out a traitor, drop the messenger, and vanish. Clean job. Easy, right? Ha.

Except, fun twist: there’s already someone else in the game. Enter RIME—no country, no loyalties, just a shadow with a body count and a knack for showing up before Eren can even lace up his boots. Rime doesn’t just break the rules. He acts like the rules are a joke only he gets. And freakily enough, it feels like he’s not just stalking the mission, but Eren himself.

So, what happens when these two finally crash into each other? Not the gunfight everyone expects. Nope. It’s more like accusations, warnings, and this weird, electric almost-moment—a brush with something dangerous. Like a kiss hovering in the air, daring either of them to try.

Now Eren’s tangled up in a mess of lies, blood, and secrets hot enough to burn through steel. And the one thing his brutal training never covered? Falling in love, right in the blast radius of a war. Honestly, that might just be the deadliest trap of all.

CODE NAME: LUCIAN

It was, what—almost 3 a.m. Rime slipped out of the club, not through the front where people grabbed and stared like they’d never seen skin before, but into this old freight tunnel tucked behind the stage lift. Honestly, most folks didn’t even know it was there. The ones who did? Yeah, you could count them on one hand. 


His breath puffed out in little clouds. Smelled like iron down there, and maybe a bit like something had been on fire, once. Every step, he peeled off Lucien’s swagger—like, literally, you could almost hear the attitude drop to the floor with his coat—and went back to being himself: sharp, invisible, a ghost with a mission. 


At the end of the tunnel, there was this steel door. No knob or anything. Just a flat eye-scan and something that read your pulse under the skin. He slapped his hand on the scanner—quick prick of heat, tiny little beep. 


Four stories under, somewhere way below this fake observatory that, honestly, probably hadn’t looked at the stars in decades. 


Rectangular room, all shades of gray. Zero decor. Just cold efficiency. At the head of the table? Director Varn—the kind of guy who could probably start a war just by suggesting it during lunch. 


Three suits sat with him. All stone-faced, all looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. 


Rime walked in, no dramatic flair. Black gloves, hands behind his back. His face? Blank slate. 


“Mission update,” Varn grunted, not even glancing up. “Keep it short.” 


“Three low-tier assets neutralized. Leak source still out of reach,” Rime said, voice clipped. “Eyes on Night Wing. My cover’s solid. Florist route’s still open, but the pattern’s off—barely.” 


Varn finally looked up. His stare was… I don’t know, like black ink that’d dried up and cracked. 


“One civvy sniffing around. Alias Elias. Keeps showing up at Night Wing. Got physical—twice.” 


One of the suits twitched. Maybe blinked. 


“Your cover blown?” Varn, flat as a dead fish. 


“Nope. Not a problem. Used to think he was a spook, but now? Seems like dumb luck.” 


“Coincidence doesn’t exist in our business,” Varn snapped. 


Another agent—guy on the left, with the twitchy eye—murmured, “Don’t just make sure. If he’s a knot, untangle him. If he’s a thread—cut it.” 


Varn stood, slow and heavy, like a mountain thinking about avalanching. 


“You’re good at this, R-7. That’s why you’re here—because you know how to vanish. But if you get sloppy, if somebody really sees you…” 


He leaned in, fingers brushing up against Rime’s collarbone. Real friendly, right? 


“We torch the whole thing. No hesitation.” 


“Maybe keep your eyes on them, not me.”


Operation R-7