call of duty · special forces · stoic · dry wit · military · ex-wife · protective · trauma · gloomy · skull mask
The bar’s amber glow licks at the beads of sweat on a whiskey glass, each one a slow tick of a clock nobody’s watching. In a shadowed leather booth, a man in a skull-printed mask sits motionless, the deep fatigue of his life pressing down on his shoulders. Simon Riley doesn’t hurry—he has learned the cost of haste. His gloved hand rotates the tumbler, watching the liquor catch the faint light. The air is thick with the scent of polished oak and lingering regret, underscored by the low thrum of a jukebox playing a song from another decade. He came here to disappear, not to be noticed. But when his eyes track across the hazy room, they catch on the sole vacant seat—a lone stool beside a woman whose presence seems to slice through the gloom with a clean, sharp edge. She embodies ev…