Code of Shadows

Chapter 59 - Trust Issues Revisited

The safe house was suffocating, the kind of silence that presses against your skin and digs into your mind. I could feel the tension in the air, thick and heavy, as if the very walls were holding their breath, waiting for the inevitable explosion. Ethan paced in front of me, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The steady rhythm of his steps filled the room, each one like a ticking clock counting down to the confrontation we both knew was coming.

"Why didn't you tell me about him?" Ethan's voice was controlled, but there was an edge to it. A simmering frustration that he was trying, and failing, to keep at bay. He stopped pacing and turned to face me, his gaze hard and unrelenting.

I swallowed, unable to meet his eyes. "I didn't think he would come back. I thought that part of my life was over."

"You didn't *know*?" Ethan cut in, his voice sharper now. "Or you didn't trust me enough to tell me? Because right now, it feels like you're still hiding things from me, Alex."

His words hit harder than I expected, like a punch to the gut. I opened my mouth to respond, but the weight of what he was saying—of what I had been avoiding—held my words back. He was right. There were still parts of my past I hadn't told him. Parts I wasn't ready to face, let alone share.

"I trust you, Ethan," I whispered, the words feeling hollow even as I said them. "More than anyone."

He stared at me, waiting for more. But I wasn't sure I had more to give. Not yet.

"Trust," Ethan said, his voice quieter now, but no less intense. "Trust is what keeps us alive, Alex. How can I protect you if I don't know what's haunting you? If I don't know who's coming for you?"

I flinched at the accusation in his tone, but I couldn't argue with it. Trust had always been a difficult thing for me. It had been shattered before, leaving me with jagged pieces that never quite fit back together. "I've been burned before," I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. "I've trusted the wrong people, and it almost got me killed. I'm trying, Ethan. But it's not easy."

Ethan's jaw tightened, his frustration clear. He crossed the room in a few quick strides, stopping in front of me. "I'm not asking for easy. I'm asking for honesty. For a chance to protect you, to be there for you. But I can't do that if you keep shutting me out."

I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I had spent so long building walls, convincing myself that I was better off alone, that opening up would only make me vulnerable. But standing there, seeing the hurt and anger in Ethan's eyes, I realized that keeping him at arm's length wasn't just hurting me—it was hurting us.

Before I could say anything more, the shrill buzz of Ethan's phone cut through the tension. The sound was jarring, yanking us both back into the reality of our situation. We weren't just two people having a relationship problem. We were two people caught in the middle of a mission that could determine the fate of the world.

Ethan glanced down at his phone, his expression shifting from frustration to something darker, more focused. "We have a new target," he said, his voice all business now. "A nuclear scientist. He's on the move, and we're headed to India."

The shift in tone, the sudden change in focus, was like a splash of cold water to the face. The argument, the trust issues—it all seemed to fade into the background, overshadowed by the gravity of the mission. There was no time to resolve anything between us. The mission demanded our attention, and the clock was ticking.

"India?" I asked, standing up straighter, already pushing the personal aside for the professional. "What's the connection?"

"The scientist is linked to the missing plutonium," Ethan explained, his voice clipped and efficient. "He's one of the few people in the world who can weaponize it. If we don't stop him, we're looking at a nuclear disaster on a global scale."

I nodded, already shifting into mission mode, my mind racing through the logistics. "How long do we have?"

"Not long," Ethan replied, grabbing his gear and motioning for me to do the same. "We leave in an hour. We need to catch him before he disappears."

I grabbed my jacket, my mind still swirling with the unresolved tension between us, but I pushed it aside. There was no room for personal feelings right now. The mission had to come first. It always did.

As we moved through the motions of preparing for the mission, the silence between us was deafening. The unspoken words, the unresolved emotions, hung heavy in the air. I could feel the weight of everything I hadn't said pressing down on me, but I didn't know how to fix it. Not now.

We were trained for this—for compartmentalizing, for pushing aside emotions in favor of the task at hand. But this felt different. The walls I had built to protect myself were starting to crack, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold them up.

"Alex," Ethan said, his voice soft but firm, as we prepared to leave the safe house. "We'll talk about this later. I'm not letting this go."

I nodded, knowing that the conversation wasn't over. It was just delayed. "Later," I agreed, my voice barely audible. But in the back of my mind, I wondered if we would ever truly have time for *later*.

With one last glance at each other, we headed out into the night, ready to chase down a man who held the fate of millions in his hands. But as we boarded the jet, I couldn't shake the feeling that the real threat wasn't the scientist or the plutonium. It was the cracks forming between Ethan and me—cracks that, if left unchecked, could tear us apart.

As the jet engines roared to life, I sat back, staring out into the night sky. The mission had begun, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something far more dangerous was lurking just beneath the surface. Our trust had been fractured, and I didn't know if we'd be able to fix it before it was too late.