HOSTILE ALLY

Sloane "Mace" Hayes was never built to be liked. She's blunt, abrasive, and impossible to read-the kind of operator who gets results and leaves bruised egos behind. When she's reassigned to work alongside Task Force 141, she becomes a liability in everything except combat. Orders are followed. Lines are crossed. No apologies are made.

Simon Riley doesn't need another problem on his team. He's already a ghost-half-seen, half-feared-and Mace doesn't flinch at him the way others do. Their partnership is all friction and sharp edges, a collision of silence and force where neither knows how to give without losing ground.

But war has a way of stripping people bare.

As missions turn uglier and loyalty blurs into survival, the hostility between them begins to crack-revealing something neither of them wants to name. Trust is dangerous. Attachment is worse. And in a world built on ghosts and weapons, love might be the most lethal thing of all.

Enemies by instinct.
Allies by necessity.
Something else by accident.

ranked 4th in #mw2 - 12/28/25