There is an invisible line that separates the observers from the observed.
Crossing it—even for a single second—can cost you more than a bullet.

I’ve crossed that line before. And I still bear the scars.

That’s why, when I decided to follow Navia after our encounter at the docks, I did so with surgical precision. No direct approaches, no unnecessary conversations. Just surveillance. Pure and simple.

Early that morning, she visited a flower shop. She left with a bouquet of white lilies.

Then she walked toward the cemetery overlooking the river.

Callas. Her father.

I kept my distance, hidden among the shadows of a weather-worn statue. I watched her kneel before the gravestone, her fingers trembling slightly as she laid the flowers upon the stone. Her expression was… different. For a moment, she wasn’t the strong leader who raised her voice for the forgotten, nor the woman with the charming smile that so fascinated the press. She was just a daughter. A young woman alone in her grief.

And I hated it. I hated having seen it.
Because that image burned itself into my mind.

…

Later, her route changed. She headed toward one of the old, abandoned warehouses at the port—one that, according to court records, had been sealed for years. She had the key. She used it without hesitation.

I slipped into the adjacent alley, pressing my back against the damp wall as I assessed the situation. No guards. No cameras. Only the creak of old wood and the whistle of the wind through the planks.

I waited several minutes before moving closer. The warehouse doors weren’t fully closed. There was a narrow gap. And through it, I saw something I hadn’t expected.

Navia.

Standing beside several crates. Ammunition. Weapons. Equipment that doesn’t circulate through legal markets.

I took a breath. I was ready to break in. To interrogate. To do my job.

Then I heard voices.

“We have a problem.”

A man. Deep voice, with a northern accent.

“The attack was a disaster. The Minister survived, and now there’s double surveillance at every key location.”

“I know,”
Navia replied. Her tone was cold. Professional. Nothing like the woman who had cried at a gravestone an hour earlier.

“That’s why I’m saying it’s over. Don’t move again without my permission. And if anyone acts on their own one more time… I’ll make them disappear myself.”

There was a tense silence. Then footsteps, as if someone were leaving.

Was she covering something up? Or stopping it?

The gap was no longer enough. I straightened. I stepped inside.

She turned the instant she heard the door creak.

“I suppose that rules out sharing that coffee,”
she murmured, her hand close to her parasol—her weapon.

“Depends,”
I replied, aiming at her without hesitation.
“Are you going to lie to me again?”

Navia didn’t move. Not an inch.

“This isn’t what it looks like,”
she said calmly.

“Then explain it. Because from where I’m standing, it looks exactly like that.”

“I’m protecting Fontaine. In my own way.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“And that includes trafficking weapons?”

“No. That includes infiltrating a network that already does it. From the inside. Before they kill someone else.”

The sincerity in her gaze… was disarming.

And that was the real problem.

Because there was a part of me that wanted to believe her.

A dangerous part.

I lowered my pistol by barely a centimeter. Not enough to let my guard down—but enough to admit a truth I still wasn’t ready to put into words:

Navia wasn’t my enemy. But she wasn’t just a suspect either.

She was something else.

And that… terrified me.