#mwf

Who is Gaz?

I’m going to start out with who Gaz is as a character

morality

Gaz is someone who has a strong sense of morality and struggles with the balance between doing the right thing and doing the morally right thing, there’s this debate between long-term morality and situational morality that Gaz struggles with

look im maybe not the most linguistically talented person on earth so im just gonna throw in a few quotes which i think gives Gaz

Gaz is someone who admist chaos and war is trying his best, trying his best to be a good person, to be reliable and to do the right thing

if thays not lovable idk what is

relationship to price

ok so i think this aspect of Gaz’s character is what people tend to focus on

and as much as the omg price’s son shit is cute i think he’s become a vehicle for people to emphasise price’s daddy factor (which like dont get me wrong keep up the good work)

but i think theres so much more to that

i forgot who wrote this but someone said something about Gaz trying to follow in impossibly large footsteps and i think thats so accurate

going back to Gaz’s struggle with morality there’s so much untapped potential in the idea that his idol, may not be an amazing person, having to come to grips with the idea that Price, his role model can look at a woman and child as interrogation leverage is something that i think people need to look into more

OK so now

Untapped Potential

so here are somethings which i

idk if this is like the correct phrasing

headcannon? idk i just think these are parts of Gaz’s character which could be rlly interesting to explore

ahem

yes Gaz is a good guy, but that doesn’t make him passive Gaz has shown moments of anger, like in the interrogation with the butcher when he lunges at him or when him and price first meet

i think the fact that Gaz is so calm and collected but has these moments are cracks in the facade he creates

i believe personally he has a lot of repressed anger whether it be at the world, at himself, at his captain hes an angry dude hes just better at keeping it under wraps

and i know we don’t really have many details on his backstory but cmon there’s no way u sign up for a job like this and don’t have any issues whatsoever

i think this quote is so good for this because he’s harnessed his anger, it’s what makes him good at his job, a knife, a weapon

i think another interesting concept for Gaz is guilt

the fact that he cares about whats right and wrong how does he feel going to sleep at night? do these things haunt him? is he irredeemable?

i think its like that one quote “the dog that weeps after it kills is no better than the dog that doesn’t. My guilt does not purify me.”

Final Thoughts

anyways guys thanks for coming to my ted talk

i know this was really messy but i just want to encourage some Gaz love because i think he’s a really interesting complex character who we just need to dig a little deeper into

i hope this incites some more gaz love

On the ground, Price let out a weak, coughing breath of relief. Seeing Eve holding the line, the Captain relaxed his posture slightly and began to slowly push himself up from the concrete.

Ghost’s eyes locked onto her. He had no idea who this woman was, but instead of backing away, a flash of pure, reckless defiance washed over him. He took a heavy, deliberate step forward, closing the distance toward Price, testing her resolve.

BANG.

A high-caliber round shattered the concrete mere inches from Ghost's boots, sending sharp fragments of stone flying against his tactical trousers.

"I said stand the fuck down!" she roared, her voice cutting through the open air, completely unyielding.

Ghost stopped, his entire body tense with absolute, unadulterated fury. He stared at the masked operative, his jaw clenching so hard it was visible beneath the fabric of his own skull mask.

She stepped closer, keeping the rifle perfectly steady, her sights never leaving his chest. "Drop the knife. Now. On your fuckin' knees."

For a long, agonizing second, Ghost didn't move. Then, with a slow, deliberate tilt of his head, he let his fingers uncurl. The tactical knife clattered against the roof. Slowly, agonizingly, he dropped his massive frame onto his knees, his hands raising to the sides of his head, his lethal glare fixed entirely on the unknown shooter.

Price pushed himself up, wiping blood from his mouth as he stumbled over. He reached into his vest, pulling out a pair of heavy-duty zip-ties. He stepped behind Ghost, grabbing his wrists and securing them with a harsh, professional jerk.

As the plastic teeth clicked into place, Price leaned down close to Ghost's ear, his voice low and heavy with exhaustion. "What I'm doing is necessary, Simon. You of all people should know that. You should have trusted me."

Ghost didn't reply to Price. He didn't even look at him. His dark eyes remained fixed entirely on the woman standing in front of him, trying to analyze this new threat.

Under the golden light of the setting sun, Ghost tried to analyze the intensity in the unknown woman's green gaze while silently swearing a vow of retribution, but Eve, recognizing the soldier's latent danger and intention to break his bonds, decided not to give him the chance to act.

With a swift, practiced motion, Eve dropped her stance and swung the solid stock of her rifle downward, the heavy composite butt connecting violently with the side of Ghost’s head with a sickening CRACK. The brutal force rattled through his skull, instantly splintering his vision into a white-hot flash of pain before darkness took over, sending his massive frame collapsing limp onto the concrete roof.

Eve lowered the rifle back into a low-ready position, her breathing steady as she looked down at the unconscious man. She glanced over at Price, her voice flat and cold through the fabric of her mask.

"We need to move. Now."

***************

Perched on the freezing iron grate of an abandoned fire escape overlooking the Lower East Side, Ghost adjusted the collar of his civilian jacket. In his scarred hand, a modified tactical tablet glowed faintly against the shadows, its screen split between a live reconnaissance drone feed and a secure, encrypted satellite uplink.

He pressed his comm-piece, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that barely carried into the wind. "Gaz. Tell me you’ve bypassed the NYPD transit grid."

A sharp hiss of static cut through the earpiece before Gaz’s voice responded, typing sounds clicking rapidly in the background. "Almost there, Ghost. Bypassing Manhattan’s C-Tech security isn't exactly a walk in the park from a safehouse across the state line. Give me five seconds... Alright, I'm in. Feeding the drone telemetry and facial recognition software directly to your tablet now."

On the screen, the thermal signature of a micro-drone hovering a hundred feet above the crowded avenues shifted into a high-definition optical lens. Ghost manipulated the screen with his thumb, rewinding the footage from the outer perimeter of the rooftop incident.

"Isolate the stairwell exit," Ghost commanded. "Frame forty-two. She dropped her mask for a split second to clear her breath before hitting street level. Zoom and enhance. Run it through the cross-referenced database."

"On it," Gaz murmured, his tone shifting into professional focus. "Bypassing the standard intelligence networks and diving straight into the UKSF encrypted mainframe at Credenhill. If she’s home-grown elite, her biometric signature will be in the base shadow files."

The tablet screen flickered violently, a red progress bar loading over a pixelated capture of Eve's face. The golden hue of the setting sun from the rooftop illuminated the sharp contours of her jaw and the fierce, burning gaze of her green eyes. The system cycled through thousands of encrypted profiles at a blistering speed until a sudden, sharp electronic chime echoed through the comms.

ACCESS GRANTED: LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE ONLY.

A heavily redacted military dossier materialized on the screen. Ghost’s dark eyes narrowed into a razor-sharp glare as he scanned the text.

"Bloody hell, Ghost..." Gaz breathed over the line, his voice laced with genuine disbelief. "You've stumbled into a shadow of our own. That's Morgan Eve Thorne. Rank: Lieutenant. Unit: Special Reconnaissance Regiment."

Ghost’s jaw tightened beneath his tactical gaiter. SRR.

He knew that acronym all too well. The Special Reconnaissance Regiment was the pinnacle of Tier 1 covert surveillance, close reconnaissance, and psychological warfare. They operated in the absolute shadows, often embedded with the SAS.

"She’s Tier 1," Ghost rasped, his eyes locked onto her operational history. "And she was stationed out of Credenhill. Same base as us."

"Yeah, but look at her deployment record," Gaz added, the clicking of his keyboard slowing down. "Classified operations in Al Mazrah, deep-cover tracking in Las Almas, blood-and-dirt counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, and two tours of counter-terrorism operations under the direct, off-book supervision of... the Captain. Her file has Price’s digital signature all over it, but her current status is completely wiped. She’s a ghost."

Ghost stood flat against the brick facade, digesting the data. This woman wasn't some soft, desk-bound handler or a random asset the upper echelon had sent to leash Price. She was a lethal, highly trained apex predator. A Tier 1 operator who specialized in tracking the untrackable. She knew how he hunted because she had crawled through the exact same mud at Credenhill. She was anything but an easy target.

Yet, the core question remained like a splinter in his mind. Why? Why would a top-tier SRR operative risk her career, her life, and burn every international protocol to act as Price's rogue shadow in a black op? What did she know that the rest of the Task Force didn't?

"She’s a hunting hound," Ghost rumbled, his bloodshot eyes flashing with a cold, calculating wrath. "And she's currently running a counter-surveillance loop in Manhattan. She thinks she broke containment."

"What's the play, Ghost?" Gaz asked, a hint of caution in his voice. "If she catches you tracking her, she won't hesitate to put a bullet in you. She’s elite, Simon."

"Let her try," Ghost growled softly, cutting the connection with a sharp click.

He slid the tablet into his jacket vest. He didn't have the skull mask on; instead, a low-profile black baseball cap was pulled low over his eyes, and the plain tactical neck gaiter was tugged up over his nose, hiding his permanent scars. But his eyes—dark, intense, and frantic with a calculating wrath—were entirely exposed.

*******

Ghost was a ghost no longer. He was a hunting hound.

He stood flat against the brick facade of a brownstone, his massive frame partially camouflaged by a dark civilian jacket. He was wearing the baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, and the tactical neck gaiter tugged up over his nose.

Across the busy Manhattan avenue, the glass storefront of a crowded artisan cafe reflected the bright afternoon sun.

And then, he saw her.

Even in civilian clothes, her posture was a dead giveaway to a trained eye. Eve pushed the heavy glass door open and stepped inside the establishment. Ghost didn't waste a single millisecond. He checked the traffic, lunged off the brick wall, and crossed the street with rapid, predatory strides, his heavy boots cutting through the sea of pedestrians like a kinetic wave.

Inside, the cafe was a buzzing hive of chatter, clinking ceramic, and the heavy aroma of roasted espresso. Eve didn't look back, but she didn't need to. The moment she approached the counter, she caught his massive, unmistakable silhouette reflecting perfectly against the polished dark laminate of the display case. Her heart gave a sudden, violent thud against her ribs—not out of fear, but from pure tactical panic. He found me.

She could feel his eyes on her. It was a physical weight, a suffocating, predatory gaze that seemed to heat the air at the back of her neck as the front door chimes rang, signaling his entrance. The wolf was in the fold.

Eve knew she couldn't fight him here—not with fifty civilians acting as meat shields. Without breaking her stride or giving him the satisfaction of a panicked glance, she abandoned her order and began to smoothly weave through the tight maze of small wooden tables, moving directly toward the back of the establishment.

Once she reached the service corridor near the restrooms, she stopped. She turned on her heel, her vivid green eyes locking straight onto his dark, shadowed gaze across the sea of unsuspecting patrons. For two agonizing, unblinking seconds, they held a silent, electric visual deadlock. He was a monolithic machine closing in; she was the scalpel ready to cut the lights.

With a lightning-fast reflex, Eve reached beneath her jacket, drew her sidearm, and intentionally tilting her wrist upward, she fired a single, deafening unsuppressed round straight into the plaster ceiling.

BANG.

Plaster rained down. The reaction was instantaneous.

Absolute, unadulterated chaos erupted. Women shrieked, tables were violently overturned, and coffee mugs shattered on the tiles as dozens of terrified civilians scrambled for the deck or rushed the front exit in a frantic, stampeding mass.

Eve didn't waste a breath. She turned, vaulted effortlessly over the polished marble service counter, and crashed into the employee kitchen.

"Hey! You can't be back here—" a line cook yelled, but Eve shoved past him, her boots skidding slightly on the greasy metal floorboards as her eyes scanned the room, instantly locating the heavy steel push-bar of the rear exit door.

Behind her, the stampede of bodies in the main dining room had created a temporary wall of flesh, slowing Ghost down. He was forced to physically shoulder his way through the screaming crowd, his massive hands shoving frantic civilians aside with brutal, unyielding strength. He had lost precious seconds, but the moment he cleared the counter, his focus re-anchored.

He drove his massive shoulder straight through the swinging kitchen doors, splintering the wood with a loud CRACK.

The kitchen staff scattered in terror as the giant, masked operator materialized in their space. Ghost didn't even glance at them. His dark eyes were fixed entirely on the heavy rear door as it began to swing shut.

Like an unleashed machine, his boots hammered against the floorboards, his breathing turning into a series of low, guttural snarls as he tore after his prey into the dark alleyways of New York.

The heavy steel rear door of the cafe slammed shut behind her, the echo swallowed instantly by the roaring cacophony of Manhattan. Eve didn’t look back. She hit the pavement running, her boots pounding against the asphalt as adrenaline surged through her veins like liquid fire. She knew exactly what was tracking her. A machine. An unstoppable, furious force of nature that wouldn’t stop until he had his hands around her throat.

She turned sharply into a narrow alleyway, weaving violently between towering stacks of industrial waste and parked delivery vans, using every inch of the urban maze to break his line of sight. Emerging onto a crowded avenue, she deliberately dove into the thick of a tourist stampede, her movements fluid and calculated.

Spotting the illuminated green globe of a subway entrance, Eve bolted down the concrete stairs two at a time. She swiped her transit card with a practiced flick of her wrist, slipping through the turnstile and disappearing into a sea of commuters boarding an outbound Q train just as the automated doors began to hiss shut.

As the train screeched to life, pulling into the dark tunnels toward the East River, she finally allowed herself a ragged, shallow breath. She had broken containment.

For now.

****************

By the time she emerged from the subterranean depths into Brooklyn, the harsh afternoon sun had completely died, leaving the city draped in a heavy, humid nighttime shadow. The streetlamps cast long, distorted amber reflections across the damp pavement as she navigated the quieter, industrial corridors of the borough. Her chest was still tight, her heart hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against her ribs from the sheer vertigo of the hunt.

She reached the designated safehouse—a weathered, unassuming brick loft building near the waterfront. Eve checked her six one last time, ensuring the dark street was empty, before slipping inside the dim stairwell.

She climbed to the third floor, her hand instinctively resting on the grip of her concealed sidearm. Reaching the heavy steel door of the apartment, she entered the master key code, listening to the electronic tumblers click open. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her with a soft, final click, the dark sanctuary completely silent.

Then, the air shifted.

The metallic tang of gun oil and cold sweat hung faintly in the stillness. Before her tactical instinct could even translate the warning to her muscles, an icy jolt of pure dread struck her chest. Something was fundamentally wrong.

Eve whirled around, her hand flying to her holster as she lunged back toward the deadbolt, desperate to break containment and throw herself back into the night.

She never got the chance.

Out from the absolute blackness of the entryway corridor, a colossal shadow materialized in a fraction of a millisecond. Ghost was entirely over her. The sheer, terrifying momentum of his massive frame hit her like a kinetic train wreck. Catching her from behind as she turned, he slammed his heavy body weight forward, pinning her brutally flat against the solid steel door with a deafening, metallic CRACK that vibrated straight through her spine.

"Going somewhere, Thorne?" Ghost rumbled directly into her ear, his voice a low, gravelly snarl that sent a shiver of pure, unadulterated danger down her neck.

He didn't give her an inch to breathe, let alone fight back. In one swift, authoritative motion, his large, scarred hands shot out with vice-like precision, capturing both of her wrists and pinning them securely against her lower back. He pressed his entire naked face close—the cap and gaiter gone, exposing his harsh, rigid scars and wild, bloodshot eyes through the shadows—his broad chest heaving violently against her back as he completely immobilized her under his crushing weight.

Eve’s instincts bypassed her brain entirely. The suffocating weight of his body was a death sentence, and her training took over with feral precision.

With a sudden, explosive burst of kinetic energy, Eve drove the back of her head hard into Ghost’s face. The bone-crushing impact cracked squarely against his nose, forcing a sharp grunt out of him. At the exact same fraction of a second, she snapped her wrists, breaking his vice-like grip with a violent, practiced twist of her joints and throwing her entire body weight backward into him.

The unexpected momentum caught Ghost off balance, forcing his massive frame back a staggering step into the dark corridor.

Free for a microsecond, Eve’s hand flashed to her side, her fingers wrapping around the grip of her concealed sidearm. She drew it in a fluid blur, but Ghost was a machine built for close-quarters violence. Before she could bring the barrel up, his large, scarred hand shot forward like a striking viper, his palm slamming brutally against the top of her slide, locking the mechanism. With a harsh, downward twist of his wrist, he wrenched the weapon entirely from her grasp, sending it clattering loudly across the hardwood floor into the shadows.

Eve didn't hesitate. Capitalizing on his forward lean, she drove her knee with bone-crushing force straight into his sternum.

Ghost grunted, the air violently driven from his lungs as the impact shoved him back another two steps. Eve didn't stay to watch him recover. She turned on her heel, her boots skidding on the floor as she bolted deeper into the studio apartment, her eyes locked onto the glowing red exit sign of the emergency stairwell at the far end of the loft.

She almost made it.

Behind her, an unhinged, gravelly roar echoed through the rafters. Ghost lunged. He didn't chase her; he launched his colossal frame through the air in a brutal, tactical tackle. The sheer mass of his body collided with the back of her thighs, completely taking her legs out from under her.

They hit the floorboards together with a deafening, hollow thud. Before Eve could even attempt to crawl, Ghost wrapped his thick, heavy arms around her torso from behind, pinning her chest flat against his. He violently rolled his weight backward, shifting his center of gravity until he was flat on his back on the floor, dragging her tightly on top of him to use his own massive frame as an anchor.

In the same fluid, suffocating motion, he snaked his thick forearm underneath her chin, locking her into a brutal, oxygen-depriving rear-naked chokehold, his chest heaving violently against her spine as he began to constrict her windpipe.

Eve’s vision began to blur at the edges, the lack of oxygen sending a wave of panicked heat through her veins. In a desperate, final bid for survival, her hand fumbled blindly down to her boot sleeve, her fingers wrapping around the hilt of her emergency tactical knife. She pulled it free, flipped the blade in her grip, and violently drove the steel backward, burying it deep into the meat of Ghost’s right thigh.

A guttural, agonizing grunt of pure, white-hot pain tore from Ghost's throat. His body convulsed, his vision flashing white as the blade severed muscle tissue. The sheer agony forced his iron grip to falter, the crushing pressure around her neck loosening just enough for the air to rush back into her burning lungs.

Gasping, her voice a fractured, scraping whisper, Eve choked out the words through the darkness.

"Makarov... Price's gonna... kill Makarov..."

The effect was instantaneous.

The moment that name sliced through the dark, the violent momentum of Ghost's entire body ground to a sudden, rigid halt. The word Makarov acted like an emergency brake on his nervous system.

Ghost violently shifted his immense weight right where they lay. Keeping her pinned flat against the hardwood floor with her face pressed hard into the wood, he straddled her hips from behind, crushing her lower body beneath his massive frame. He drove his large, heavy hand into the back of her neck, his fingers locking into her auburn curls to press her firmly against the cold timber, completely neutralizing any leverage she had left.

The tactical knife was still embedded deep in his thigh, the agonizing pulse of the wound rhythmically painting his trousers a dark, slick crimson, but his focus had completely narrowed to a cold, razor-sharp edge.

"The fuck did you say?!" Ghost roared down at the back of her head, his voice a guttural, terrifying vibration that rattled straight through the floorboards. His chest heaved against her spine, his grip on her neck unyielding as he demanded the truth.

Eve’s cheek was scraped against the rough wood, her breath coming in shallow, desperate gasps under his suffocating weight. But the fire in her green eyes didn't dim for a single second. She bared her teeth against the floor, her voice a strained, raspy snarl that cut through the agonizing pressure.

"Price... is going to... kill Makarov," she wheezed out, coughing slightly as she forced the words past her bruised throat. "He found him... Now get the fuck off me, you beast!"

Ghost slowly peeled his massive weight off her, but he didn’t let her go. He reached down, grabbing her right arm with a vice-like grip, and violently hoisted her to her feet, dragging her along with him as he began to move deeper into the dark loft.

The second her boots hit the floor, Eve fiercely resisted. She twisted her torso sharply, digging her heels into the hardwood. Capitalizing on his slight imbalance from the limp, she snapped her left arm upward, breaking his grip on her other wrist, and spun her entire upper body into the motion. With a devastating, fluid execution, she delivered a brutal hammer-fist strike directly into the side of Ghost's jaw.

The sheer force of the blow rattled Ghost, his head snapping back as he staggered a couple of steps away, finally forced to release her entirely to keep his footing. He recovered quickly, his weight balanced despite the knife still protruding from his heavily bleeding thigh, but he didn't advance. His guard stayed up, but he didn't try to grab her again.

Eve backed up until her spine hit the brick wall across from him. She leaned against it, her chest heaving violently as she fought to claw oxygen back into her burning lungs. Neither of them broke eye contact. They stood there, breathing heavily in the dim light, staring at each other like two wounded apex predators waiting for the other to bleed out.

Desperate to stabilize her breathing, Eve bent forward slightly, resting her palms flat against her knees. She wiped a streak of sweat and blood from her forehead, her burning green eyes locked onto his shadowed gaze.

"Price didn't turn," she rasped, her voice a low, friction-laced whisper that cut through the silence. "He went off-grid because he found a leak. A dirty channel inside MI6 that was shielding Makarov. He had to use FSB back-channels and black-market intelligence to track him. He tortured an Ultra-Nationalist asset in Prague to get the coordinates. That's why the upper echelon thinks he's a traitor—because he burned their protocols to ashes to get to him."

She took a sharp, ragged breath, her gaze hardening. "And right now? He's tracking him through a subterranean bunker in New Jersey. He's probably pulling the trigger as we speak."

Ghost stared at her, his posture going completely rigid. For the first time, a flash of genuine astonishment washed over his scarred, unshielded features. The calculated madness in his eyes fractured, replaced by the crushing weight of her words.

Right then, a sharp, electronic chirp shattered the silence.

Eve’s tactical radio, sitting flat on the dining table a few paces away, began to buzz with a secure, heavily encrypted frequency. Eve kept her eyes glued to Ghost for one heavy second, warning him with her stare, before she straightened up.

She shot him a sharp, venomous look. "For the record... I let you sit over me; you prick."

With that, she walked deliberately toward the table. She swiped the receiver up and pressed the comm button, her eyes never leaving Ghost's massive frame.

"Kilo-1, status," she said, her voice instantly dropping into a cold, flat military cadence.

The audio hissed through the static, a deep, raspy, and thoroughly exhausted voice responding from the other end. "Echo-6. Terminal objective achieved. The package has been permanently decommissioned. Sector is dark."

Price had killed him. It was over.

Eve closed her eyes for a split second, absorbing the gravity of the confirmation, before her gaze snapped back to Ghost, who was watching her like a hawk.

"Copy that, Echo-6," Eve replied clearly into the mic, her tone laced with a deliberate, tactical subtext as she stared Ghost dead in the eyes. "Be advised, I’ve been compromised at the safehouse. Riley has intercepted me. He’s in the room."

A heavy, agonizing silence stretched over the airwaves. For five long seconds, the only sound was the faint hiss of static. Then, Price’s voice cut through, low, heavy, and unyielding.

"Bring him with you. Move to the secondary rendezvous point immediately. Out."

The line went dead with a sharp click.

Eve slowly lowered the radio back onto the table.

Ghost stood frozen, his dark eyes narrowed as he processed the reality of the situation. He looked at the radio, then back to her, a deep, suspicious rumble vibrating in his chest.

"Why does he trust you?" Ghost rasped, his voice dropping into a thick, demanding growl. "Price doesn't bring anyone into a black op without a tether. Why you?"

Eve stared at him for a few quiet, unblinking seconds, her expression completely unreadable in the dark. Without a word, she moved smoothly across the floorboards, leaning down to retrieve her sidearm from where it had rolled into the shadows. She checked the slide, cleared the mechanism, and smoothly slid the weapon back into her holster with a solid, metallic click.

Once the weapon was secure, she tilted her head up, a subtle, lightweight touch of irony pulling at the corner of her lips as a soft smirk broke through her guarded expression.

"Because I'm family," she murmured softly.

Ghost’s jaw tightened, his brow furrowing in genuine, silent confusion. He didn't understand.

Eve took a slow, deliberate step closer into his space, her green eyes locked onto his raw, unshielded face.

"My mother's name is Price," she whispered.

Ghost went entirely still, staring down at her, completely astonished. His tactical brain, always calculating, did the math in a fraction of a second, her mother was John Price’s sister.

This woman wasn't just a random operative sent to tether the Captain. She was Price's blood.

The cold fury in his eyes fractured, replaced by a tense, heavy silence. He didn't speak; he just stared down at her, his jaw tightly clenched as his tactical brain completely locked up under the weight of the realization. For a few heavy seconds, the world seemed to stop between them.

Eve broke the silence, her eyes dropping down to the tactical knife still buried deep in his right thigh. She let out a small, tired sigh. "We have to stitch that."

Ghost slowly blinked, tracking her gaze down to his leg. He looked genuinely surprised, as if the sheer adrenaline of the confrontation and the shock of her revelation had made him completely forget there was a piece of military-grade steel protruding from his muscle.

Eve walked past him toward the table, searching for the safehouse's field medical kit.

Ghost grunted, his voice tight as he watched her back. "You fuckin’ stabbed me."

"You were trying to fuckin’ choke me!! Besides I didn't even twist it, so stop complaining and take your pants off," Eve shot back smoothly, grabbing the heavy black nylon kit and turning around to face him.

Ghost’s expression hardened instantly, his dark eyes narrowing into a fierce, dangerous glare. He stared at her as if she had just crossed a lethal line.

Eve rolled her eyes, walking back into his space with the kit in hand. "I need to access the wound and I can't do that through heavy tactical fabric."

Grunting in reluctant defeat, Ghost dragged a wooden chair over from the dining table and sat down heavily. With a brutal, fluid, and completely reckless motion, he grabbed the hilt of the knife and yanked it out in one sharp tug. He didn't even flinch, though a fresh, heavy surge of dark crimson immediately pooled from the open gash. He unbuckled his tactical trousers, pulling the fabric down just enough to fully expose the thick, heavily muscled contour of his thigh.

Eve approached, but as her eyes fell on the stark, powerful musculature of his leg, she found herself momentarily distracted. She blinked, forcing her professional focus to snap back into place, and pulled a second chair up, seating herself directly in front of him.

In absolute silence, she went to work. She expertly cleaned the edges of the wound with antiseptic, ignoring the slight twitch of his muscles beneath her hands.

As she began to carefully loop the first neat, professional sutures through his skin, the room fell into a heavy quiet. Eve remained completely focused on her stitches, her fingers moving with steady precision, but she could feel the weight of his gaze. Ghost hadn't taken his dark eyes off her for a single second, studying every line of her face under the dim light.

Without looking up from her work, Eve spoke, her voice carrying a dry, calm edge. "It's not polite to stare."

Ghost didn't look away. His expression remained hard, intense, and unblinking as his deep rumble cut through the quiet.

"Where is the RP?" he demanded.

Eve pulled the knot tight on the final suture, snipping the thread with a clean click. She straightened her spine, rose slightly, and looked him dead in the eyes, her green gaze burning with absolute certainty.