Chapter Text
She felt the knife instantly as Gabriel thrust it into her chest. Her first thought was what they always were these days. Ethan. He had told her to run as far as possible back in the club. And she could have, should have done it. She was doing it before she heard that wretched voice through comms.
It was a trap. She knew it was a trap set for her for this very outcome.
Ethan.
Why hadn’t she done as he told her to do? For him? She’d do anything for him. Why had she done this instead? Set herself up to be another he lost, another he’d mourn. She knew better.
Death was agonizingly slow this time. As if it was taking its precious time, allowing her to stew in her failure, in the loss she facilitated by choosing to save Grace instead of herself.
Why had she done it?
Why hadn’t she run and waited for him like she promised she would earlier on the gondola?
She knew why, though. It was because that wasn’t who she was.
Because she couldn’t stand being apart longer from him than a few days now. He didn’t always know she was there, but she was—always watching out for him like he would for the rest of the world.
Ethan.
She couldn’t fight her way out of this one.
Her story was written as well, it seemed.
And what a shitty one it ended up being.
She could almost see those gorgeous green eyes she loved so much.
He was just out of reach.
And wasn’t that just lovely?
She, Ilsa Faust, became a star-crossed lover somehow, destined forever to be apart.
If she could only have one more touch, one more proper goodbye to him, she’d give anything—her soul even to have that chance just once more to be near him.
Ethan, my love . . . I’m sorry . . .
Death felt strange. Wasn’t it supposed to be forever peace? Eternal rest?
All she felt was pain, though. Aching loss.
Horribly cold.
“ . . . twenty-five percent currently . . .” a distorted voice said somewhere in the darkness. What?
“Is it working, though?” another voice asked, sounding like the person was underwater.
“ . . . unknown.”
She felt horribly woozy, which wasn’t right. She was dead . . . wasn’t she?
She died so Grace could live.
Right?
That had happened, hadn’t it? She was fairly certain it had at least. She remembered the pain of the blade piercing her before she fell lifeless onto the bridge.
“Damn it!” hissed the second voice. “I want results. Do you understand me?”
“ . . . ma’am . . . never used . . . on a live subject before,” argued a third voice, the sound going in and out like it was between radio stations.
“No excuses! It’s imperative you save her.”
“ . . . nature of her injuries—”
“No! No excuses!” the unknown distorted voice declared firmly. “Run it wide open if you must. Give her everything! She is not allowed to die! Do you understand?! She will not die here today! Not like this.”
Ethan?
She fought against the groggy heaviness weighing her down, dragging her back to the darkness. What was happening? Who were those voices?
“. . . she’s fighting the anesthesia . . .”
Her mind started to clear at that declaration. She was being drugged? No. No, she needed to get to Ethan . . . get . . . Her limbs didn’t want to work. Her mind felt full of cotton.
“Running second line wide open,” a voice announced closer to her head.
She tried to move, groaning and fighting against everything that felt foreign. It was no use, though. She was too out of it to do anything.
“Rest, Ms. Faust.” She couldn’t see anyone in the darkness, though, but felt the gentle hand to her good shoulder. “You were severely injured earlier tonight. We are helping you.”
“th’n,” she mumbled through the oxygen mask around her nose and mouth.
“Alive for now. Let’s concentrate on you now, however, my dear,” replied the voice softly as the hand lightly patted her good side. “Give you that better ending you were hoping for, hmm?”
Wait . . . a . . . minute . . .
Unable to scrounge up any strength left inside, Ilsa once again slipped back into the comforting darkness that welcomed her home like an old friend, shadows that had been her home for so long that she forgot what the sun felt like until she met Ethan. She allowed the promise of a lifetime of peace—something she had rarely known in her life—to take her again, drifting off carelessly.
She woke to welcoming warmth against the side of her face. Her left eye fluttered open, finding an unfamiliar small bedroom she was in. It took a few moments for her to blink back enough of the drowsiness to push herself up gingerly to sit back against the headboard as she got her bearings again. She could hear waves crash against the shoreline from a nearby cracked window. Her eyes flitted over to it, watching the waves for a moment in confusion. She wasn’t in Venice anymore.
Where the hell was she?
Pulling back the flimsy nightgown she had been put into by some unknown persons, she frowned at the bandaged area where Gabriel had driven the switchblade through her chest. She carefully pulled back the tape, finding the careful, clearly medical stitching beneath the dressing.
How was this possible?
She glanced to the side when she heard a soft noise, finding a cellphone she had never seen before vibrating on top of a manila folder marked ‘Classified.’ She picked the phone up, watching the screen unlock surprisingly to a message meant for her eyes only.
While you take the time to heal, Ms. Faust.
Her eyes narrowed before she curiously glanced at the folder, slowly reaching to look through it. Maybe it would explain what the hell was going on here.
The second she opened the folder to the first page, she felt her heart stop.
Ethan . . .
She then read through the military record, realizing quickly this wasn’t one of her Ethan’s many aliases. This was the other master of absolute chaos, Ethan’s doppelganger. She had met him once long ago in passing when she was tailing someone from a bar. The eyes gave it away, though, how he wasn’t her Ethan. The other big hint was the narrowed green eyes trained on her from across the bar, observing her like a lion would prey in clear warning to stay away. Stunning green eyes Ilsa knew quite well from another lifetime.
She flipped the page in the dossier, smiling inwardly when she saw those same stunning green eyes staring up at her from a recent photo.
Wife to Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell.
Good for her.
Ilsa skimmed the rest of the page, knowing most of the background already.
At the section on children, Ilsa’s smile widened slightly.
At least one of them got their happy ending.
She turned the page to read the heavily redacted albeit interesting connected briefs that followed and skimmed the mostly blank page after it as well.
Why had she been given these files on the Benjamin-Mitchell family to read?
It took a few more pages before she found the intelligence pieces that gave that answer.
And it unfortunately took the form of a photo of the distinguished Navy Captain in a black, heavily patched leather jacket and tight jeans with an extravagant dollar amount written above him. Much higher than her own bounty had been, she realized impassively.
Someone had placed a bounty on the captain, mistakenly believing the captain and Ethan were one and the same.
She knew now why this file was left with her and precisely who had given it to her, too.
The director of DIA always did have a soft spot for the admiral’s daughter.
Captain Mitchell may not have been Ethan (her heart panged for him), but Ilsa certainly didn’t want this happy family to lose their happiness.
She saw the car keys then the note that had the word Coronado. She quickly accepted her mission. There was nothing she could do for Ethan while he continued with his mission without her concerning the Entity, not to mention he was with Benji, but for Captain Mitchell—him she could keep safe in the meantime while she waited and healed for the big fight that was headed their way.