Costa contacts her

Sunday’s false peace shattered at dusk with a laconic message on a number she thought was dead. A single meeting point: an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district, different from the one for her delivery to Adrián. The classic setting for a spy exchange or an execution.

Magi arrived with her heart in her throat, wearing her own clothes—loose and simple—a small act of rebellion. The warehouse interior smelled of dust and rust. A single bulb hanging from a wire illuminated a circle of light on the concrete floor, where Warrant Officer Costa waited, her back turned, posture rigid and impeccable.

"Cadet Rojas," she said without turning. "It seems you have trouble maintaining communication."

Magi stopped several meters away. "Warrant Officer. The device… malfunctioned."

Costa turned slowly. Her eyes, cold and sharp as razors, scrutinized her, from her simple shoes to her tired face.

"A malfunction," she repeated, without a shred of emotion. "What a coincidence. It happened right during your first unsupervised mission for the target. Just when you were wearing that… peculiar suit Soler provided for you."

"It was a synchronization error," Magi lied, keeping her voice as steady as possible. "I checked the package. It was just financial documents. Nothing we didn’t already know. It didn’t seem relevant enough to risk the operation over."

"You checked the package?" Costa’s eyebrow arched a fraction of an inch. "Interesting initiative. And you decided on your own that it wasn’t relevant." She paused, letting the weight of the insubordination settle in the dusty air. "And the picnic? Was that also irrelevant?"

Magi didn’t know what to say. How much did she know? Did she have someone else watching them?

"It was… a strategy of Soler’s to get me closer to his sister. To solidify my cover."

"Your cover," Costa spat the word, "seems more focused on solidifying your position in Soler’s bed than on our mission."

"That’s not true!" Magi protested, feeling the flush of indignation and guilt on her cheeks.

"No?" Costa took a step forward, emerging from the shadows. "You deactivate your equipment, make decisions on your own, accept gifts and private invitations… You are not in a club, Cadet. You are in an intelligence operation. Or had you forgotten?"

Magi clenched her fists. "I am closer to him than ever. He entrusted me with a delivery. He is bringing me into his inner circle."

"That is what he wants you to believe!" Costa’s voice boomed in the emptiness of the warehouse. "He is isolating you. He is cutting your ties with us, making you believe that you and he are a team. It’s a manipulator’s classic play. And you, Cadet Rojas, are swallowing the bait whole."

She stepped closer, until Magi could see the hard lines of her face in the dim light.

"Listen to me closely," Costa whispered, with terrifying intensity. "If you cross over to his side, if you start believing your own persona of 'Magda,' you won’t be an undercover heroine. You will be just another one of his collateral victims. And when he gets bored of you, or when you cease to be useful, what remains won’t be an agent. It will be a body floating in the harbor, wearing a pretty dress and a dream of being someone. Do you understand me?"

Magi held her breath. Costa’s words were like needles of ice piercing her fragile armor of justifications.

"Yes, Warrant Officer," she whispered.

"Good." Costa stepped back, her silhouette blending once more into the gloom. "Reactivate your gear. Your next report will be comprehensive. Or I will discharge you and pull you out by ****, ruining any chance of this mission succeeding. The choice is yours. Do not disappoint me."

Without another word, Costa turned and disappeared into the warehouse darkness, leaving Magi alone under the spotlight, trembling, the echo of the warning hammering in her mind: Collateral victim. She knew Costa was right. But she also knew it was too late to turn back. She had seen too much, allowed too much. Now, her only way out was to push forward, cross the point of no return, and pray that, in the end, she wouldn't become the next victim of the person she was meant to destroy.