"I—It's him," Mr. Miller whispered with wide eyes full of fear.

We were expecting something like that to happen, so we had a team of technical analysts with us who started working on their computers immediately after hearing Mr. Miller's words.

"Sir, I need you to talk to him and try to stall him as much as you can," I whispered to Mr. Miller, who was holding the phone with shaky hands.

He nodded before he put the phone back to his ear. "W—Who are you? And why are you doing this?" he asked, his tone a little shaky.

Liam and I put on pairs of headphones so we could hear what the person on the other line had to say.

He was silent for a couple of seconds, but then we heard a growl followed by a voice laced with anger. "Who am I? That doesn't matter. But why? That's because you and your stupid auction destroyed my life."

"I don't understand what you mean," Mr. Miller told him through the phone, frowning. He was clearly oblivious to what the man was talking about.

The man on the other side of the phone gave out a quiet sob before he continued, his voice breaking. "I—It killed her."

Liam and I shared a look.

Mr. Miller had an expression of both shock and confusion, but he said nothing.

"You will pay for what you have done and caused," the man spat his words before he hung up the phone.

"Did you locate him?" Liam asked one of the analysts.

He shrugged, a disappointed look written all over his face. "He was using a burner phone. We couldn't locate him."

Liam groaned. I sighed before I turned to Mr. Miller, who was still in shock. I had to call his name twice before he finally noticed and met my gaze.

"Sir, do you have any idea what that man was talking about?" I asked.

"I—I'm not sure, but..." he started. Then he took a deep breath before he continued. "My assistant died when we were in Africa."

Liam was still talking to the analyst, but what Mr. Miller said had clearly caught his attention.

"How?" he asked.

"It was the first time for her to travel with me," he started to explain. "She caught a contagious disease back there. Her immune system was so weak, and she died because of the infection."

"Was she married?" I asked, and Mr. Miller nodded. "What was her name?" I asked again.

He took a while before answering me. "Dana Stone."

We asked the analysts for information about her husband and the people who were close to her; they came shortly after.

We found out that her husband became an alcoholic after her death and that caused his children to be taken away from him by social services.

Her death was an accident, but it destroyed his life. It was only normal that a man in his situation would try to blame others for all he had lost. So, it made sense that he was seeking revenge, and having the motive to commit an awful crime. And that made him our prime suspect.

Liam and I went to his house alongside some other agents and officers. We knocked on the door a few times, but there was no answer. We had no other choice but to break the door to get in.

We searched the house upside-down but there was no one there.

"What now?" I asked Liam in disappointment, putting my gun back in its holster.

He sighed. "The auction is in two days. We have no choice now but to have it highly secured, and to be there undercover."

Undercover, huh! That was definitely going to be interesting.

***

It was the night of the auction. Mr. Miller refused to let us put any security gates or even search the guests, so we wouldn't scare them off. But we had the building secured from the outside and the inside.

On the outside, both the FBI and SWAT teams were ready to storm in at any second, and on the inside, we had agents undercover everywhere, including me and Liam.

We were attending the auction as normal guests—a couple, actually. Liam was wearing an expensive tuxedo, and I was wearing an elegant black maxi dress, but we still looked so out of place. Talking in our earpieces didn't help our cause at all, either.

I sighed and whispered to Liam. "I think we kind of look inept. This is going to scare him out."

He nodded and walked closer to me, then out of nowhere, he placed his hands on my side, radiating an electric shock that went through my whole body.

His sudden act took me by surprise, and I felt my cheeks burning. I looked at him with frowned eyebrows, but he just shrugged and gave me an innocent look.

His mouth twitched into a half-smile. "Well, the least we could do is try to blend in a little. We're supposed to be a couple, remember?"

I was about to argue with him, but something else caught my attention.

Two men were standing in front of us having a conversation. One of them had a glass of champagne in his hand and a strange tattoo on that same hand. I tried to focus on the tattoo, and when I finally did, my eyes widened in fear, and I felt paralyzed.

It was that same tattoo—the same one that kept haunting me for years.

"Hey, you okay?" Liam asked with a raised eyebrow, his voice bringing me back to reality.

I nodded at him with a slight smile and returned to look at where the man was standing, but my eyes found nothing. He was like a ghost who disappeared into thin air.

Damn it! Was my mind playing tricks on me now and making me imagine things?

I shook my head, trying to clear my head when I watched Mr. Miller walking up to the stage. He tapped the mic and greeted the guests, then he gave a powerful and moving speech about helping people in need. After that, he announced the start of the auction.

We tried to keep our eyes on Mr. Miller the whole time, but the place was full of men in tuxedos, making our task difficult.

Some other agents were supposed to be watching Mr. Miller, but Liam and I were appalled when we heard in our earpieces that nobody had any idea about his whereabouts.

We looked at each other in fear and asked if any of the other agents had sight of him. The answer was negative, so our fear was now accompanied by panic.

"Damn it!" Liam cursed through the earpiece before he turned to me. "We need to find him."

I nodded. "It's better if we separate."

He nodded, and we went in different ways.

I looked for him everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. I made it to a corridor that had a few locked rooms, including the bathrooms, and then suddenly, I heard a noise coming out of the men's bathroom.

I took out my gun that was hidden in my clutch, then I carefully opened the door a little to take a peek at the situation.

The attacker was holding a terrified Alan Miller at gunpoint and was repeating things like 'You destroyed my life, and you now have to pay for it.'

I asked for backup before I burst into the room. I pointed my gun at the assailant. "FBI, drop your weapon!" I yelled. I could now see him clearly—he was the deceased assistant's husband.

He looked at me and groaned loudly, keeping his gun pointed in Miller's direction. "I can't. He has to pay for what he had done."

"I have nothing to do with what happened to your wife. Why can't you understand?" Mr. Miller told him with a pleading voice.

"If she didn't have to go to Africa, she still would have been alive," he argued.

"Mr. Stone, your wife went there because she believed in a noble cause, but her death was a total accident. There's no one to blame," I said, trying to calm him down. "Just give me the gun, and we can help you out. Remember, your children still need their father."

I could feel that my words were getting into him. He lowered the gun a little, but then I watched as his eyes darkened again and his face reddened with anger.

He raised his gun again with a sudden move. "I lost my wife and my children because of this stupid auction. Someone has to pay for this. He has to die!"

He was about to pull the trigger, but I reacted faster than him. I fired a bullet that tore its way through his chest, causing a gaping hole from which blood started oozing profusely. He collapsed to the ground, his back facing the ceiling.

Taking a hard, deep breath, I eyed the lifeless body that was now surrounded by a pool of blood. There was no point in checking his pulse.

I lowered my gun and turned to Mr. Miller, who was pale and had very wide eyes.

"Mr. Miller, are you okay?" I asked.

He nodded without saying anything, as he was probably in shock.

Liam abruptly entered the room, followed by the rest of the team. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the body. He let out a breath before he turned to me. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I gave him a quick answer before I hurried outside of the room as I felt it was getting harder to breathe...

***

I watched as some paramedics put the body bag in an ambulance to take it to the morgue.

Liam came into view and stood next to me. "I know it's hard."

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, even though I knew exactly what he was referring to.

"Don't act like you don't know what I mean, Alex. The first time is always hard, but you can't let it get to you. Just remember that you had no other choice, and that you saved an innocent man today," he told me before walking away to speak with some other agents.

I always thought that I was prepared for a moment like that, but clearly, I was wrong.

I knew I had no other choice and if I hadn't pulled the trigger, he would have killed Miller and probably killed himself after.

I knew I did the right thing; however, taking someone's life and being the reason they stopped breathing was still hard, no matter what the reasons were. And the fact that it was justifiable didn't help in making it any easier.