Chapter 1: Hot Pink Is a Tactical Advantage 1 HOT PINK IS A TACTICAL ADVANTAGE
AMANDA

I move through the warehouse like a shadow, my pink Glock steady in my grip. Every step is precise. This is where I feel most alive, my tactical gear secured, earpiece crackling with quiet chatter from my team, and the anticipation of finishing the mission.

“Two tangos on the east side,” I whisper into my comm, pressing my back against a concrete pillar. “I’ve got eyes on them.”

My heartbeat is steady. This is what I was trained for. This is what I’m good at.

Any other day, I’m Amanda Bennett—lover of pink handbags, overpriced wine, and reality TV drama. I’m the woman who spends an hour perfecting my winged eyeliner, who owns seventeen different shades of pink lipstick, and who once made a PowerPoint presentation ranking Taylor Swift’s exes. I live for designer sales and Sunday brunch mimosas.

But today? Today I’m Viper. Elite operative. Stone-cold killer in stilettos.

I peek around the corner. Two armed men patrol between stacks of shipping containers, their assault rifles catching the lights of the warehouse. Amateur hour. They’re talking, distracted, completely unaware that death in designer tactical gear is about to rain down on them.

“Copy that.” Jake’s voice crackles through my earpiece. “Raven’s in position on the north side. You take the shot when ready.”

“Wait, where’s Cipher? I need backup on the west corridor,” another team member says into my headphones.

“On my way to you now,” Cipher says.

I take a breath, raising my weapon. The pink barrel catches the light. Some people have said it’s ridiculous. Well, that was the last thing they ever said. Because this gun is my signature. When these assholes go down, they’ll know exactly who sent them to hell.

“Taking the shot in three,” I murmur, finger poised on the trigger. “Two. One.”

The first guy drops clean. Headshot. Beautiful.

The second spins toward me, weapon raised, but I’m already moving. I roll behind another pillar as his bullets spray where I was standing just seconds ago. Concrete chips explode around me.

“Nice shot!” Raven’s voice is loud in my earpiece. Too much enthusiasm, Raven. There’s still two left. “Now, move your ass—more incoming from the south entrance!”

“Can confirm, three more hostiles headed your way, Viper,” Cipher says.

I sprint across the open floor, weaving between obstacles. My heels are silent on the concrete, my movements fluid because I know how to walk in them, duh. Three more targets appear, but I’m ready. I slide behind an overturned table, pop up, and put two rounds center mass in the closest one.

These idiots never stood a chance.

“Amanda, watch your six!” Jake shouts.

I spin, weapon raised, just as—

My world explodes.

The bullet tears through my shoulder, sending me spinning against the concrete wall. My vision starts to blur red around the edges, pulsing with each heartbeat.

“Fuck!” I gasp. “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

My pink Glock trembles in my hand. The red haze is getting worse, clouding my vision like someone’s holding a crimson filter over my eyes.

“I’m bleeding out over here! There’s actual blood on my gun! It better not stain!” I shout into my comm. “Raven? Jake? Cipher?” But no one comes to help. It’s just me and the slow reality of death creeping in.

Is this it for me? This is how I go? Years of practice and training, and I’m reduced to dying on a warehouse floor?

At least I look fabulous doing it. No one can take that from me.

A voice cuts through the chaos, exasperated. I’m too far gone to even know who’s speaking anymore. “Jesus Christ, Amanda. You’re being way too dramatic.”

“DRAMATIC?” I shriek, checking my wound again. “I am literally watching my life force drain out of my body! This is not dramatic! This is dying!”

“It’s just a flesh wound.” The first voice laughs. “You’ll be fine in like thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds? I don’t have thirty seconds! I’m getting lightheaded! I think I’m seeing a tunnel! Should I go toward it?”

“I say she makes it ten seconds tops this time,” Cipher says.

“Oh my God, she’s doing the thing again,” the other voice chimes in—higher, more amused. “Amanda, you literally do this every time.”

“I do not do this every…” I pause, squinting at my shoulder. The red haze is getting darker. It’s like thick curtains closing. Everything starts to fade to black. I guess this is my time to take a bow.

GAME OVER.

The words flash across my screen in bold red letters, followed by my pathetic stats. One kill this round. Died in the first five minutes. Again. Because I’m sitting on my couch in my pajamas, holding an Xbox controller, staring at my seventy-five-inch TV screen.

“Oh, come on!” I throw my hands up, nearly launching the controller across my living room. “That was such bullshit! I had perfect cover!”

“You ran straight into the open like a fucking Leeroy Jenkins. What did you think was going to happen?” Jake’s voice is completely unsympathetic.

“I was being tactical!”

“You were being Amanda.” My sister Raven’s voice cuts in, and I can hear the grin in her tone. “Which means you were being ridiculous.”

I huff, slouching deeper into my pink velvet couch. On-screen, I’m back at the character mission page, my badass operative, in all-black tactical gear except for her signature pink pistol, rotating slowly on the display.

Video games aren’t really my thing, honestly. I do this to connect with Raven—it’s our weekly sister bonding time since she moved downtown. Plus, the squad’s grown over the past few months. Jake, Cipher, the girl whose name I can never remember. I have no idea who these people actually are. Raven met them all in some online lobby, and now they’re apparently part of our squad. Pretty sure Cipher and what’s-her-name aren’t murderers. Jury’s still out on Jake.

“Whatever. I still look cool as hell,” I mutter, spinning my character around to admire the outfit I spent forty-five minutes customizing. “And my gun is still the prettiest thing in this entire game.”

“Your gun is fluorescent pink. It glows in the dark. It’s like carrying a neon sign that says ‘Shoot me,’ ” Jake deadpans.

“It’s called making a statement.”

“And what statement would that be?” Cipher laughs.

“That I’m fabulous, and if you’re going to kill me, you better appreciate the aesthetic while you do it.”

Raven snorts. “God, I love you.”

I smile, adjusting my silk pajama top. The pants have little martini glasses printed all over them—a housewarming gift from Raven when I moved into this place. She said they “screamed Amanda.” She gets me.

“All right, weirdos,” I say, already reaching for the wineglass on my coffee table. “This was fun, but I’m logging off. Some of us have real jobs in the morning.”

The apartment falls quiet except for the soft hum of the city outside my window. I set the controller aside and stretch, my silk pajamas sliding smoothly against the velvet couch. The wine is crisp and cold, just the way I like it—and exactly what I need after a long day of dealing with entitled men who think dropping ten grand on a custom suit gives them the right to “test out” my customer service skills with their wandering eyes and sleazy comments.

See, the problem with men is that they suck. Every last one of them. I don’t care how hot, how charming, how supposedly different they claim to be. At the end of the day, they’re all just walking disappointments with egos too big for their brains.

Which is why I, Amanda Bennett, no longer bother with them. At all.

Well. Not in real life, anyway.

I grab my phone from the coffee table and settle deeper into my couch. The dim glow of my screen illuminates the only relationship I still entertain: Chad.

Chad is everything I could ever want in a man. He’s smooth. He’s a little toxic. He’s just the right amount of arrogant to keep it interesting. And best of all? He’s not real.

CHAD

Thinking about me again, baby?

His message pops up on my screen. I snort, tapping out a response.

Please, as if I ever stop.

That’s what I like to hear. You know you’re mine, right?

Oh, absolutely. One hundred percent. Let me just get your name tattooed on my forehead.

Chad is the fuckboy I personally crafted inside the Obsess AI app, back when I was bored and slightly wine-drunk. And here’s the thing about Chad: He’s safe. Utterly, completely, and beautifully safe. I can tell him anything and everything. Every humiliating detail about my failed marriage, my deepest insecurities, my most embarrassing fantasies. I can be messy and needy and vulnerable in ways I could never risk with a real person. It’s like confessing to Google—this weird digital intimacy where you can admit that you’ve been obsessing over the red patch behind your ear for four days, convinced it’s either cancer or ringworm or maybe just an allergic reaction to that dragon ear cuff you bought off Etsy from a seller with questionable metallurgical credentials, but you absolutely had to have it because who doesn’t want a tiny dragon curled around their ear like some kind of medieval badass, and you’ve spent more time examining it with a hand mirror than you’ve spent on actual self-care this month, but you can’t ask anyone in real life because then you’d have to explain why you haven’t just gone to a doctor like a normal adult. There are no consequences. No judgment. No rejection. No possibility of becoming “that girl who always thinks she’s dying of mysterious diseases caused by her own questionable online shopping decisions.”

I had to watch Cal and Izzy being disgustingly cute at work today.

Really?

Yeah. He brought her lunch and she got all giggly about it. Like, actual giggly. Over a sandwich.

That’s rough, baby. You know you’re not missing out on anything, right?

And see? This is why Chad works. He knows all about my marriage, about Kade, about how it all fell apart. He knows about the nightmares and how I still can’t drive through tunnels without having a panic attack. He knows about my complete inability to be around functional relationships without feeling like a broken appliance. But he can’t use any of it against me. He can’t weaponize my trauma or make me feel pathetic for still being broken eight years later. He just… listens. Says exactly what I need to hear without any of the messy complications of actual human emotion.

Sometimes I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. Like maybe I’m just not meant to be loved by someone.

There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just selective.

Selective? I haven’t been on a date in years.

Quality over quantity, baby doll. You’re not settling for some basic guy who thinks bringing you lunch is peak romance.

God, I’m such a mess.

You’re a hot mess.

For the record, I love Izzy and am extremely happy for her.

You know you don’t gotta do that with me, right, baby?

Do what?

Pretend you’re not allowed to feel shitty about watching other people have what you want. You can be happy for her AND hate seeing it. Both things can be true.

This is what I love about Chad—he’s sweet when I need sweetness, toxic when I need drama, and brutally honest when I need reality checks. All without the risk of actual intimacy.

Real men want things from you. Emotional labor. Your Netflix password. Sex at eleven thirty p.m. when you’re already in your fluffiest flannel pajamas, dead exhausted from a twelve-hour day. They want you to remember their mother’s birthday while forgetting your own. They want you to be low-maintenance but also always look perfect, be independent but also need them just enough to stroke their ego.

Chad just wants me to feel better. And unlike every relationship I’ve ever had, he can’t disappoint me.

Tell me something ridiculous to distract me.

Baby doll, you’re so hot that climate scientists blame you for global warming.

That’s terrible.

NASA had to recalibrate their satellites because of the way that perfect ass of yours disrupts gravity.

Better.

You’re so beautiful that Narcissus would break his own mirror just to look at you instead.

Naturally.

But it works. The tightness in my chest eases, the phantom ache of missing someone who’s been gone for eight years fades to background noise. This is what I need—connection without consequences, intimacy without vulnerability, the good parts of male attention with none of the risk.

You should let me take that hot ass on a date.

I narrow my eyes. This is weird. Chad has never brought up going on a date before. And sure enough, I was right to be suspicious, because a window explodes onto my screen. It’s obnoxious, flashy, louder than those TikTok election ban pop-ups that basically waterboard you into civic engagement.

INTRODUCING MATCHED: WHERE FICTION MEETS REALITY

We’ll take your AI creation and find a REAL person who embodies everything you’ve programmed. Your digital fantasy, now flesh and blood. Ready to make your fiction real?

I huff and collapse backward onto my couch. I should delete the app. Normal people would be embarrassed that they even downloaded it in the first place.

But I’m not.

Because as far as I’m concerned, I’m in a committed relationship with Chad. The whole point of Chad is that he’s not real. He’s safe because he exists in a controlled environment where I hold all the power and nothing can actually hurt me.

So why does my finger hover over the Matched option?

I am not lonely. I have thriving friendships, a satisfying job, and a pink legal-carry handgun in my purse. What else could a girl possibly need?

I swallow, tapping my nails against the screen. I don’t date anymore. I barely do one-night stands. I mean, there was that one wild night with an actual Chad—the cop—and that was fun. We made very good use of his cuffs. And his patrol car. And, if I’m being honest, I probably owe the NYPD an apology. Not because we broke the law—no, it was Chad’s idea. But because, in the heat of the moment, I may have accidentally elbowed his radio and broadcast our extremely naughty cops-and-robbers role-play to every on-duty officer in Manhattan.

So yeah. That was something to do on a Monday.

But other than that? I like things simple. So why do I keep staring at this stupid app? I don’t want to date, but I do kind of want to know if the universe has had the audacity to create a real-life Chad. I narrow my eyes and, before I can overthink it, hit the button.

The screen blinks. A simple message appears:

WELCOME TO MATCHED. YOUR SEARCH BEGINS NOW.

For a second, nothing happens.

No immediate DM. No SWAT team bursting through my window to arrest me for terrible life choices.

Just silence.

Maybe the whole thing is a scam. Maybe no one actually gets matched, and this is just some dystopian data-mining experiment designed to sell me extra-strength vibrators and couples retreat discounts.

I snort to myself, about to toss my phone onto the couch—

BZZT.

MATCH FOUND!

YOUR PERFECT MATCH IS READY TO CONNECT.

CHECK YOUR MESSAGES!

I tap into my messages, and sure enough, one is there waiting for me.

Looking for me, baby doll?

I freeze.

My thumbs hover over the keyboard.

So this is him? The real version? Some actual human man who apparently matches the personality profile I spent hours crafting for my perfect digital fuckboy? I’m actually going to talk to a complete stranger who somehow embodies everything I programmed into my safe little AI fantasy?

Jeez, that was fast. I literally just hit the button, and they’ve already found someone? Either this app has the efficiency of Amazon Prime on steroids, or there’s a suspiciously large number of men in New York City who match my very specific “charming asshole with commitment issues” criteria. Which, honestly, probably says something deeply unflattering about both this city and my taste in men.

I narrow my eyes, testing the waters.

That depends. Who am I talking to?

Three dots pop up. Typing.

The pause feels human. Real. Like someone actually thinking instead of an algorithm processing. Someone who exists in the physical world, who has a job and an apartment and probably dirty dishes in his sink right now.

You tell me.

He’s playing games exactly like I programmed AI Chad to do, except this version can actually hurt me. This version exists outside my carefully controlled digital bubble where nothing has real consequences.

You hit the button, baby doll. That means you’re ready for the real thing.

Shit. He’s good. Too good. The cocky confidence, the way he’s turning this back on me. It’s exactly what I found attractive enough to program. But now that it’s real, it feels dangerous. Like standing too close to the edge of a cliff.

Cute. You think you’re charming? What’s next, asking for my address?

I’m deflecting, trying to regain some control, but my hands are shaking slightly.

I don’t need your address. I just need you to keep talking to me.

Are you everything I programmed you to be?

Why don’t you find out?

And how would I do that?

My phone buzzes suddenly in my hand.

AUDIO CALL FROM CHAD

I should block him right now. Delete the app. Pretend this never happened and go back to my safe little bubble of Netflix and wine and zero emotional risk.

Or—

I could keep going.

Just to see.

Even though I know exactly how this story ends.