"Admiring the view."
She glances over her shoulder, a smile tugging at her lips. "Smooth talker."
"I have my moments."
Standing in a kitchen with a woman I'm falling for, preparing food for a teenager I've come to think of as my own, surrounded by a team of operators who feel more like family every day. The Committee is hunting us. Webb is consolidating power. Everything we've built could collapse in an instant.
And somehow, right now, this moment feels more real than anything has in years.
"Dylan." Reagan's voice pulls me back. "You're going to cut yourself if you don't pay attention."
I look down at the knife in my hand, at the carrots I've been slicing on autopilot. A thin line of red wells up on my thumb where the blade caught skin. I didn't even feel it.
"Shit." I set down the knife, bring my thumb to my mouth.
Reagan is there immediately, taking my hand, examining the cut with a frown. "It's not deep. But that's the second time you've drifted off today." Her eyes meet mine, concern replacing the warmth from a moment ago. "Where do you keep going?"
Lisa in our kitchen in Virginia, dancing to music only she could hear while Maya sat at the table doing homework. The way sunlight used to catch Lisa's hair, turning it gold. The moment everything ended.
"Nothing important," I say instead.
Reagan doesn't push. She's learning when to give me space, when to let the silence speak for itself. It's one of the things I love about her, though I haven't found the courage to say that word out loud yet.
We eat lunch together in the main room, all of us gathered around the table like some strange approximation of a family dinner. Khalid picks at his food, his mind clearly still on the testimony preparation. Stryker eats with the single-minded focus of someone who learned young that meals are fuel, nothing more. Mercer is outside on watch, but Willa made a plate for him that sits covered on the counter.
Kane's encrypted phone buzzes, and he steps away to take the call. I watch him through the window as he paces the small porch, his breath misting in the cold mountain air. His posture shifts as he listens, shoulders squaring, jaw tightening. When he returns, his expression is carefully neutral in a way that tells me the news is significant.
"Victoria Cross," he announces, settling back into his chair. "The Committee is fracturing."
Everyone stops eating. Stryker sets down his fork. Even Khalid looks up from the food he's been pushing around his plate.
"Webb's under pressure from other members," Kane continues. "The raid on the safe house was his call, and it failed spectacularly. Lost an entire strike team without eliminating any primary targets. Some of them are questioning whether he's the right person to be running operations."
"Internal power struggle," Reagan says. "That's good for us."
"Could be. Cross says Webb is doubling down, using the failed raid as justification for more aggressive measures. He's arguing that our escape proves we're a bigger threat than anyone realized." Kane's jaw tightens. "But the infighting means they're not moving with a unified front. Buys us time."
"How much time?" I ask.
"Unknown. Cross is working on getting us more details, but she's not cheap and she's not loyal to anything except her bank account." Kane picks up his coffee, takes a long swallow. "She did mention that Webb had to explain to the other Committee members why a group of trained operators couldn't take down a safe house with only five defenders. Apparently, the conversation got heated."
Stryker snorts. "Good. Let them tear each other apart."
"What about the congressional angle?"
Kane nods slowly. "That's the other news. My contacts on the Hill have been feeding preliminary information about Protocol Seven to members of the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Oversight Committee. There's interest. Real interest. They want to hear more."
The room goes quiet. Congressional interest means legitimacy. It means protection, or at least the possibility of it.It means that Khalid's testimony might actually matter, might actually lead somewhere other than a footnote in a classified report that no one will ever read.
"They're willing to receive testimony via secure video link," Kane continues. "Undisclosed location, encrypted transmission. Federal marshals will be involved on their end, but we control security on ours."
"No marshals near Khalid," I say immediately. "I don't trust anyone we haven't vetted."
"Agreed. Echo Ridge handles our protection. The marshals stay on the congressional side of the transmission." Kane meets my eyes. "This is real, Dylan. We're actually doing this."
After lunch, I find Khalid in the small bedroom he's claimed at the back of the lodge. The room is sparse, just a cot and a wooden chair and a window that looks out at nothing but trees. He's sitting on the edge of the cot, staring at the wall with an expression I recognize too well. The thousand-yard stare of someone replaying memories they can never escape.
"Hey." I knock on the open doorframe. "Mind some company?"
