I investigate Committee money laundering while raising a fifteen-year-old who watched his family die. Strange doesn't begin to cover it.
Khalid appears in my doorway around noon, looking sheepish. "I finished calculus early. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure." I close the Kosygin file, give him my full attention.
"Dr. Voss says I should talk to you and Dylan about what I'm feeling. About the training." He leans against the doorframe, all awkward teenage angles. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to become like the people who killed my family. But I also don't want to be helpless if they come back."
"Come here."
He crosses to my desk, and I gesture for him to pull up the extra chair. When he's sitting, I turn to face him fully.
"The people who killed your family targeted innocents. Used violence to terrorize." I choose my words carefully. "Learningto defend yourself is different. Dylan doesn't hunt innocents. Neither does Kane or the team. They hunt predators."
"But you killed someone." His eyes hold mine, searching. "How do you live with that?"
The question I've been asking myself for months. "I see his face sometimes. Young guy, probably had a family, made choices that led him to attacking us. I don't know his story. But I know mine. You were in danger. He was trying to kill you. And I chose to protect you instead of letting you die."
"Do you regret it?"
"No." The answer comes immediately, honestly. "I regret that it was necessary. I regret that the world contains people who force those choices. But I don't regret saving your life, Khalid. I'd make the same choice again."
He's quiet for a moment, processing. "Dylan said something similar. That every kill carries weight, but some weights are worth carrying."
"He's right." I reach out, squeeze his shoulder. "If you want to learn defensive skills, we'll teach you. Not to make you a soldier. To give you tools if you ever need them. But the sessions with Dr. Voss stay part of the equation. She keeps you grounded in who you are, not who trauma wants to make you."
"Deal." He stands. "Thanks, Reagan."
"Anytime." I watch him leave, return to his schoolwork with slightly lighter steps. Odin appears from wherever he's been waiting, falling into step beside Khalid like he's been doing it his whole life. Never thought I'd be the person a kid comes to about weapons training.
Dylan returns mid-afternoon, and I emerge from my office to find him at one of the common area tables, cleaning the rifle he took on Kane's last mission. The sharp smell of solvent fills the space, familiar now in ways it wouldn't have been a year ago.
"Successful?" I ask, pouring fresh coffee for both of us.
"Clean extraction. No casualties. Got financial documentation linking Committee operations to several offshore accounts Kane's been tracking." He works the bore brush through the barrel with practiced efficiency. "Money laundering operation in Luxembourg. Kane's feeding it to federal prosecutors through Delaney's channels."
"Good." I set his coffee within reach. "Cross called this morning. Committee's restructuring. Core operatives only, new players moving into the vacuum."
"How new?"
"Russian adjacent. Former FSB named Anatoly Kosygin. Building parallel operations, possible cooperation with Webb's people." I pull up the files on my tablet, show him Cross's data. "She says he plays rougher than Morrison."
Dylan studies the information, his expression tightening. "Great. Just when we start making progress, someone worse shows up."
"That's the pattern." I lean against the table beside him. "Cut one head off, two more grow back. But we keep cutting until the body dies."
"Optimistic."
"Realistic." I sip my coffee. "We're not stopping. Webb knows that. Kosygin will learn it. Eventually, they'll realize the cost of opposing us is too high."
"Eventually." He sets down the rifle, pulls me onto his lap. "You sound like Kane."
"I'll take that as a compliment." I settle against him, breathing in the warmth of his skin, the clean scent of his soap. "Khalid asked about weapons training again."
"What'd you tell him?"
"That we'd consider it if Dr. Voss approves. Start small, basic safety, nothing operational." I turn my head to meet hiseyes. "He's processing a lot. Wants tools to feel less helpless. I understand that."
"So do I." Dylan's arm wraps around my waist. "We'll teach him right. Responsibility, discipline, respect for what weapons can do. Not soldier skills. Survivor skills."
