"What?" He blinks.
"That’s what you were going to say. Family doesn’t abandon each other. Family helps." She raises the rifle. "Yet, here you are with a cartel. You already sold me to them once. Wasn’t that enough?"
Silence
His expression flickers—confusion, then calculation, then something ugly.
"You always thought you were better than me. Saint Maggie, who joined the Army. Perfect Maggie, who sacrificed everything. Well, guess what? You're not perfect. You're not even smart. You really thought I'd let you control my life forever?"
"I was taking care of you."
"I didn't ask you to." He's screaming now. "I didn't ask you to give up college. I didn't ask you to join the Army. I didn't ask you to treat me like a child for ten years."
"You were seventeen when Mother died?—"
"And you made sure I never forgot it. Made sure I knew that everything I had was because of you. That I owed you. That I was the burden you had to carry." His face is red, spittle flying. "Well, I'm done being your burden. I'm done being the little brother you get to fix. Maybe Mother should have just left everything to you since you're so fucking perfect?—"
A gunshot cracks through the night.
Tyler drops, screaming, clutching his shoulder. Blood blooms dark against his expensive jacket.
Maggie's rifle is smoking.
I’d move to her if I could, but I can’t afford to give away my position. But she's steady. Controlled. Her breathing is even, her grip on the weapon professional.
She shot to disable, not to kill. Shoulder wound. Painful but not fatal. The shot of someone who's trained. Who knows exactly what they're doing.
"You don't get to talk about Mother." Her voice is quiet now. Deadly calm. "You don't get to use her as an excuse for what you became."
Tyler writhes on the dust-choked ground outside the window, his curses a ragged stream of venom as blood soaks through his pant leg. "You shot me. You fucking shot me."
"Yeah. I did." Maggie lowers the rifle, her voice steady but edged with ice. "And I could have gone center mass. Could have killed you. I chose not to. That's more mercy than you showed me."
She turns away from the window, from her brother, and her face is completely empty—shock settling in like frost, adrenaline crashing hard now that the reality of putting a bullet in her own blood slams home.
I reach for her, instinct overriding the mess in my head, but she holds up a hand. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"I'm functional." She sets the rifle down carefully on the scarred table. "That's all that matters right now."
Before I can push back, I hear it: the distinctive thump of rotors slicing the pre-dawn air, helicopters approaching fast. Multiple birds—heavy transport, by the low growl. My gut twists, but not from fear.
I pull out my phone and check the screen. Message from CJ.
TRACKED YOUR SAT PHONE. EN ROUTE. ETA 90 SECONDS. YOU'RE IN DEEP SHIT, FROST.
Guardian HRS. Finally mobilized. Finally here.
Relief and dread hit simultaneously. Relief because backup means safety. Means extraction. It means Maggie will be protected properly.
Dread because backup also means accountability. Means I have to face CJ. Means my unauthorized op, my solo rescue, my complete disregard for protocol just caught up with me.
Two Guardian SUVs roar up the access road, tires kicking upgravel in a storm of dust, followed by the helicopters sweeping overhead with searchlights stabbing the darkness like accusatory fingers.
Four operators exit each vehicle in tactical formation, weapons up—suppressed M4s sweeping the perimeter, night-vision goggles casting their faces in eerie green glows as they scan for threats.
More rappel down from the helicopters, black-clad figures dropping like shadows, boots hitting the ground with muffled thuds before they fan out.
