"This is your safe house?" I ask as he pulls up to the front.
"It's a safe place." He kills the engine, and the silence rushes in. "Not official Guardian HRS. Just a fallback location."
I study the building through the windshield. Single road in, which means single road out. Defensible from inside, but vulnerable if someone corners us here. "If the cartel finds us here..."
"They won't." He opens his door, and the interior light makes me squint. "Stay here while I clear it."
"I can?—"
"Stay." It's not a request.
I watch him approach the house, weapon up, moving with that same fluid efficiency he showed in the warehouse. He disappears inside, and I count the seconds. Ninety-three before he reappears in the doorway and waves me in.
The interior smells like dust and disuse and something else—gun oil, maybe, or old leather. There's minimal furniture: a couch that's seen better decades, a wooden table with two chairs, and a kitchenette with a camping stove. But in the corner,there's a weapons locker that looks new, and medical supplies are spread on the table in organized rows.
"This isn't just a fallback location," I say, scanning the setup. "Someone maintains this place."
"Used to be an old Guardian HRS cache point. Decommissioned five years ago." He moves to the weapons locker and checks the contents, as if taking inventory. "But some of us keep it stocked."
"In case you needed to go rogue again?"
His shoulders tense. "In case we needed options."
I set the trust documents on the table, and they land with a soft whisper that sounds too loud in the quiet. My head is throbbing worse now, and I can feel dried blood cracking when I move my face.
Frost tosses something, and I catch it one-handed. Medical kit, military-issue, the kind I used to carry on patrol.
"Clean that head wound."
"I know how to treat a head wound."
"I know. You told me you're a medic." He says it without looking at me, still checking weapons, but there's something in his tone. Like he actually listened. Like he remembers.
I carry the kit to the cracked mirror hanging near the kitchenette and assess the damage. The cut on my temple is about two inches long, not deep enough for stitches but deep enough that it bled impressively. The blood has dried in a dark trail down the side of my face, matting my hair. There's bruising around it—the butt of a pistol, delivered with enough force to knock me unconscious when they first grabbed me.
I clean it with antiseptic, and the sting is sharp and clarifying. This I understand. Wounds have protocols. Treatment plans. Clear steps from injury to healing.
Unlike everything else that's happened in the last three days.
"You were Army," Frost says from behind me, and I can see him in the mirror's reflection, watching me work. "Combat medic. Two deployments."
"Afghanistan first. Kandahar Province. Then Iraq. Mosul." Iapply butterfly bandages, pulling the edges of the cut together. "Four years total. Got out when my contract was up."
"Why'd you get out?"
I meet his eyes in the mirror. "Why'd you leave Delta?"
"Never said I was Delta." His expression goes carefully blank.
"Didn’t have to. I’ve worked with enough of them to know."
I turn away from the mirror and pack up the medical kit. My hands are steady, even though everything inside me is shaking. Three days of being tied to a chair. Three days of Tyler's story about the cartel thinking Mother left something valuable. Three days of believing we were both victims.
But now?—
Now I can't stop thinking about the trust documents. About both signatures required. About the way those cartel members talked about a pickup after I signed.
"The trust fund." I move to the table and spread the blood-stained papers out. "This is our inheritance from our mother. She died ten years ago. Breast cancer."
