Chapter 6
Old Habits
FinnBollinger
(Married to Charlie Bollinger; father of Ethan, Derek, Bear, and River; grandfather of Marie and Denise)
Finn saw it before he understood it.
Dorian’s posture changed—subtle, the kind of shift only someone who’d known him for three decades would catch. His shoulders squared. His weight redistributed onto the balls of his feet. His eyes swept the room in that particular pattern that meant he was cataloging threats, exits, bodies.
Finn’s own body responded before his brain caught up. Muscles tensing. Breath slowing. The room sharpening into focus the way it hadn’t in years.
He looked across the crowded space and found Zac already looking back at him. Then Gabe, from the other side of the room, his hand frozen halfway to his drink.
They’d all felt it. Old warriors, same radar.
Finn didn’t need words. Neither did they. That single shared look said everything:Something’s happening.
He scanned the room again, this time watching the younger generation. They were doing the same thing—that silent communication, that shift into readiness that happened below the level of conscious thought. Theo was already moving toward the hallway, Lincoln at his heels. Derek had broken away from his conversation with Dorian. Scarlett materialized from near the windows, her casual posture gone.
Bear emerged from the kitchen, foam and dishwasher forgotten. His face had that particular stillness Finn recognized from a thousand ops—the look that said a mission had started and everything else had become secondary.
Two of his sons. Both of them shifting into warrior mode like flipping a switch.
Finn had four kids. He’d raised all of them to be capable, to handle themselves, to protect the people they loved. Ethan had joined the Navy before he’d even turned eighteen and had become a Navy SEAL. Bear and Derek had both served in the military also. River hadn’t been interested in that route, but she could handle herself just like her mother could.
He and Charlie had raised damned fine kids.
But watching Bear and Derek move toward whatever threat had triggered this response—that wasn’t easy. Didn’t matter how old they got. Didn’t matter how well-trained.
The Linear Tactical OGs converged on Dorian without discussion. They moved through the crowd quietly, not wanting to alarm the civilians—the wives who hadn’t spent years in combat, the children who’d never known a world where their fathers had to kill to survive.
“What’s happened?” Finn asked when they’d gathered in a loose cluster near the hallway.
Dorian kept his voice low. “Two figures approaching from the east. On foot. Moving slow.”
“Not using the road?” Zac’s question was sharp.
“Coming through the blind spot in the tree line.”
Gabe’s jaw tightened, his eyes cutting to Dorian. Everyone knew Ray and Dorian still had active enemies. “Anyone with friendly intentions would just drive up to the front door.”
“Exactly.” Dorian’s eyes flicked toward the hallway that led to the ready room. “Could be nothing. Could be something. We need to get out there.”
Finn was already moving. They all were—four men in their fifties and sixties whose bodies remembered what their minds had tried to forget. The ready room. Gear up. Handle the threat.
It was muscle memory. It was instinct. It was twenty years of peace that hadn’t quite erased thirty years of war.
They reached the ready room and stopped in the doorway.
The next generation was already there.
Theo stood at the center, directing with quiet authority. He pointed at a selection of tactical vests, then at Bear, who stepped up and made his choice. Derek was checking a SIG P320 with the efficient movements of someone who'd done it ten thousand times. Scarlett had her P365 already holstered and was pulling on a jacket that would hide it but allow her easy access.
Lincoln sat at the comm station in the corner, his face lit by multiple screens. Security feeds. Thermal imaging. A map of the property with two red dots moving slowly through the eastern perimeter.
Thirty years ago, helltenyears ago, this would have been them. Finn would have been the one checking the rifle, ready to walk out that door into the unknown. Gabe would have been at his six. Zac calling the shots. Dorian already in the shadows, doing the work no one else could do.
