Chapter Thirteen
The gym was empty exceptfor the thud of a medicine ball and the pen in Dale’s hand.He’d spread three lesson plans across the whiteboard—room entries for beginners, a partner-cover drill, and a condensed, “what to do when everything goes sideways” block he could run in under an hour.Lines and arrows.Notes to himself in block caps.Breathe.Check Hands.Say The Quiet Part Out Loud.
The quiet part cut through anyway.Flashes of the night before slid in under the door.The hiss of comms, the mirror, the single word that let the shot break clean.Oren’s laughter in the heart of his suite after.Ty’s palm on his back, steadying him when the adrenaline wore off.It all lived on the same page in his head—apology, timing, the sound a man makes when the world finally let’s go of his throat.
He tried to lock back onto the plan, but he had to admit, it was harder than he would have thought.
The door opened.Marsh came in with a clipboard under his arm and a coffee that smelled like heaven.
“You look like you’re planning a war and a class schedule at the same time,” Marsh said, taking in the board.
“And doing both poorly,” Dale said.He capped the pen.“Talk to me about drones.”
Marsh set the clipboard on a bench.“We’ve scrubbed footage from midnight to sunup.It’s the same drones and I would bet my left testicle that it is also the same pilot.Whoever flew them knows what they’re doing, but this does not scream Kavaci to me.”
“Carson was his own mess,” Dale said.“This isn’t him.”
“Agreed,” Marsh said with a nod.“Which means we have a third player gunning for us.And considering how many crime organizations and governments we have pissed off over the years, there are bound to be more than that.”
Dale leaned a shoulder into the weights rack and waited.He could see that Marsh was deep in his problem-solving persona.
“Kavaci boys are smash-and-profit,” Marsh went on.“Fast hits, confidence in their hardware.They pay for military toys or steal them and make it worse.These birds?Slower.Purposeful.Whoever’s on the stick is running patience, not bravado.”
“Fits,” Dale said.“This definitely feels different.Personal.”
Marsh nodded.“And Kavaci don’t brood.They burn.”He flipped a page.“Pattern says our visitor wants to be sure we see him, then see him again.He lingers.Circles.Comes back.That’s not business.That’s hate.”
Dale rolled his jaw.“Any signature?”
“Nothing I can pin to a name.”Marsh tilted the cup toward the fence line drawn in tape across a wall map.
Marsh watched him like he had something to say.Turns out he did.“I’m glad you’ve got your two,” he said, casual as a trip wire.
Dale gave him a look.“You going all romantic and soft on me, Marsh?”
“Please.”Marsh snorted.“I just sleep better knowing our resident golden retriever finally caught the other two lovesick idiots he’s been chasing for a while now.It was getting boring watching Ty pretend not to be in love with Oren and you, and Oren was getting weird trying to carry an extra hundred pounds of silence.”
Dale couldn’t help it, his mouth moved.“That your way of saying ‘good job, son’?”
“My way of saying don’t screw it up,” Marsh said.“You are all good for each other.Also, you look less likely to bite people this morning.That’s progress.”
