Jesse exhales beside me. “That’s one piece off the board.”
“And the rest?” I ask.
He looks toward the tree line where my men have already assembled. “Ready when you are.”
I nod once, then turn toward the compound. There’s one thing I need to do before we leave. It’s something I’ve been putting off since dawn, because the closer it gets, the harder it becomes to keep any sense of discipline.
Roxy is waiting at the cottage.
The walk there feels longer than every mile I’ve hiked through these woods. The sun is low enough to cast warm streaks across the river, tinting the surface with gold. The air smells of cedar and last night’s rain, a reminder that this land absorbs everything—blood, loss, hope, all of it disappearing between roots and moss.
When I reach the porch steps, she opens the door before I can knock, as if she’s been listening for my footsteps.
The sight of her hits me harder than the helicopter leaving. She’s dressed simply. Jeans and a soft sweater, but her eyes give away everything she’s trying to hold together. Fear. Anger. And something else. Something she doesn’t want me to see.
“You’re heading out now,” she says, voice tight.
“Yes.”
Her gaze sweeps over the tactical gear. The vest, knives, and the rifle strapped across my back before she returns to my face. She already knows what this mission is. She knows how it ends if I have anything to say about it.
“When will you be back?” she asks.
“When it’s finished.”
The words are simple, but the meaning isn’t. She hears it. She steps closer, closing the door behind her as if that might protect us from everything waiting outside.
“I hate this,” she says quietly. “I hate that you’re the one going out there.”
“You want me to send my men without me?”
“No,” she whispers. “That might be worse.”
I take her hand before she can pull away. Her fingers tremble, but she grips mine anyway, holding on as if she hasn’t been fighting every instinct to keep distance between us.
“You’re safe,” I tell her. “Andi is safe. Kat, Louise, the boy—they have Dima. No one is getting through him.”
“I know,” she says, but it doesn’t ease the fear lining her voice. “But you?—”
She stops.
I step closer. “What?”
Roxanne exhales shakily, and when she finally meets my eyes, the question is there, unspoken but sharp enough to cut through armor.
Will you come back to me?
She doesn’t say the words. She doesn’t have to.
Her grip tightens on the front of my jacket, fingers curling into the fabric like she wants to anchor me in place. “Mak,” she says softly, “promise me.”
The world feels suddenly muted—the river, the wind, the voices of my men in the distance. All of it fades.
For a moment, I can’t speak. I’ve made hundreds of promises in my life—agreements, contracts, threats disguised as commitments. But none of them felt like this.
I reach up, sliding a hand behind her neck, pulling her forward. Her breath catches, and so does too. The kiss that follows is not methodical or strategic or carefully restrained.
It breaks something open.
