Flowers were our language. Our love made visible.
And the wedding location?—
The ranch.
The land where the Montana Danes had grown up.
The place that held their childhood like an old song you couldn’t hear without crying a little.
The men didn’t know. At least, not really.
That was the best part.
They thought we were flying somewhere for a “logistics run.” Something vague enough to make them suspicious but not suspicious enough to ruin the surprise.
Portia had orchestrated the entire thing like she was staging a heist.
Which, I realized, she was.
We were stealing their breath.
We were stealing their control.
We were stealing their chance to brace themselves.
And we were giving them something else instead—something so tender it would crack them open.
A wedding on their childhood land.
A tribute to their mother.
A reclaiming of home.
The doors at the front of the hall opened, and the sound of boots hit marble.
The men arrived in a group, broad shoulders and sharp eyes and that Dane way of taking up space like they owned the oxygen.
Fourteen of them.
No Byron.
He’d left after the war room, chasing loose ends and shadows and whatever else a man like him carried like penance. He wasn’t here for the flight. He wasn’t here for the surprise.
But he’d still found a way to be part of it.
He had sent something ahead to Montana—a special item, one for each of the seven Montana boys. Portia had shown us the list in secret: childhood tokens pulled from the past like proof that, once, they’d been boys before they became weapons.
A carved wooden horse Caleb had made with Lila’s pocketknife.
A smooth river stone Jacob had kept in his pocket, rubbed nearly flat from years of worrying it between his fingers.
A rope coil Ethan had learned to throw on the first try—Lila had cried from pride and pretended it was dust.
A dog tag Lucas wore before he had any right to feel grown.
A weathered journal Gideon kept hidden under a floorboard.
A pocket radio Levi used to listen to late-night games under blankets.
