Inside, the former living room had been converted into a temporary command center. Monitors glowed along one wall. Maps and building schematics were spread across folding tables. Radios crackled constantly, the low murmur of coordination filling the space.
Annie stood near the center of it, speaking quietly with one of the agents. She looked exhausted, strands of hair slipping loose from whatever quick tie she’d used, but her posture was steady, her attention focused. When she saw him, relief crossed her face before she masked it.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as they helped him into a chair.
“Like I made a series of questionable life choices involving gunfire and a mountainside,” he said faintly. “But I’m here.”
She exhaled, a sound that carried more emotion than she probably intended. “You’re supposed to be in a hospital bed.”
“And you’re supposed to be running as far from this as possible,” he replied. “Seems neither of us is good at following orders.”
He accepted the medication one of the agents offered, grateful for the dulling edge it brought without fully clouding his mind. Then he looked past her to the map Agent Chen was spreading across the table.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Chen pointed to several marked locations. “We’ve identified possible sites for a controlled exchange.”
“Exchange?” Jack repeated, and then he saw Annie’s face.
Understanding hit.
“You’re using the locket,” he said slowly. “And you.”
“I’m using the locket,” Annie corrected, her voice calm. “I’m just the one who carries it.”
“No.” Jack pushed against the arms of the chair, pain flaring hot and bright. “Absolutely not. They’ve already tried to kill you. They burned your shop. They beat your uncle nearly to death. They turned a hospital into a hunting ground. You are not walking into another trap.”
“Jack,” she said, stepping closer, lowering her voice, “six people were injured today. People who had nothing to do with Eleanor. This doesn’t stop unless we stop it.”
He searched her face, hating that he recognized the resolve there. The same resolve that had once made her walk into cold case archives alone at midnight. The same resolve that had always put truth before comfort, justice before safety.
“Then I’m coming,” he said.
Chen started to object, but Jack cut her off. “I won’t be useful sitting in a chair listening to updates while Annie faces the person who’s been orchestrating this. I know these people.I know how they think. And if anything goes wrong, you’re not going to be able to stop me from acting, anyway.”
Chen’s jaw tightened as she looked between them, reading what neither of them said aloud.
“Fine,” she said finally. “But you follow the operation plan. Exactly. No independent moves. No trying to protect each other at the expense of the mission.”
“Agreed,” Annie said.
Jack nodded.
As Chen began issuing orders and the room shifted into coordinated motion, Jack found his thoughts drifting—not to tactics, not to weapons or exits, but to a woman who had sat on a stone bench nearly a century ago, pregnant and afraid, and still chosen to hide the truth.
Eleanor Blackwood had known the cost.
She had paid for it anyway.
And now the echo of that choice had reached them.
Jack closed his eyes briefly, anchoring himself to the weight of what they were about to do. Whatever waited on the other side of this operation, he knew one thing with clarity that cut through pain and fear alike.
They were done running.
And he would stand between Annie and whatever came next, whether it was justice—or the price Eleanor had paid to preserve it.
Chapter 15
