"No promises."
Okay. Maybe they could do this. Maybe sharing space with Captain Organization wouldn't be a complete disaster. They were both professionals. Both focused on finding who was sabotaging aircraft. They could coexist for a few days without killing each other.
Probably.
But as they rounded the corner to the Knight Tactical hangar, that servo pattern nagged at her. She knew she'd seen it before. The specific angle, the pressure points chosen, the way the saboteur had hidden their work...
She just had to remember where.
17
Eerily silent withoutits teams of big personalities, Knight Tactical headquarters felt like a tomb, only with electricity and more gadgets than a big box store.
Cory followed Izzy through the main hangar entrance. The space felt wrong. He'd been here dozens of times over the past five years. The place had always been alive. Tools clanging. Music blaring. Coffee brewing strong enough to wake the dead.
Unless Christian Murphy was pulling hand-crafted cappuccinos with his industrial-grade Italian espresso maker.
Now their footsteps echoed through the empty space.
"Weird, right?" Izzy called over her shoulder, already heading for the stairs. "Like a school during summer break."
That was part of it. The missing testosterone was obvious—no deep voices arguing about weapons calibers, no weights clanging in the corner gym, no competitive jabs about who'd made the hardest shot. But something else was gone too. The protective energy. That sense of purpose that made groups like Knight Tactical more than just security for hire.
The sense of family.
Cory paused at the base of the stairs, taking in the space. Equipment lockers lined one wall. Planning boards coveredanother, maps of remote locations marked with tactical notations. The air still carried hints of gun oil and aviation fuel, coffee and sweat. Ghost scents of the absent team.
She was already halfway up the metal stairs, taking them two at a time like she was assaulting an objective. He followed more slowly, noting escape routes out of habit. Two exits on ground level, windows on the second floor—reinforced, but breakable with the right tools. Defensive positions at the top of the stairs, good sightlines to?—
Stop it. You're not planning a raid.
But old habits died hard, and being in Isabella Reyes' domain without her usual protective detail made his threat assessment reflexes twitch.
The second floor opened into a large workroom. Multiple computer stations, walls covered with maps and satellite imagery, equipment he couldn't identify scattered across tables. Izzy went straight to a specific terminal like a homing pigeon, fingers already flying across the keyboard before she'd fully sat down.
"All our analysis software is loaded here," she said, not looking up. "Better than whatever ancient programs the FAA's using."
Cory hovered awkwardly behind her chair, unsure where to position himself. Close enough to see the screen, but not close enough to seem... what? Interested? He was investigating a case, not?—
Not noticing how her hair falls when she leans forward. Not catching hints of vanilla from her shampoo.
"Okay, look at this." She'd pulled photos from her phone, displaying them on the monitor in high resolution. Split screen: Bell helicopter servo assembly on the left, Cessna on the right. "Reed saw the surface damage and called it sabotage. Which, yes, obvious. But he missed the real story."
Cory leaned in. "Walk me through it."
She glanced up at him, a tiny smile playing at her lips. "Chief Fraser asking for help? Mark the calendar."
"I ask for help when the expert's available. Talk."
"Okay." She turned back to the screen, all business now. "Both servos failed the same way. Hydraulic lines compromised, specific pressure points targeted. Someone who understood the systems did this."
"We knew that already."
"Surface level, yeah. But look closer." She zoomed in on the Bell's servo, highlighting tool marks with her cursor. "See these marks? Hesitation scratches where the tool slipped. Here, and here. Too much pressure applied in the wrong spots. This person was nervous. Maybe working in the dark. Definitely sweating bullets."
Cory could see it now that she'd pointed it out. Sloppy work, like someone practicing a signature they'd only seen once.
"Now watch this." She switched to the Cessna servo, same magnification. "Same basic technique. Same angles of attack, same pressure points chosen. But look how clean it is."
