When Silas returns, he takes up the open spot beside me, and I’m between the three of them again, exactly where I need to be.
For men who are almost always on a mission, especially over the past couple of days, the moments that follow are surprisingly calm and quiet.
Rather than feeling like the end of an intimate moment, it feels like the start of something that doesn’t need to be rushed.
Outside, the cold presses in. Snow lies untouched beyond the windows, moonlight turning it pale and endless.
Inside, the four of us lie close together, sharing heat from the fire, and each other.
No one moves.
No one fills the silence, because there’s nothing more we need to say.
I close my eyes and rest in their arms. I know that when we move again, it will be forward.
And it will be together.
CHAPTER 44
VIPER
The call comes in a couple of hours before sunrise, on a channel that will never ring twice.
I take it in the ops center with the light dimmed low.
There’s no greeting. No pleasantries. “They’ve moved,” the voice says. “Surveillance assets repositioned overnight. The Brianna crash narrowed the grid. Thermal sweeps caught anomalies consistent with a hardened structure. They’ve got a window now.”
“How long?” I ask.
A pause follows. The kind that carries bad news.
“Hours. Not days.”
My jaw sets.
“They’re calling it a precision strike,” he continues. “This is elimination, not recovery.”
Kira’s name hangs in the beat of silence.
“If she agrees to testify, we can move. Arrest warrants are drafted. Teams are ready. We’re prepared to take Vaughn alive.”
I close my eyes for half a second and run the math. Routes. Timelines. How many men it would take to overwhelm a compound like ours. How many bodies it would cost them.
Hours. Not days.
I already know she’s in. We’ve had the conversations. Atlas explained contingencies. Grizz made it clear her safety mattered most of all. Kira took it all in, asked the right questions, and understood the risk.
She said she didn’t want to hide forever. She’d asked what testifying would mean for her daughter, not for herself. Fear didn’t stop her from choosing the harder, cleaner path.
I didn’t like the choice, but I trusted the woman making it.
“She’s in,” I say. “Full cooperation.”
“Copy,” my contact replies. “We’re moving.”
The line goes dead.
I take a moment to breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Then I key the internal channel. “Atlas, you up?”
