Just us.
This is what six months of peace looks like.
We’ve been everywhere in that time — charity galas where she wears dresses that make grown men forget how to breathe, quiet coastal towns where no one knows our names, late nights on this porch where the world feels mercifully far away.
And everyone knows.
Everyone sees it.
Lena Hart doesn’t hide who she loves.
And I don’t stop her.
She publishes hard stories now — corruption, trafficking routes, shell companies that dissolve overnight after she names them. She’s earned a reputation.
Fearless.
Unmovable.
She won’t stay behind.
And I wouldn’t ask her to.
She sets her tablet down slowly. “You’re tense.”
I shrug. “Old habit.”
She steps closer, presses her forehead to my chest. “Something’s coming.”
It isn’t a question.
I inhale the salt air.
“Yes.”
She exhales, steady. “Then we’ll face it.”
That’s when my phone vibrates.
Once.
Twice.
Encrypted.
Delta Five frequency.
Aaron’s voice comes through, low and tight.
“Ronan… we’ve got something.”
My spine locks. Finally.
“Talk to me.”
“Name’s Viktor Malenkov. Alias ‘The Warden.’ We traced a ghost signal back to Eastern Europe. Old black-site infrastructure.”
My blood turns cold.
