Cassie crosses to me. Sits on the bench, close enough that our shoulders touch.
“He’s nice.” She keeps her voice low. “Under all the flirting and the jokes.”
“He is. He’s also right.”
“About what?”
I turn to face her. Take her hands.
“About coming back. About staying alive.” I search her eyes, looking for the words I’ve never been good at saying. “I’ve spent years treating every mission like it might be my last. Not because I wanted to die, exactly. But because I didn’t have a reason to want anything else.”
“And now?”
“Now I have you.”
She leans into me. Presses her forehead against mine.
“Then come back,” she whispers. “Whatever happens in Nevada. Whatever we find. Come back to me.”
“I will.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
It’s a lie—I can’t promise anything in a combat zone. But it’s also the truest thing I’ve ever said. Because for the first time, I want to keep the promise. I want to survive not just because survival is instinct, but because there’s something waiting on the other side worth surviving for.
Ghost finds me an hour later.
I’m in the armory, running a final check on my kit—rifle, sidearm, spare magazines, the compact trauma kit that’s saved my life twice. The routine is soothing, meditative. Muscle memory taking over while my mind processes everything that’s happened.
“Halo.” Ghost’s voice is quiet. Controlled. He steps into the armory, letting the door close behind him. “A word.”
“Sure.”
He crosses to where I’m standing. For a moment, he just watches me work—hands moving through the familiar patterns, checking chambers and counting rounds.
“She’s staying.” Not a question.
“I know.” I meet his gaze. Hold it. “She’s the reason I’m still functional. The reason I’m not operating on autopilot, waiting for the mission that finally puts me in the ground. I have to come back.”
Ghost is quiet for a long moment. His expression doesn’t change—it rarely does—but something shifts in the quality of his silence. The assessment giving way to something more personal.
“Colombia,” he says finally. “When I found you in that warehouse. You had a gun to your head.”
The memory surfaces. Unwanted. Unavoidable.
A concrete floor sticky with blood—not all of it mine. The bodies of the men I’d killed scattered around me like broken toys. The Glock pressed against my temple, finger on the trigger, the noise in my head so loud I couldn’t hear anything else.
Sofia was dead. The cartel had taken her, and I’d been half a world away. The guilt was a physical weight crushing my chest. Easier to end it. Easier to follow her into the dark.
And then Ghost’s voice, cutting through the static:Put the gun down. That’s an order.
“I remember.”
“You weren’t going to pull the trigger because of the cartel.” Ghost’s voice is flat. Clinical. The voice of a man who’s seen too many operators eat their weapons. “You were going to pull it because you wanted the noise to stop.”
“Yes.”
