“I’ve been watching you for years. Waiting for that moment to come back. Waiting for the mission where you finally decide not to come home.” His pale eyes search my face. “Every extraction, every firefight, every time you put yourself between a bullet and someone else—I’ve been counting. Measuring how much risk you’re willing to take. Trying to calculate when enough will finally be enough.”
I don’t have an answer. Because he’s right. Because somewhere underneath all the professionalism and tactical precision, there’s always been a death wish. A quiet certainty that the way I live will eventually become the way I die.
“I’m coming back,” I say.
“Because of her.”
“Because of her.”
Ghost nods slowly. Something that might be approval—or relief—flickers across his weathered features.
“I’ve seen a lot of operators destroy themselves. Some of them fast, some of them slow. Most of them never find a reason to stop. They just keep going until the mission kills them or they kill themselves.” He pauses. “You’re one of the best I’ve ever worked with.”
“Thanks.”
He turns toward the door and pauses at the threshold. Looks back.
“For what it’s worth.” He pauses. “I’m glad you found someone. You deserve better than dying alone in a warehouse somewhere.”
Then he’s gone. The door closes behind him.
I stand alone in the armory for a long time, surrounded by weapons and ammunition and the tools of a trade I’ve practiced for most of my adult life.
Ghost is right. About all of it.
I was waiting to die. Not actively—not planning it or seeking it out—but passively. Accepting that every mission might be the last one. Taking risks that made sense tactically but not personally. Living like someone who didn’t expect to have a future.
Cassie changed that.
Not by demanding anything. Not by issuing ultimatums or forcing confrontations. Just by being there. By looking at me like I was worth seeing. By making me want things I’d convinced myself I couldn’t have.
A future. A life. A reason to come home.
I finish checking my kit. Pack everything into the tactical bag I’ll carry into Nevada. Then I go to find her.
The afternoon dissolves into weapons checks and tactical briefings and the quiet, focused work of people preparing for combat.
I move through it on autopilot—the routines so deeply ingrained they don’t require conscious thought. Ammunition loaded. Armor fitted. Communications tested. The same preparations I’ve made a hundred times before.
My attention keeps drifting to Cassie.
She’s in the common area with Brass, the two of them bent over a tablet. Brass is explaining something—approach routes,probably, or extraction protocols—and Cassie is nodding, asking questions, absorbing information with the same intensity she brought to the financial analysis.
She fits here. That’s what surprises me.
Not just tolerated. Not just accepted. But integrated—part of the team in a way that usually takes months to develop. Brass treats her like a colleague. Fuse treats her like family. Even Ghost, in his distant way, has acknowledged her value.
She was invisible her whole life. Overlooked. Dismissed.
Not anymore.
Brass looks up, catches me watching. Grins.
“Stop lurking and come help,” he calls. “We’re trying to figure out the best entry point and your girlfriend has opinions.”
Your girlfriend. The word should feel strange. It doesn’t.
I cross to the table. Look at the schematics.
