"The black ops team. I've seen the pieces. You've been moving money. Buying property. Making calls."
Ghost exhaled hard, dragging a hand down his face. Of course Torch would bring that up. He missed nothing, and Ghost had stopped trying to keep anything from him a long time ago.
Because the truth was, he had thought about it. More than once. Not a mercenary outfit chasing high-paying contracts, and not some bloated PMC made up of ex-military with inflated egos and no code. What he wanted was different. A crew built from the ground up. Tight, clean, disciplined. Off-grid. Off-leash. No chain of command calling the shots from behind a desk. No half-buried orders or redacted truths. Just good people doing the jobs no one else would touch. The right jobs. No permissions. No oversight. No apologies.
And now, with Langley dead, Hale exposed, and Rachel's exposé tearing through every protected corner of the military machine, the idea wasn't hypothetical anymore.
The path was already taking shape.
The rules had changed. Whatever lines had once separated silence from action, restraint from retaliation, were gone now. Everyone in the room knew it.
Ghost sat still, elbows on his knees, staring at some empty point ahead of him. He didn't blink. Didn't shift. "I don't know," he said again, but the words came out different this time. Hollow. No conviction behind them.
Torch's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. He knew. "Yeah," he said. "You do."
Ghost didn't argue. The answer was already sitting in his chest, solid and undeniable.
He'd been holding himself back for years, telling himselfafter. After the next op. After the next deployment. After he'd done enough.
Tonight, that restraint had broken.
And after what he'd seen, after what they'd all survived, there might not be anything left to keep him from leaving.
57
The house had gone quiet.
Ghost stood in the hallway, listening to the sounds of his team packing up. Boots on hardwood. The zip of gear bags. Low voices saying goodnight. The front door opened and closed three times, the whole team left.
The house settled into silence.
Ghost stood outside his bedroom door, hand resting on the frame. He could hear the shower running. Had been running for a while now, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. Long enough that the mirror would be completely fogged, the air thick with steam.
Then he heard it.
A sound that stopped him cold.
Crying. Muffled by the water and the closed bathroom door, but unmistakable.
Rachel.
Something tightened in Ghost’s chest. His hand was already on the bedroom door handle before he'd made a conscious decision to join her.
He pushed the door open quietly, crossed the room in four strides, then opened the bathroom door.
Steam hit him immediately, warm and thick, curling out into the cooler bedroom air. Through the glass shower door, he could see her. Hands braced against the tile wall, head down, shoulders shaking. Water pounding down on her back. The sound of her crying, hitching breaths and quiet sobs, louder now without the door between them.
Ghost didn't hesitate.
He opened the shower door and stepped in.
Fully clothed. Tactical pants still on from the rescue, boots and all. The water hit him immediately, soaking through his pants in seconds, plastering the fabric to his thighs. His boots filled with water, but he didn't care.
Rachel's head snapped up. Her eyes went wide when she saw him, standing there, water streaming down his face and chest.
"Logan—" Her voice broke on his name.
He didn't say anything. Just reached for her and pulled her in.
