That line gutted him. She’d meant it. She’d thought it might be the last time.
His grip on the wheel tightened. Tension down to his teeth. Every instinct screamed to move faster. Hit the gas. Break protocol.Kick down the door and take her back before the world had a chance to take one more thing from him.
It wasn’t just instinct driving him anymore. It was her. Rachel.
Back in Afghanistan, he’d told her he wanted to see where this was headed. It hadn’t been a line. It hadn’t been about adrenaline or proximity or the sharp edge of war that made people reach for connection. It was her. The intensity in how she looked at people. Her refusal to run from hard truths. How standing next to her made everything else feel manageable.
He didn’t let people in. He never had. But she’d gotten under his skin fast and deep, and by the time they’d landed stateside, she already mattered more than he knew what to do with.
Now he was staring down the possibility of losing her, and everything inside him went cold.
He hadn’t let himself imagine more. Not long nights or quiet mornings or what it might feel like to fall asleep with her curled against his chest. But the second her voice hit his ear, whispering goodbye like it might be the last time…
All of that crashed to the surface.
He didn't just want her safe. He wanted time with her. Real time. Not stolen moments between missions, but actual days. Weeks. A future.
He pressed harder on the gas. The lights blurred past and the road narrowed. The city around him felt too slow.
For the first time in his life, someone mattered to him, and he wasn’t going to be too late.
His phone buzzed against the console.
Echo
Ghost answered before the first ring finished. “Tell me you’ve got something.”
“I just sent you her active location,” Echo said. His voice sounded calm enough, but Ghost heard the tension creeping in. “It’s a small apartment complex near the harbor. You’re ten out.”
“Anything else?”
Echo hesitated. “Ghost—don’t let anything happen to her.”
Ghost’s throat tightened.
“She’s tough,” Echo added. “But she’s different. Special.”
“I know,” Ghost said quietly. The words scraped out of him. “I won’t let her down.”
The line went dead. He immediately redialed Rachel.
One ring. “Come on, baby. Pick up,” he muttered.
Two. No answer.
He hung up. Called again.
Still nothing.
Something twisted hard in his throat. His boot pressed into the accelerator. The engine roared. Streetlights blurred past in streaks of white. The city was waking up, slow and oblivious. He cut through a yellow light and didn’t slow down.
When he finally screeched into the lot behind the apartment complex, he killed the engine before the tires stopped rolling. His boots hit pavement hard, every step measured and exact.
He moved low across the lot, staying in shadows. His eyes swept the base of the building. There, her window. And below it, the overgrown shrubs she mentioned in her voicemail. Flattened. She’d jumped. Rolled. Escaped, but she wasn’t here now.
That twisted knot of dread pulled tighter.
He cleared the outer wall in two strides, hit the building entrance at full tilt, and took the stairs two at a time. The hallway was too quiet. Still. Then he saw her door. Ajar.
