Constable Tyler had the floor.
Malcolm Tyler simply stepped forward, one hand braced on the table as the terrain model rotated beneath the overhead lights.
“The basin sits lower than the surrounding ridgelines,” he said evenly. “Tree cover is dense on the east and north approaches, thinner to the south where the ground slopes toward the access trails. Horses can move cleanly through the north cut. Vehicles can’t, not without announcing themselves.”
He gestured, the image zooming. “These trails here and here are old logging routes. Overgrown, but still passable. Ideal for dirt bikes. Motorcycles would favor the western spur, harder ground, less mud.”
Ayla watched him out of the corner of her eye.
He was good. Calm. Grounded. There was a settled ease to him. He spoke like a man who trusted the land and expected it to answer honestly. She felt the brief, unexpected tug of it, the way she always did when competence came without ego.
Safe, a treacherous little voice whispered.
She shut it down and turned back to the screen.
The satellite feed was paused on the meeting site, a deceptively quiet clearing stitched together by shadow and movement. Ayla let her attention drift, still focused on the briefing, but deeper into the feed. She scanned faces she already knew, positions she’d already marked. Her mind ran parallel tracks, recon layered over memory.
Than’s face surfaced unbidden. The way grief had hollowed him, how she hadn’t been there when Mei died. Couldn’t be. Duty had pulled her here, same as it always did. She told herself he understood. She hoped that was true.
Her gaze slid back to Tyler. He smiled briefly at something Lindstrom said, easy and unguarded, and Ayla felt that strange, aching contrast settle in her chest.
Maybe it would be nice, she thought, to be with a man who didn’t live in the dark. Who didn’t disappear into classified silences and kinetic violence. Someone solid. Present.
Not long-term, she corrected immediately. She knew herself too well for that fantasy.
She craved edge. Always had. Maybe because she’d survived too much on her own. Threat and danger were familiar, almost comforting in their honesty. It had probably been why she’d joined the Navy in the first place. The chaos made sense. The rules were clear.
Her eyes flicked, involuntarily, to the far side of the room where Blair stood near one of the monitors, focused and composed, one hand braced on the table as she tracked the discussion. Breakneck was there, too, close enough that Ayla could feel the gravity between them even without looking directly at him, the quiet alignment, the ease of two people who had already chosen each other. He was smiling, just slightly, something unguarded in his expression that caught Ayla off balance. Happiness looked good on him. That was the problem.
The realization landed harder than she expected. She didn’t just miss him, she missed the idea of what he represented. Steady, lethal, capable of devotion when he finally gave it. A man who could be dangerous and still be…whole.
So why, she wondered for the thousandth time, did she always gravitate toward trouble? Toward men who lived on edges in rooms like this? Maybe because danger spoke a language she already understood. Maybe because she’d learned early that calm never lasted. Or maybe she’d mistaken intensity for connection for so long that she no longer trusted anything that felt safe.
Could there be such a man? Full of that kind of trouble and still safe? The thought hovered, absurd and tempting all at once, like the opening line of a romance she would never let herself write. She knew better. Men like Breakneck didn’t exist in halves. You didn’t get the fire without the fallout.
She pulled her eyes away from him, deliberate this time. Breakneck wasn’t for her. He never had been. Whatever they’d shared, whatever spark still lingered uncomfortably in her chest, belonged firmly in the past.
Her gaze shifted and landed on Tyler. He had caught the direction of her gaze, and his expression softened as he met her eyes. Just quiet recognition, as if to say, Yeah. I see it. I know what that costs.
The simplicity of it unsettled her more than intensity ever had.
Ayla turned back to the screen, pulse steady again, and focused on the work in front of her before the thought could soften her further. This wasn’t the time. This wasn’t the place. Whatever ache stirred in her chest, whatever questions surfaced after her disaster with Breakneck had been her misconception. She didn’t blame Breakneck or herself, really. It just happened and they got past that awkward stage. She sighed softly, folding her feelings away with practiced precision.
She was definitely not getting anywhere near another Tier 1 operator.
She had a job to do.
Ayla was half-listening to the room when the face on her tablet snapped into focus.
Carlos Ramos.
Her pulse kicked. Got you, you slippery, murdering bastard. Her thoughts went to Breakneck’s muscular body and the healing, mottled bruises that probably still marred his skin. She slowed the feed, fingers steady now, tagging the frame. Ramos stood near a line of vehicles, posture alert, talking to someone just out of view.
She adjusted the angle.
Her breath sucked in hard enough that she felt it catch in her throat.
No. No way.
