“I’ll be here,” she said. “Waiting for you. Not pausing. Not hiding. But waiting.”
“Good. I like waiting.”
The background noise shifted again into muffled voices, a PA announcement, a boarding call.
“Time for me to board.”
“Dante?”
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
Silence pulsed warm between them. “Good night, Shannon. I’ll see you when I’m done.”
“Good night,” she breathed. “Come home.”
The line clicked. The room felt bigger and colder.
She did her nighttime routine on autopilot. All the actions felt distant, like she was moving underwater. She slid into bed, pulled the blanket up, and waited for the heat pack to kick in. Without him, the room had edges again.
She reached for the pillow he always used, the faint smell of his warm skin, clean soap, and a whisper of cologne still clinging to the fabric. Her heart clenched hard enough to steal her breath. She tucked the pillow against her side, curled around it, and shut her eyes. Not to sleep, just to feel like she wasn’t entirely alone in the space he’d filled that morning.
She whispered into the dark, voice trembling, “Come back to me, Dante.”
There was no answer, but she held the pillow tighter. Eventually, exhaustion pulled her under.
EN ROUTE TO RAMSTEIN AIR BASE – 0132 HOURS
The cabin lights were dimmed to a soft amber glow, lighting meant to calm nerves and trick overloaded brains into resting. Itwasn’t working on any of them.
The jet cut through the upper atmosphere with the steady, low hum of engines tuned within an inch of perfection. Dante sat buckled into the forward-facing seat along the port side, watching the darkness beyond the small oval window.
Ford Cox—no,Lex Harper—leaned back with one ankle crossed over his knee, eyes running over a script. He was already in character, the shift so subtle, a stranger would never know. Dante did.
The jet had been airborne for three hours before Ian finally closed his classified packet, slid it into the secure case, and looked directly at Dante. “You okay?”
Dante lifted a shoulder. “Define okay.”
Ian’s mouth twitched faintly. “Conscious. Functional. Not planning to throw yourself out the emergency hatch.”
“That’s three checkmarks,” Dante said. “Give me a harder test.”
Tate drummed his fingers on the table. “You left her today. That’s… a lot.”
“Yeah.” Dante’s tone didn’t rise, didn’t harden. “She knows the job. I know the job. Doesn’t make the goodbye part easier.”
Zach glanced up from his notes. “She sounded strong. When I walked past her suite earlier, she was briefing with Hunt like she owned the damn building.”
“She does,” Ford muttered without looking up. “She’s a Johnson.”
Dante didn’t smile, but something in him loosened at that.
Ian leaned forward, hands steepled. “We’re not sugarcoating this. This isn’t a standard arms intercept. The network is organized, funded, and well-connected. If Krueger’s intel is even half accurate, this op is bigger than what DoD put in their briefings.”
Zach added, “And the fact that they’re already lining up informants and deals means they want this containable, not solvable.”
Tate gave a humorless scoff. “Containment doesn’t work with nuclear material.”
Ford flicked his burner phone off and looked up. “So, we solve it,” he said simply. Not bravado but a statement of fact.
