“I would say yes,” Hunt replied. “Not fully. But yes.”
Dante’s hand shifted again, his fingers curling toward hers with unmistakable intention.
Shannon’s eyes filled as she pulled his hand gently against her cheek. “Come back,” she whispered. “Please.”
Hunt stepped back slightly. “I will increase his current sedation again for now. His body is not ready to maintain consciousness. But the response means he’s fighting. And he is winning.”
Sam’s breath left him in a quiet rush. “Thank God.”
Shannon’s shoulders eased. She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Dante’s wrist. “We’re right here.”
His body relaxed with the sedative. The monitors steadied again.
Hunt touched her shoulder lightly. “If you want to rest, now would be the best time.”
“I’m not leaving,” she insisted.
“Then rest in the chair.” He winked.
Shannon sat quietlybeside Dante while nurses shifted equipment and adjusted the angle of his bed by a few degrees. She reached up and smoothed the hair at his temple, careful not to disturb the bandaging. “You’re coming home. I won’t let anything stop that.”
Sam returned with a cup of tea from the staff lounge. “Here, it might help.”
She accepted it gratefully and took a small sip. Her hands were trembling from exhaustion.
Sam watched her. “Shannon, you need to sleep.”
“I will. Eventually.” Her eyes remained fixed on Dante.
Sam sat beside her. “You’re going to burn out.”
The monitors quietly clicked. Dante’s chest rose again under the ventilator, steady and controlled.
“You can’t hold the world together alone,” Sam reminded her.
She reached for Dante’s hand again. “I’m not holding the world,” she whispered. “I’m holding him.”
NEW YORK, NY
Matthew Krueger stood alone in the secured sublevel office, jacket folded neatly over the back of the chair, sleeves rolled once—precisely once. The room wasn’t a bunker. It was an annex: poured concrete, fiber-shielded cabling, the kind of space designed to disappear into blueprints no one revisited.
Two weeks. That was the timeline.
Above him, the conference hall was dark now, empty except for custodial crews and the faint hum of systems cycling down. In fourteen days, it would be full—flags, delegations, private security executives wearing civilian suits that hid military posture badly. The UN General Assembly would meet.
Matthew rested his hands on the table and allowed himself one indulgence. Daniel.
The image came unbidden. Not the man his son had become at the end—obsessed and reckless—but the boy who believed service meant something permanent. Who believed loyalty ranupward and downward, not sideways into contracts and shell corporations.
Daniel had wanted two things at the end. Justice and—them. Shannon Johnson and
Dante Olivetti.
That part was personal. Matthew knew it. He didn’t excuse it, but he understood it. Daniel had been hunted by private operators and cornered by men who answered to a boardroom instead of a flag.
At least Shannon Johnson wore a uniform. Air Force, that much mattered. But killing his son and calling it self-defense? That was not right.
Chase Security—it was an obscenity. A corporation wielding violence with plausible deniability.
