He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to, stopping beside Mateo, who stood over an outflow channel that wound through palms and vegetation down a slope to the sea. Rhys dropped one boot and removed a thin vial from a compartment in his heel. The liquid inside shimmered faintly in the dark, a pale, spectral blue.
“Bioluminescent plankton is a natural phenomenon in Costa Rica,” he said under his breath. “It blooms brighter when agitated. Once it hits the open water, it will mark this entire coastline.”
“A signal,” she breathed.
“The drones will pick up the signature,” he confirmed then emptied the vial into the flowing water.
“How long before they respond?”
“By morning,” he predicted.
For several heartbeats, it looked no different than the water around it. Then a pale glow began to bloom beneath the surface, faint at first, then brighter as it spread through the channel and flowed toward the sea.
Gaby stared at it, awe and dread tangling in her chest.
Rhys rose slowly, eyes fixed on the luminous trail diffusing into the dark water below. “There’s no turning back now.”
Despite the weight of the words, certainty settled in. They weren’t just surviving this place. They were about to end it.
***
The lights were low, the island muted to surf and wind, and the weight of what they’d discovered pressed in from every direction.
Gaby stood at the window, arms folded around herself, staring out at the dark water where the bioluminescent trail had vanished into blackness.
Rhys watched her for a moment before moving in behind her.
“You should rest,” he said softly, hands curling around her shoulders, needing to offer her reassurance, cameras be damned.
She gave a short, humorless breath. “I don’t think my body got that memo.”
He nodded, understanding without needing more.
They changed in silence, moving in parallel, exhausted, wired, and painfully aware of the day waiting on the other side of sleep.
Gaby slipped into bed first, curling instinctively toward the far edge, as though trying to leave him room he hadn’t asked for.
Rhys hesitated, staring at the space between them, feeling the weight of everything he owed her and couldn’t yet say. But not here, in the middle of the mission.
He shut off the last light and joined her. The mattress settled beneath them, and in the stillness, every breath seemed to carry.
Gaby broke the quiet first. “Rhys?”
“Yes.”
“If something goes wrong tomorrow…”
He turned his head toward her, even though he couldn’t see her clearly in the dark.
“It won’t.”
“But if it does,” she insisted.
He rolled onto his side and, slowly, carefully, drew her into him. Not a possessive pull. Not urgent. Just sheltering.
She settled against his chest, cheek resting over his heart.
He needed her closer. One arm came around her shoulders, the other anchoring at her back, holding her with a quiet resolve that had nothing to do with dominance and everything to do with protection.
