My encrypted phone line lights up. Black hardware, no display, no traceable signal. This phone doesn’t ring unless someone from the old world is calling. Only a handful of people have this number, and none of them reach out unless it’s serious.
I answer without hesitation. “Yeah.”
“Hey, are you busy?”
The voice is familiar and rough around the edges. It’s a voice shaped by deserts, gunfire, and operations that never made the news.
Terrence Freeman.
We met twelve years ago, halfway across the world, back when we were both still new to the blood and grit of it all. Green Berets, prepared for a war you can’t explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it.
He’s the one who pulled me out of a compound in Kunar after a mission went sideways. We’ve spilled blood together, dug shallow graves, and burned secrets. We’ve done things decent men wouldn’t survive.
My eyes flick to the monitor. Laurette is still in the bathroom, the light glowing under the door. No movement or sign of distress.
“Never too busy for an old friend.”
“I was thinking about coming over. I need to talk to you about something.”
Terrence doesn’t talk. Terrence acts.
If he’s circling the conversation instead of landing it, that means the damage is already done. And whatever is coming next is not simple.
“Is it bad?”
“It’s not good,” Terrence says.
“I was on my way out.”
My eyes flick back to the screen, and the bathroom light switches off. A second later, she steps into the bedroom, steam trailing behind her, a towel wrapped around her hair. Her skin is bare, still damp.
“A woman?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
That earns a dry chuckle from Terrence. “Of course it is.”
My only reply is a grunt.
Laurette crosses the room without hesitation and opens the top drawer of her dresser—her lingerie drawer. She sifts through the lace and silk with careful precision.
She has no idea I’m watching.
Or maybe she does.
I told her once that I would be… that I always am. Whether she believes that reaches her bedroom, I’m not sure. She never looks toward the camera, never acknowledges it. But she moves through the space naked and unhurried, chin lifted, body on display with a quiet confidence that feels deliberate.
It’s a performance, whether she means for it to be or not.
She has no idea how close I am or how easily I’d end this call. How fast I’d choose her over everything else—over consequence, over collapse, over the world burning down if that’s the price.
“I’ve got a problem I can’t handle alone.”
Those words stop me cold.
He’s handled war zones with a knife and bad intel. We’ve pulled bodies out of holes that didn’t exist on any map. We’ve cleaned up messes no government would ever claim. If he says he needs backup, it’s already a fucking disaster.
My gaze drifts back to the screen. Laurette pulls a dark scrap of lace from the drawer and holds it up to the light. Examining it. Considering it… to wear for me.
