I watch his face as he listens to whatever Priest is telling him. Watch the color drain from his cheeks. Watch his free hand clench into a fist at his side.
"Connected how?" His voice is deadly quiet now. "To my op? The one you buried?"
More listening. More silence.
"You're coming yourself." It's not a question. Ford's jaw tightens further. "And Mace Hunter. Guardian Peak's second." A pause. "Good. This started with you twelve years ago. It's right that you're here to end it." He gives coordinates I don't recognize. "We'll be there."
He ends the call and stands perfectly still for a long moment, staring at nothing.
"Ford." I touch his arm, feel the tension vibrating through him. "What did he say?"
"The team that came after us." He turns to face me, and the look in his eyes makes my blood run cold. "Their operational signature matches a private military contractor with ties to intelligence services. The same contractor that was involved in my compromised op."
"What does that mean?"
"It means this isn't about your father's turf war." He cups my face in both hands, his touch gentle despite the violence still coiling in his muscles. "Someone connected to my past and yourfather's enemies just found a reason to come after both of us at once."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I. Not yet." His forehead presses against mine. "But Priest is coming. Personally. He created this mess when he handed a marker to your father. Now it's blown up in everyone's faces, and he's not going to sit this one out. He's bringing backup too. A man named Mace Hunter from Guardian Peak Security."
"Two of them?"
"Priest handles intelligence. He knows the players, the connections, the shadows this thing crawled out of. Mace handles tactical. Between the four of us, we're going to figure out what's happening and end it."
"And the men who attacked us?"
"Three bodies in the water. They won't be reporting back to anyone."
I should be horrified. Should be sickened by the casual way he mentions killing three people. Instead, all I feel is a fierce, primal gratitude that he's alive and I'm alive and whoever sent those men failed.
"You could have died." My voice breaks on the last word. "Protecting me."
"I didn't."
"But you could have."
He pulls back enough to look at me, his gray eyes soft despite everything. "Sera, listen to me. What I do, who I was, it comes with risks. You need to understand that. If you're going to be part of my life beyond this boat, you need to know that I will always put myself between you and danger. That's not negotiable."
"I don't want you to die for me."
"Good. That makes two of us." He presses a kiss to my forehead. "Now help me weigh anchor. We need to move before anyone comes looking for those three."
We work in grim silence, raising anchor and guiding Second Watch through the channels I've started to recognize. Ford moves carefully, his injury clearly causing pain despite his insistence that it's minor. I take over at the helm when the course is set, letting him rest against the cabin housing while he monitors the horizon.
"You're different," I say eventually. "When you fight."
"Different how?"
"Cold. Precise. Like you become someone else entirely."
He's quiet for a moment. "That's the man I used to be. The one I've been trying to leave behind."
"But you can't."
"Apparently not." He winces as he shifts position, hand pressing against his bandaged side. "The skills don't go away just because you stop using them. The instincts stay sharp whether you want them to or not. I thought I could bury that part of myself. Live a simple life. Pretend the last twenty years never happened."
"And now?"
