My stomach drops.
He looks up when we enter, dark eyes lifting to meet mine.
“Hey, Cap,” he says casually.
Too casually.
My skin prickles. Something cold crawls up my spine. Delilah feels it too—I know by the way her steps slow beside me, by the way her breathing changes.
“You interrogate Mikhail yet?” I ask, keeping my voice even through sheer force of will.
King doesn’t look up again.
He keeps wiping the blade.
Slow, steady strokes. Cloth through steel. Like he’s polishing memory off it.
“Handled it.”
The word lands wrong.
It’s too vague. Too empty. Too final.
“That’s not an answer,” I say flatly. “What does that mean?”
He shrugs, still focused on the knife. “Means it’s done.”
My pulse starts to pound in my ears.
“Done how?” I press. “You didn’t bring him in?”
For a moment, he says nothing.
Then he finally looks up.
Really looks at me.
His eyes are flat.Empty. Not angry. Not guilty.
Just… closed.
“No,” he says.
It’s one word but it hits like a bullet.
My heart slams against my ribs. “What do you meanno?” I snap. “King, where the hell is he?”
He goes back to cleaning the blade. “Not here.”
That’s it.
That’s all he gives me.
My hands curl into fists so tight my knuckles ache. I don’t trust myself to say anything else—not without ripping into himin front of half the base. Not without dragging the knife out of his hand and demanding an answer I’m already starting to understand.
So I turn and walk. Fast.
Delilah jogs to keep up with me, her boots scuffing against the concrete. “Jon—wait. What’s going on? Talk to me.”
