The darkness shifts. Becomes something else. Alive. Predatory. The kind of dark that doesn't hide danger, it is the danger. They know we're coming. And we know they know. Perfect.
I check my rifle one last time. Solid. Familiar. The weight grounds me. This isn't ceremony. It's function. Every piece of gear has a purpose tonight. Nothing ornamental. Nothing wasted.
Raffael is beside me, calm in the way only men who've killed too many times can be calm, wiping his knives like this ismaintenance, not prelude. Stephano stands a few paces ahead, unmoving, his people forming instinctive cover around him.
I don't waste time wondering how Oksana convinced Conti to let her come. Then again, let isn't a word that applies to a woman like her. You don't grant permission to a force of nature. You either adapt around it or get flattened.
Still. If the roles were reversed—if my wife were standing here in the dark with rifles and knives and men who smell like blood and jungle rot—I'd have tied her up if I had to, hauled her off, and locked her in the safest room I owned. Concrete. Steel. No windows. No exits. Alive.
The thought hits harder than it should.
My wife.
The word flashes uninvited, sharp as recoil. I almost trip on it.
Wife.
It doesn't fit. It never has. Not cleanly. Not legally. Not after she walked out of my life and straight into another man's name. She chose Carter. Married him. Built a life without me. That's the story I've carried for ten years, worn thin from repetition but never fully questioned. Easier to believe she left than to interrogate why she didn't stay. Easier to harden around betrayal than crack open old silence.
And yet?—
The word won't leave.
Wife.
Not because it's true. Because somewhere deep, unreasonable though it may be, a part of me never stopped thinking of her that way. Not possession. Not entitlement. Something quieter. Something that settled before I had language for it. Something dangerous.
I shove it down where it belongs. This isn't the night for fantasies or rewrites. Whatever she was to me, whatever Ithought she did, whatever choices she made after me, that's blood already dried.
Oksana's presence unsettles me more than it should. She moves like someone who understands the cost of loving a man like Conti and still chose it anyway. Not blindly. Not foolishly. With eyes open. With teeth. I don't just respect that. I envy it.
I don't let myself think any further than that, because this isn't the night for ghosts or hypotheticals or the luxury of regret. This is the night I get my son back. Everything else—love, guilt, the dangerous pull of words like wife—can wait. If they survive me. We pull our radios from the Faraday cases. The click feels loud in the silence.
"Positions," I murmur.
No hesitation. No questions. I move to cover the flank, rifle up, sightline clean. Raffael melts into the foliage like he was never there. Sasha flashes two fingers, path clear. Conti nods once, jaw set. Then we move. The descent down the ridge is quiet. Boots kiss dirt. Leaves shift. Somewhere below, backup generators stutter, trying to claw power back from the void. Futile. The air is thick with humidity, rot, and metal. My breath feels heavy in my chest, but my mind is clear. Sharper than it's been in days. I think of Amauri.
I don't picture his face. That would fracture me. I picture distance. Obstacles. Men who need to stop breathing before I can reach him. That's manageable. We reach the north ridge patrol. Four guards. Panicked halos in night vision, clustered too close, radios useless in their hands. Amateurs.
Conti lifts two fingers. His men flow around him like water. He moves. One second, he's still. The next, he's gone. A hand clamps over a mouth. A body disappears into the brush. Bone breaks with a muted crack.
The other three spin. Too late. They never get a chance to fire. Stephano is on them like a hurricane, slitting their throatsbefore I even have a chance to step forward. He turns back to us, moving without anger. Without flourish. Without even breathing hard. What gets me isn't the violence. It's the icy control. This isn't rage. This is precision. Contained fury. The kind that doesn't burn itself out, it executes.
"Holy fuck," I mutter before I can stop myself. "You married that?"
"Jealous?" Oksana whispers.
I snort. "Terrified."
It's only half a joke. Sasha meets my eyes and gives a single nod in Stephano's direction. Respect. Rare. Earned.
Raffael reappears like he stepped out of the dark itself. "One guard tower down. Two left."
Conti nods. "West side first. They'll bottleneck once they realize we're inside. Sasha, left flank. Oksana?—"
She arches a brow, dares him to finish his order. He corrects himself immediately. "Right flank."
A short sound escapes me before I can stop it. Not quite a laugh. Not quite disbelief. Amusement. That's… unexpected. When was the last time I was in the field like this? Not delegating. Not directing from behind glass and screens. Not watching dots move across maps while other men bled for my interests. Here. In the dirt. In the dark. With the air thick and the stakes real.
