"Good." I lean down, kiss him again. Soft this time. Tender. The kind of kiss I didn't know I was capable of until him. "Because you don't have a choice."
We stay like that for a while, tangled together, stealing moments before the world crashes back in. His hand traces lazy patterns on my back. My head rests on his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. The light has shifted, casting new shadows across the room.
"We should shower," he says eventually. "Briefing in an hour."
"Probably."
Neither of us moves.
"Jinx?"
"Mm?"
"I love you too. In case that wasn't clear."
My heart stutters. It's one thing to know. Another to hear it said out loud.
"It was clear," I manage. "But it's nice to hear."
"I'll say it more often, then." He presses a kiss to my hair. "Every day, if you want."
"Don't get sappy on me, Madden."
"Too late. You're stuck with a sap, sweet pea." His arms tighten around me. "Now come on. Shower. We've got children to save and bad guys to kill."
"Romantic."
"I try."
We disentangle ourselves, reluctantly. The shower is quick, practical, but he still finds time to kiss me under the water, to press me against the tile and remind me what we have.
What we're fighting for.
Chapter Ten: Asher
Thebriefingstartsassoon as we get downstairs.
Smaller team. Fewer bodies to fill the space. Dom's absence is a hole that nobody mentions but everyone feels. Kira will be staying behind with Thiago, he can’t shoot properly and she’s a mess, which leaves me, Jinx, Marlee, Jace, and Jagger.
Five people to extract children from a facility on the other side of the world.
The odds aren't great. But when have they ever been?
"Singapore." Jagger pulls up the schematic on his tablet, projects it onto the wall. The facility is larger than Geneva, more complex, a sprawling compound on the outskirts of the city. "Intelligence suggests the children were moved here three days before our Geneva operation. They're being held in the eastwing, same setup as before. Dormitory style, minimal personal effects, constant monitoring."
"Security?" Marlee asks.
"Heavier than Geneva. Twenty guards on rotation, plus administrative staff. The perimeter is monitored by motion sensors and thermal cameras. Local police are on the payroll, so we can't count on external intervention if things go sideways."
"They went sideways in Geneva, and we barely made it out." Jinx's voice is flat. He's sitting across from me, arms crossed, jaw tight. The stubborn set of his shoulders says he's already planning contingencies. "What's different this time?"
"We are." Jagger meets his eyes. "We're not walking in blind anymore. Geneva was a trap because they knew we were coming. This time, we've taken precautions. No electronic communication, no paper trail, nothing that could leak. The only people who know about this operation are in this room. I didn’t pull anything from Moore’s archives for these schematics. This is all shit I found online, through back-end channels based on what Aurelio supplied."
"And if there's still a mole?"
"Then we're fucked regardless." Jagger's voice is blunt. "But I've checked everyone's movements since Geneva. No suspicious contacts. No unexplained absences. If someone in this room is feeding information to the Silent, they're doing it through channels I can't detect."
"Comforting," Marlee mutters.
