Con nodded. “They work with veterans. Reintegration, recovery, getting men back to operational capacity. They’re a good family with a strong program.”
Ash felt his chest burn. “You’re sending him to a therapy program.”
“I’m suggesting it might be a good fit.”
Ash thought of Archer’s eyes, shadowed but no more than any of the men in this room. They all carried their ghosts.
“The choice is his, of course,” Con said. “Ash, you can present the idea to him. If he’s on board, we’ll set it up.”
He dipped his head in agreement.
The tension starting to bleed out of the room. Cipher was dead. The mission was done. Ash hadn’t lost his honor that day. He never had.
Most importantly, Ellory was alive.
Now, Ash didn’t feel like he was standing just outside the circle.
He’d let them see everything he was, even the broken part of him that would always carry Melina’s death. And they hadn’t turned away.
They’d closed ranks.
He wasn’t just grateful for the team in this room.
He was grateful he’d lived long enough to love Ellory.
And this time, he wasn’t going to lose.
* * * * *
Ellory stood at the edge of the airstrip and tried to pretend her throat wasn’t raw.
Archer crossed the expanse of yard behind the Blackout Charlie base, moving toward the chopper that was waiting for him. And for a second she forgot to breathe.
Three days ago, he’d been a gaunt ghost with hollow eyes and a body that looked borrowed from someone else. Now he looked…not whole, not healed, not untouched, but like a man who’d been allowed to remember he still belonged to the living.
His beard was trimmed, the heavy, wild growth reduced to a neat line along his jaw. He’d pulled his hair back off his face, and the clean plane of his cheeks made him look younger and older at the same time.
He wore fresh clothes that didn’t hang off him like a flag of surrender. He carried a small duffel like it weighed nothing, but Ellory saw the tension in the set of his shoulders and knew it would be a while before he lost it.
Then her gaze traveled higher and she stopped short.
Archer was wearing his hair…
In a man bun.
She stared, stunned into a silence that lasted a full beat too long.
His mouth twitched. “Don’t.”
“Oh, I’m going to.” Her voice broke into a laugh that tried to turn into a sob and failed at both. “I don’t know how to feel about the man bun.”
He lifted a hand as if he might rip it out, then thought better of it. “Me either. But it’s the best I can do without a barber.”
Ellory covered her mouth but the laugh escaped anyway. It felt good—too good—to laugh at him after everything. It felt like proof that he was real. That he was here, teasing her back, looking at her like he recognized her.
The wind from the blades was cold despite the warmer temperature. She folded her arms, careful of her healing thumbs.
Angelo came up behind her, close enough that his heat seeped into her back. He didn’t touch her at first, just stoodthere, an anchor she could lean on without admitting she needed it even though she wanted to turn to him and beg him to order Archer to stay longer.
