“You think he was trying to do something.”
His throat works once. “He was.”
“Something covert.”
He doesn’t answer.
I laugh softly, humorless. “God.”
The room suddenly feels too small. I pace once toward the window, fog pressing white against the glass. Everything starts rearranging again. The shorter letters. The gaps in communication. The strange wording in the reports.
The missing details.
Phoenix wasn’t just another Marine caught in an ambush. He was involved in something bigger. Somethinghidden.
And Rhys…
I turn back toward him sharply. “You stopped him.” The words leave me before I fully understand them.
Rhys’s face changes instantly.
“You thought he was breaking protocol.”
“He was.”
“But you didn’t know why.”
“No.” The answer is immediate this time. Painfully honest.
I move closer slowly. “And afterward… you realized he might’ve had a reason.”
Rhys looks at me for a very long time. “Yes.” The confession settles between us like smoke.
I press a hand hard against my ribs. My brother. My brilliant, reckless brother. Running toward something Rhys couldn’t see.
Maybe trying to stop something worse. Maybe trying to save lives. Maybe…
No.
I stop myself there because I still don’t know. That’s the worst part. I don’t know if Phoenix was right. I only know he chose.
“He chose this,” I whisper. My eyes flick back to the reports. Piles of them. Something else sticks out. “Acceptable damage,” I say.
Rhys doesn’t answer. Doesn’t deny it either. And the silence becomes its own kind of confirmation.
“That was First Recon.”
Rain lashes harder against the roof. The mountain disappears entirely beyond the windows now, swallowed by darkness and cloud.
I think about the tattoo burned across Rhys’s chest.Those coordinates.A man marking himself forever at the exact place everything fell apart.
“You’ve been punishing yourself for this the whole time,” I say quietly.
Rhys’s expression hardens slightly. “Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you still don’t know enough.”
