Sloane’s face pales. “Knew what?”
“That something was coming.” I drag a hand down my face. “Maybe not the exact ambush. Maybe not the timing. But enough.” The next words scrape on the way out. “And he never said a word. No warning. Nothing. Led us right into the snake’s den.”
Silence crashes down.
Sloane’s voice shakes slightly when she speaks again. “The explosion?”
I nod once. “IED first.” My gaze unfocuses. “Then gunfire from the rooftops.”
Everything after that exists in fragments.
Screaming. Smoke. One of my men missing half his leg. Phoenix shoved against concrete, blood soaking through his vest. My own hands slick red trying to drag him upright.
“I called extraction,” I say quietly. “Tried to move him.”
My throat locks hard. Because this is the part that never leaves me.
Phoenix gripping my vest weakly. Pulling me closer. Not afraid. God, that’s the worst part. He wasn’t afraid.
“He told me to leave him.”
Sloane’s eyes shine now. “No…”
“He said if I stayed, more of us would die.” My voice breaks slightly for the first time. “Said I’d already done enough damage.”
Lightning flashes violently across the room. And there it is. The truth sitting naked between us.
“I could’ve disobeyed,” I whisper. The confession tears something open inside my chest. “I could’ve stayed.”
Sloane stares at me motionlessly.
“But then what?” I ask roughly. “More dead Marines? Three already in the dirt.” My jaw tightens painfully. “He made the call for me.”
The room goes completely silent.
“He didn’t die because I left him.” The words land hard enough to shake me. “He died because he wouldn’t come with me. And because he knew before we did.”
Tears slide silently down Sloane’s face now. I hate myself for putting them there. But not enough to lie anymore.
“I can’t believe that. I just?—”
“You don’t think our lives get measured. Discussed in boardrooms. Acceptable risk, collateral damage. Whatever Phoenix was after was deemed worth more than all of us.”
“But you fought like hell to get out,” she says quietly, eyes meeting mine. “Because nothing was worth your men… or even my brother.”
I nod, looking away. “I still don’t know what he was trying to do,” I say quietly. “Maybe he was right. Maybe he would’vestopped something bigger.” My throat thickens. “Or maybe none of it would’ve mattered.”
“That’s not true.”
“How the hell would you know?” The sharpness in my voice shocks both of us. I look away immediately.
Sloane wipes at her face hard. Neither of us speak for a long moment. Because there’s nothing left to say.
No clean ending. No clear villain.
Just dead Marines. A failed mission. And two people left trying to pick up what remains of the truth.
Finally, Sloane speaks softly into the storm. “You forgave him.”
