And then I caught the set of his shoulders, the way he moved—not rushing, not hesitating, just covering ground with the absolute certainty that he belonged exactly where he was—and something in my chest unlocked so fast it almost embarrassed me.
Cruz.
Not in Belarus. Not in Frankfurt. Not anywhere he was supposed to be, given the text he’d sent twelve hours ago. Here. On my property. Moving toward my front door with his jump bag over one shoulder.
I stayed in the kitchen. Didn’t go out to meet him. Watched him cross the gravel drive with his eyes on the house the whole time—not looking for threats, not searching for exits, justtracking the single light burning in my kitchen window like it was the only thing worth seeing for miles.
He took the porch steps in two strides and knocked—three firm raps that carried through the still night air.
I moved to the door on autopilot, my hand on the lock before I’d fully decided to answer. When I pulled it open, Cruz was standing on the porch exactly where I’d known he would be—back straight, shoulders square, eyes fixed on mine with that look he always gave me. Like he was solving a problem he already knew the answer to. Like whatever came next was inevitable.
“You jumped in,” I said, the words coming out rougher than I’d intended.
“Seemed faster,” he replied, his voice level, his eyes never leaving my face.
I let out a breath that was almost a laugh and stepped back to let him inside. “You could have called.”
“You’d have told me not to come.”
He was right. I would have. Would have said we had it covered, would have insisted the team could handle it, would have found a dozen reasons why he didn’t need to fly across an ocean and jump out of a plane in the dark.
All of them lies.
Cruz moved past me into the kitchen, his shoulder brushing mine in the narrow doorway. He set his bag on the floor by the table and started unpacking it with practiced movements—phone, tablet, a satellite phone I recognized from a dozen different operations.
“Rawley’s team found a camera on the eastern fence line,” he said, pulling up a map on the tablet. “Military tread boot prints at the creek crossing. Cut wire with an amateur repair job.”
I nodded. “I sent you the photos.”
“I saw them.” He spread my phone photographs across the table alongside a printed property map that looked identical to the one I’d been staring at for the past three nights. “The camera position was chosen carefully. Clear line of sight to the main drive, coverage of both the house and the stable. Whoever placed it knew what they were looking for.”
He worked with focused efficiency, moving between the tablet and the paper map without breaking his train of thought. Outside, his team was sweeping the fence line—I could see their silhouettes moving through the darkness beyond the window, methodically checking each post, each approach, each potential camera position.
I moved to the counter and started a fresh pot of coffee, watching Cruz over my shoulder as he worked. He’d flown out of a mission in Belarus, HALO-jumped into a Montana pasture at three in the morning, and was now sitting in my kitchen like it was the most natural place in the world to be.
The uncomfortable part was that it was.
“The boot prints,” he said, not looking up from the tablet. “How many distinct tread patterns?”
“Two,” I answered, setting two mugs on the counter. “Different weights. One was carrying something heavy.”
He nodded, fingers moving across the tablet screen. “Primary and secondary. One running surveillance, one providing over watch.” He tapped the screen, bringing up a satellite image of the eastern tree line. “There are two more camera positions. Here and here.”
He pointed to spots on the image—one at the junction of the eastern and northern fence lines, one halfway up the ridge that overlooked the main pasture. Both with clear sightlines to Rawley and Jojo’s farmhouse and the main barn.
“Military-grade cellular trail cameras,” he continued. “Same model as the one you found. They’re running on alternatingfrequencies—one active while the other transmits, then switch. Makes them harder to detect with a standard sweep.”
He laid it all out with the same even tone he used for everything—no embellishment, no theater, just the facts as he’d calculated them. But I heard the subtext without needing it spelled out: whoever built this net was patient, methodical, not adaptive. Couldn’t improvise when conditions shifted.
And Cruz had already found where it broke.
The coffee finished brewing. I filled both mugs and carried them to the table, setting one in front of Cruz without interrupting his flow. He picked it up automatically, took a sip without looking, then went back to the tablet.
“The pattern’s clear,” he said, tracing a line across the image with his finger. “They’re watching the main house, not the outbuildings or the perimeter. Specifically the eastern approach and the front drive. The cameras are positioned to catch anyone coming or going from the front of the house.”
“Rawley’s team did a full sweep yesterday,” I said. “Found the one camera, checked the fence line, cleared the tree line beyond the creek. Didn’t find these.”
Cruz nodded. “They would have needed satellite coverage to spot them. The cameras are mounted facing away from the property—lens pointed outward, casing blended with the post. You wouldn’t see them from the ground unless you knew exactly where to look.”
