When I finally look back at Niko, he’s watching me with that awful combination of hope and resignation you only get from men who are already preparing themselves to accept the answer they hate. “If I put you on this detail,” Isay, slowly, “you don’t get to go charging about proving points.”
A shadow of irritation crosses his face. “I wasn’t planning to—”
“Good. Because I will personally drag you off it if you start acting like a lunatic.” That gets the faintest huff out of him. “You stay on comms. You stay where you’re meant to be. If anything shifts and I tell you to fall back, you fall back. No heroics and no stubborn nonsense. Understood?”
“Understood.”
I hold his gaze for a second longer, looking for anything on his face that suggests he’s about to promise what he has no intention of keeping.
I don’t find it.
“All right,” I say.
Niko nods once, relief so controlled it nearly passes for nothing. “Don’t tell Ari.”
I stare at him. “Absolutely not.”
“Caiden—”
“No.”
“He’ll say no.”
“That’s because he has sense,” I argue.
“And you don’t?” I almost tell him, not enough, apparently, but I stop myself. He steps closer, his voice lower now. “He doesn’t need to know before it happens.” That’s a rotten argument, and he knows it. “He doesn’t need another thing to worry about,” Niko says.
I know what he’s doing, but then I think about telling Ari his brother came to me asking to be put on an operation his CO has already advised against. I think about the inevitable row and the fact I’m already halfway into one bad decision, and apparently considering a second.
I hate that Niko can tell I’m wavering. “Don’t tell him,” he says again. “Let me do my job. I'll tell him I went over your head. He will be angry with me, but only for a little while.”
Fucking shit.
“All right,” I say at last, and I hate how tired the words sound. “I won’t tell him.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t make it sound like I’ve done you some massive favour. I haven’t. I’ve either made a good call or a terrible one. We’ll find out which later.” I shake my head. “Go get ready.”
He turns, then he pauses at the door. “Caiden. You know you can trust me, right?”
“I know.” He nods in thanks, then leaves. The door shuts behind him, and I stand there in the hum of the equipment with my hands braced on the desk, staring at nothing. Then I reach for the headset and get on with it.
The operation starts. The intel is scrubbed twice, once by the joint team and once again by the British lead before anyone even sits down. The terrain is verified against satellite passes, drone footage, and boots-on-groundreports, filtered, summarised, and filtered again. Enemy presence is mapped and cross-checked until the margins narrow into something workable. Nothing on the board looks rushed or sloppy.
The room settles down the way they always do before something like this. Everyone is aware of where they’re standing, what they’re touching, and what they’re doing.
The maps glow across the wall in layered grids. Blue and green markers pulse faintly, updating on a rhythm just slow enough to notice if you’re watching for it. No one speaks unless they need to, and when they do, they’re clear and efficient.
I’m on comms. The channel discipline is tight, and call signs are clean. I track the units the way I always do, not as people but as positions, vectors, and time stamps advancing across a grid.
This is where I’m best, and where emotion stops being noise and becomes fuel. I don’t need calm to do this job.
I need everything else to get out of the way.
Niko’s unit is staged and ready; I deliberately assigned them. Their call sign shifts colour as it moves from standby to active. I watch them closely. They’re steady and experienced. They won’t rush, and if something shifts, they’ll adapt. If something goes wrong, they’ll hold long enough for correction.
I trust them.
