Chapter One
Bateman stood in the shadowed doorway of the gym, arms crossed, watching the heavy bag swing under punishing blows.
Ricky Bowen didn’t look angry.
He looked focused—brutally so.
His knuckles were already red, the wraps soaked through, sweat dripping from his shoulders like rainfall as he pounded the bag with mechanical precision. Jab, cross, hook. Jab, hook, hook. His rhythm never broke. Never slowed. Just kept hammering, each impact echoing like a body hitting concrete.
Bateman watched the way Ricky’s jaw clenched, the way his breath caught between combinations. The tight set of his shoulders. The hollow silence between his grunts of effort. No music played. No earbuds. Just fists and breath and pain.
He was going to hurt for this later.
Bateman knew that better than most. The shoulder Ricky had taken a round through that time in Chechnya still didn’t have the full range of motion.
He was compensating. Driving power through the hips to make up for what his upper body had lost. And if he didn’t pull something now, it would flare up during a climb, a sprint, a crawl.
But that wasn’t what made Bateman’s chest ache.
It was the look in Ricky’s eyes. Or rather—the lack of one.
Blank. Fixed. Like he’d locked onto something invisible and wasn’t going to stop until it broke, or he did.
This is what pain looks like when it can’t find a place to land, Bateman thought.
He’d seen it before. In Blake. In himself. And now in Ricky, silent and empty, burning through his own body as if he could sweat the ache out through his skin. For three months, he hadn’t cracked. Not once.
No shouting.
No tears. Nothing. Just—stillness. Bateman knew it had something to do with Ezra.
It couldn’t be coincidence that the morning this ice-cold Ricky turned up at the breakfast table was the same morning Ezra had ghosted.
And whenever the man’s name was mentioned, Ricky would turn to stone and walk away.
And it was tearing the team apart in small, sharp ways.
Dale Ricoh had snapped at him during a loadout last week.
“If you’re gonna ghost us, at least stop breathing down my fucking neck while I pack.
” Marsh had quietly closed his laptop and walked away from the comms and innovation hub the day before, muttering something about “atmospheric pressure” and “radio silence.”
Even Hogan—laid-back, unbothered Hogan—had stopped inviting Ricky to sit with them at meals. Bateman watched all of it. Tracked it like he would a failing weapon system—silent, precise, and waiting for the damn thing to explode.
Ricky stepped back, shook out his hands, then surged forward again, unleashing a brutal combo that made the bag shudder on its chain. His breath hitched. He didn’t stop.
Bateman exhaled slowly, feeling the weight of it press against his ribs.
He couldn’t order Ricky to talk. Couldn’t mission-plan his way into the space where grief lived. But he also couldn’t sit by while one of his men drowned in silence and pulled the rest of them under with him.
Something has to give, he thought, stepping back from the door.
If Ricky wouldn’t speak, Bateman would go find someone who could.
And, as he had recently discovered, Dev Roberts, leader of Sniper Team Bravo, had known Ricky Bowen longer than anyone.
The drive out to Cottonwood Farm didn’t even take an hour, but it felt longer. Bateman kept the windows down, let the early autumn wind bite against his skin. He didn’t take the direct route. Took turns for no reason. Sat in silence the whole way.
He didn’t have to ask permission to leave Ridge. Didn’t post a request. Just logged a line in the duty tracker. Recon. Personal. 6 hours.—LT.
No one would question it.
When he pulled through Bravo’s outer compound gate and drove up the drive to the main carpark, Finn was already there—leaned up against a sand-dusted Jeep, sleeves rolled to the elbows, aviators reflecting the afternoon sun and that trademark grin of his like he’d been waiting all day to cause trouble.
“Well, well,” Finn drawled. “Look who decided to grace us with his joyless presence. Thought I felt the local temperature drop five degrees. You come to mock our PT schedule or do the neighborly thing and borrow sugar?”
Bateman stepped out, unbothered. “Looking for Dev.”
Finn tilted his head, one eyebrow creeping up. “Of course you are. You didn’t think the big bastard wouldn’t know you were on your way, did you?”
Bateman paused. “He said something?”
Finn smirked. “Why the hell do you think the damn gate is open and my hot ass is out here waiting on you? He just got this look about twenty minutes ago—real still, like he was smelling rain on the wind or some shit. Said, ‘Bateman’s coming. Gate’ll need opening.
’ Then went back to typing like he hadn’t just blown a hole in the laws of physics. ”
Bateman didn’t blink. “That’s not concerning at all.”
“Oh, it’s absolutely concerning. I’m just too emotionally involved and physically attracted to the man to care,” Finn said cheerfully. “Let me guess—team trouble?”
Bateman didn’t answer.
Finn just nodded knowingly. “Yeah, figured. You’d only crawl out of your bunker for one of three things—a teammate bleeding, Blake or one of your kids breaking something important, or the Earth literally reversing spin.”
A beat.
“It's the first one, isn’t it?”
Bateman didn’t confirm.
Finn gave a theatrical sigh. “You Pathfinders are so damn dramatic. Lucky for you, Dev’s got a PhD in brooding soldier psychology. Knows men—if you know what I mean.” He winked, far too pleased with himself.
Bateman arched a brow. “That supposed to be subtle?”
“Subtleties for snipers and sex scandals. I’m the leader’s hot husband. I come in loud.”
Bateman shook his head, but the ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth.
Finn jerked his thumb toward the barracks. “He’s in his office. Got that thousand-yard stare thing he does. Either solving global crises or planning to kill someone with a clipboard. You’ll know when you see it.”
Bateman gave a sharp nod. “Appreciate it.”
“Any time. Just remember bring a container next time if you’re gonna borrow sugar. And maybe your sense of humor.”
Bateman didn’t look back. “Didn’t pack it.”
“Classic Bateman,” Finn called after him. “Two hundred pounds of muscle and not one ounce of charm!”
Blake would disagree, he thought to himself as he walked toward Dev’s office.
Dev looked up as Bateman stepped inside, then leaned back slowly in his chair. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes—like always—saw too much.
“Bateman,” he said simply.
“Three months,” Bateman replied, without preamble. “And he hasn’t come back to us.”
Dev didn’t ask who. He just nodded.
Bateman dropped into the chair across from him. “I’ve seen him shut down before. Couple days. A bad week. Not like this. It’s like something hollowed him out and he’s just ... keeping the lights on.”
Dev leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Tell me.”
So, Bateman did. The last mission. Ezra. The disappearance. Ricky’s silence. Dale’s frustration. Marsh’s retreat. His own guilt. It came out like mission data—factual, tight, efficient. But under it all, there was no missing the real cry for help that had bought Bateman there—I am losing my team.
“You remember Van,” Bateman said quietly.
Dev’s expression shifted—just slightly. A flicker in the eyes. A line tightening at the jaw. “He died here on our lands, protecting us and ours, so hard to forget him. Yeah,” he said, voice low, “I remember.”
Bateman leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped like he was holding something fragile there.
“This—feels the same. That same pressure. Like the floor’s about to give out under us.
Like if I don’t do something now, I’m going to watch my team implode from the inside—and there won’t be anything left to rebuild. ”
Dev nodded, slow and deliberate. His chair creaked as he stood and walked to the window. Outside, clients were hauling gear through the mud in tight formation, rain soaking their shirts, their boots carving deep tracks into the earth.
He watched them for a moment, the silence stretching.
“You know how Ricky and I started working together?” Dev said finally, without turning.
Bateman waited.
“Veracruz,” Dev said. “We were still enlisted, just another two names on the roster. He was young, but sharp. Had that edge—hyper-aware, like he was constantly three seconds from bolting or shooting. Fast. Smart. Deadly in the field. And twice as deadly with silence.”
Bateman didn’t interrupt. He just let the weight settle.
“We were on a black-ops interdiction team, pushing through a corridor that wasn’t supposed to exist. Mission was to shut down cartel logistics.
Weapons. Laundered cash. But then it got muddy.
Intel started going sideways. Comms were jammed more often than not.
And one of ours, a senior tech named Wallace, started acting weird. ”
Dev turned from the window, leaned against the frame.
“At first, we thought he was just covering his ass. That he’d made a mistake or two. Then we found the crate.”
Bateman’s mouth pressed into a line.
“Artifacts,” Dev said. “Smuggled from Iran. Rugs, coins, burial masks. Underneath? Bricks of opium. He wasn’t just moving product, he was facilitating the route.
And worse, there was proof that they were trafficking people, too.
Kids. Locals caught in the crossfire. Selling them off like inventory. ”
Bateman’s knuckles whitened.
“We confronted him. Thought maybe it was just greed. Maybe he was scared, that he was being forced into it. Then he pulled a gun on Ricky.” Dev’s voice dropped. “And I didn’t hesitate. Put two rounds center mass before he could squeeze the trigger. Clean. Fast. But not quiet.”
He paused.
“We filed the report. Told command exactly what happened. They redacted it. Said Wallace died in action. Honorable discharge. No ceremony but he got a pension.”
Bateman looked up. “And Ricky?”