Chapter Nine #2
“Never,” he said, each word precise, “suggest this again. Not for this. Not for anything. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Commander,” Burke said, the formal address landing with like an inside joke, and he was visibly, unrepentantly delighted with himself.
Rawley ran a hand over his face, the gesture carrying the exhaustion of a man who’d been through this before and had hoped never to see it again.
“Get the bunkhouse ready,” he said. “Seven bunks, separate building, no access to the main house without escort. And you’re on airstrip pickup.
I want eyes on the sky until they touch down. ”
Burke nodded, already reaching for his phone to make arrangements.
Rawley turned toward the house, hand on Jojo’s lower back, the gesture carrying the care of a man touching something precious.
“I’m going to go hold my husband and my son before everything goes sideways,” he said, the statement simple but carrying more weight than its words should have been able to. “Tomorrow, we run this by the numbers.”
He went inside, the screen door closing behind him with a soft click.
Macon followed with a single nod in our direction, his movement of a man who didn’t waste motion on things that didn’t matter.
Burke went last, a two-finger salute tossed at no one in particular, his boots loud on the porch steps as he headed for the bunkhouse.
And then it was just me and Decker, alone on the porch in the dark, the phone still sitting on the railing where Burke had left it, the weight of what had just happened settling across my shoulders like a physical thing.
“Tell me,” I said, the words coming out before I’d decided to offer them. “Please. Plain language. What just happened?”
Decker looked at me directly, eyes on mine, not softening what he was about to say.
“Sterling is Burke’s brother. He went into a branch of the military that doesn’t get written down in any official record anywhere.
The only way to reach him is through a coded call—dial, hang up, wait.
He‘s the best there is at protection and finishing a job.”
“Finishing,” I repeated, the word landing with a weight I hadn’t expected.
Decker nodded once, the movement definitive. “He tends to leave bodies behind him. But he will not touch anyone Burke brought him here to protect. That line holds. No exceptions.”
I absorbed this, my hands still loose in my lap, my eyes on the dark tree line past the yard. “Is he someone I need to be afraid of?” I asked, the question simple but carrying more weight than its words should have been able to.
“No,” Decker said, and he said it with a certainty that my shoulders dropped a fraction, some of the tension going out of them without my permission.
He patted my thigh once—not a gesture, just a point of contact. “Come inside,” he said. “We’re likely to get quite a show come tomorrow.”
I wasn’t sure that was a comfort—seven people HALO-dropping onto a Montana ranch on my behalf was not a thought that sat easily—but I got up and followed Decker to the door, his hand a warm presence at the small of my back, not pushing, just present.
At the threshold to my room, instead of saying goodnight, I reached out and closed my hand around Decker’s arm and pulled him inside. I didn’t explain it. I didn’t try to find words for it.
I just knew I didn’t want to be alone with the image currently living in my head—seven men dropping from the sky to break Gerald’s kneecaps on my behalf—and that Decker’s presence was the one thing tonight that made any of this feel like something I could get through to the other side of.
He came without hesitation, without questions, the door closing behind him with a soft click that sounded like safety in the quiet room.
I closed the door behind us with a careful click that somehow managed to sound like a decision being made.
The bedroom was dark except for the thin strip of light from the window—not enough to see Decker’s expression, but enough to make out the shape of him, the solidness of his presence in the quiet room.
“Tell me what’s actually happening,” I said, the words coming out more direct than I’d intended. “Not the tactical version. Not what they said on the porch. Just... what’s happening to me. Please.”
Decker didn’t soften it or try to make it sound less alarming than it was.
“Gerald Hughs has resources and connections that most civilians can’t access.
He’s used to getting what he wants, and he’s decided that’s you.
He’s in Montana with at least two ex-military personnel as security.
He found the ranch today, which means he’ll find it again, probably with more men and better planning. ”
I absorbed this, my hands loose at my sides, my eyes on Decker’s face in the thin light from the window. “And you?” I asked, the question coming out before I’d decided to offer it. “What happens to you in all this?”
Something moved behind Decker’s eyes—not quite surprise, but adjacent to it. “I stay with you,” he said, the simple statement carrying more weight than its words should have been able to. “Whatever happens next, you’re not facing it alone.”
The moment settled into my chest like a physical thing—not the dramatic swelling of music or the flush of fiction, but something quieter and more certain: the simple fact of a man who’d decided I was worth protecting and wasn’t performing concern or obligation, just offering the thing itself.
I reached for him without fully deciding to do it—one hand coming up to rest against his chest, palm flat over his heart. He was warm through his shirt, his heartbeat steady underneath my palm.
He didn’t move—didn’t step forward or back, didn’t close the distance or create more—just stood where he was, letting me decide what happened next.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” I said, the words simple but carrying more weight than they should have been able to. “Not with... everything.”
Decker nodded once—a short, definitive movement—and then his hand was on my face, thumb tracing my jaw line with a touch so gentle it made something in my chest ache. “You don’t have to be,” he said, voice low in the darkness.