Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Shannon was sitting on the edge of her bed, hair still damp from her shower, when her phone buzzed across the nightstand.
Dante Olivetti – Incoming call.
Her breath caught. She snatched the phone up. “Hey.”
There was airport noise at first—announcements, rolling luggage, the dull hum of tired travelers. A door closed, and the noise ended. Then Dante’s voice settled through the line, low and warm. “I made it. Just arrived at the airport. I’m at the charter lounge.”
“In DC?”
“Yeah. Had a briefing. We leave again soon. Figured I’d call before things get… complicated.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Tired. Wired. You know the cocktail.”
She closed her eyes. “I hate this part.”
“Me too.” He paused. “I didn’t want to just disappear on you, Shannon. Not after this morning.”
Her throat tightened. “So, this is… the last call before you go dark?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Listen, when the comms cut… that’s not me gone. That’s just the op. I’m still coming back. I’m coming back to you.”
Her stomach dipped. “How long is ‘a while’?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Could be a few days. Could be longer. Depends on the deal, depends on access, depends on how deep we have to go.”
Her eyes stung. She lay back on the bed slowly. “I know,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t,” Dante said. “Not enough. So I’m going to say it again: I’m coming back.”
She swallowed the ache in her chest. “And if you don’t call?”
“Then I’m busy breathing. Busy doing my job. Not gone. Not out. Just off the grid.”
She pressed her palm against her eyes. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s not, but the only way I get through is knowing you’re here. Flying again. Fighting again. Being you.”
A shaky breath left her. “Dante?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you.”
There was a small, sharp inhale on his end. “I love you too.” No hesitation. No rush. No shame. “More than is good for either of us, probably.”
She laughed. “Sounds about right.”
There was another pause. He let it stretch as the moment settled. “I’m going dark soon, but you’re with me. Every step. Every stupid risk. Every decision.”
“I’ll be here,” she said. “Waiting for you. Not pausing. Not hiding. But waiting.”
“Good. I like waiting.”
The background noise shifted again into muffled voices, a PA announcement, a boarding call.
“Time for me to board.”
“Dante?”
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
Silence pulsed warm between them. “Good night, Shannon. I’ll see you when I’m done.”
“Good night,” she breathed. “Come home.”
The line clicked. The room felt bigger and colder.
She did her nighttime routine on autopilot. All the actions felt distant, like she was moving underwater. She slid into bed, pulled the blanket up, and waited for the heat pack to kick in. Without him, the room had edges again.
She reached for the pillow he always used, the faint smell of his warm skin, clean soap, and a whisper of cologne still clinging to the fabric.
Her heart clenched hard enough to steal her breath.
She tucked the pillow against her side, curled around it, and shut her eyes.
Not to sleep, just to feel like she wasn’t entirely alone in the space he’d filled that morning.
She whispered into the dark, voice trembling, “Come back to me, Dante.”
There was no answer, but she held the pillow tighter. Eventually, exhaustion pulled her under.
EN ROUTE TO RAMSTEIN AIR BASE – 0132 HOURS
The cabin lights were dimmed to a soft amber glow, lighting meant to calm nerves and trick overloaded brains into resting. It wasn’t working on any of them.
The jet cut through the upper atmosphere with the steady, low hum of engines tuned within an inch of perfection. Dante sat buckled into the forward-facing seat along the port side, watching the darkness beyond the small oval window.
Ford Cox—no, Lex Harper—leaned back with one ankle crossed over his knee, eyes running over a script. He was already in character, the shift so subtle, a stranger would never know. Dante did.
The jet had been airborne for three hours before Ian finally closed his classified packet, slid it into the secure case, and looked directly at Dante. “You okay?”
Dante lifted a shoulder. “Define okay.”
Ian’s mouth twitched faintly. “Conscious. Functional. Not planning to throw yourself out the emergency hatch.”
“That’s three checkmarks,” Dante said. “Give me a harder test.”
Tate drummed his fingers on the table. “You left her today. That’s… a lot.”
“Yeah.” Dante’s tone didn’t rise, didn’t harden. “She knows the job. I know the job. Doesn’t make the goodbye part easier.”
Zach glanced up from his notes. “She sounded strong. When I walked past her suite earlier, she was briefing with Hunt like she owned the damn building.”
“She does,” Ford muttered without looking up. “She’s a Johnson.”
Dante didn’t smile, but something in him loosened at that.
Ian leaned forward, hands steepled. “We’re not sugarcoating this. This isn’t a standard arms intercept. The network is organized, funded, and well-connected. If Krueger’s intel is even half accurate, this op is bigger than what DoD put in their briefings.”
Zach added, “And the fact that they’re already lining up informants and deals means they want this containable, not solvable.”
Tate gave a humorless scoff. “Containment doesn’t work with nuclear material.”
Ford flicked his burner phone off and looked up. “So, we solve it,” he said simply. Not bravado but a statement of fact.
Ian nodded toward him. “Lex Harper’s timeline is collapsing faster than expected. The buyers he’s supposed to impress are paranoid. They’ll test you. Hard. You’ll need to lean on Dante.”
Ford’s gaze slid to Dante. “I plan to.”
Zach interjected, “They’ll assume any security Harper brings is as dirty as he is. That’s your strength. You don’t flinch. You don’t posture. You don’t break character.”
Dante took the words in and let them settle.
Ian continued, “You’re not going as Bravo Team. You’re not a gunman on a ridge. You’ll be inside the lion’s mouth. Eyes open. Heart rate steady.”
Dante leaned back, finally letting his spine hit the seat. “I know the job.”
“No,” Ian said quietly. “You know the outline. You don’t know the details yet.”
He pressed a button, and the screen shifted to a still image. It was grainy, taken from a drone. A warehouse compound. Armed men smoking under a corrugated metal awning. A heavy crate being unloaded by a forklift. The container had no markings.
Zach exhaled. “That’s the most alarming thing about it.”
Ford didn’t blink. “They don’t mark ghosts.”
Tate looked at Dante, eyes sharp. “Your presence tells them Harper is cautious. That he’s not stupid.”
“And it tells them,” Zach added, “if they try anything stupid… someone is going to end them before they get a second shot.”
Ian let the silence sit for a long beat before he finally asked, “You ready?”
Dante’s eyes stayed on the dark window for a moment. He saw nothing but reflection. The ghost of himself. The ghost of Shannon’s face as he walked out her door. Then he looked back at Ian, Ford, Zach, and Tate. They were men who all carried their own ghosts. “I’m ready.”
Ford nodded once, sealing it.
Ian leaned back, satisfied.
Tate let out the breath he’d been holding.
Zach closed his legal pad.
And the jet kept cutting eastward, toward Ramstein, toward Africa, toward the fire.
Toward whatever waited for them on the other side. No one slept on the plane.