Chapter 1 #2
“Where’s the damn nuisance?” he grunts. “Still need to chew his ass out for thinking I’m old enough to be his father.”
I snort.
The poor kid really did mistake the German tank for his dad.
And honestly? None of us were prepared for the truth either.
But that’s behind us now. He’s got us. The family that waited for him.
The family that fights beside him. And the girl who now glares at King like she’s seconds from sinking her teeth into his ankle.
“No, you won’t,” she mutters—low and lethal, like a trigger being pulled—then storms off before either of us can react. Her dress swishes around her knees, that green silk cutting through the crowd like a warning flare.
“You heard the lady,” I say, half-laughing as King and I fall into step behind her.
But I catch it. The way his pace changes.
It’s subtle at first—until it isn’t.
Raylen’s just been intercepted. Another woman grabs her arm.
Not violently, but firmly enough that I can’t tell if it’s the motion or the instinct behind it that has King moving faster.
His shoulders tense, boots dragging heavier, strides lengthening without permission.
There’s heat behind his mask now—something a little too sharp to ignore.
I reach out without a word, wrapping my fingers around his elbow and pulling him back just enough to meet his eyes. One brow arched.
Easy.
He glances sideways, then forward again, jaw tight beneath that ridiculous makeshift wrap.
At first, I think it’s his typical overprotectiveness flaring now that our “family” is larger than just him, me, and Delilah.
But when his gaze doesn’t leave the woman holding Raylen—Laura—I realize this isn’t about instincts.
He’s watching her.
The medic.
The one who practically held my son together with shaking hands and iron resolve when it should’ve been me in that chair. Me bleeding, me with the pain, not him.
A cold, familiar pit forms in my stomach.
If I’d known I had a son… If I’d known he existed…
he never would’ve walked this path. Never would’ve stepped into the teeth of the military machine.
He’d have had a real life. A quiet one. A shit job in a shit town, maybe, but he would’ve had the choice.
He never would’ve needed Greenport, never would’ve needed me to be anything more than a story his mother told.
But I didn’t know. Not until it was too late. Not until he was already forged in the same fire that built me.
And now, some twisted turn of fate has dumped him on my doorstep—not as a boy I could raise, but as a man I barely recognize.
Raised by strangers. Raised by soldiers. By people who weren’t his parents but somehow still hold the title I never got to earn.
They wouldn’t have let him take a risk like that. Wouldn’t have let him go rogue on a mission, pull a stunt that nearly killed him. They would have wrapped themselves around him like armor and refused to let him break.
I clear my throat hard, swallowing the guilt before it swallows me. The music swells again, oblivious.
No use getting caught in self-pity. Not here. Not today.
I slide into the pew behind Raylen and Laura, King settling next to me with all the subtlety of a falling boulder.
The wood creaks under his weight, the whole row shuddering like it might collapse.
Neither of the women look back. Maybe they feel the weight of us behind them—or maybe they’re too wrapped in whatever silent conversation passed between them to notice the tension shifting through our row like a current.
This whole wedding is surreal.
But I’ve got time now—a second chance—and I’m not wasting it.
Moe and I—we’re finding our rhythm. It’s not perfect, not sentimental.
But it’s real. We text. We talk. We argue.
We figure shit out in our own way. Sometimes he hangs up on me.
Sometimes I deserve it. It’s not the kind of father-son bond you read about in stories, but it works.
And for us—for who we are—that’s enough.
The music swells, strings sweeping through the air like a breath being held.
Heads start to turn as Cordelia steps into the clearing ahead, sunlight catching the shimmer of her veil and the proud, still look on Caspian’s face as he waits for her.
Her dress moves like water, and for once, no one is calculating exits or angles. They’re just… watching.
For a moment, everything stills.
Even the ghosts in my head.
Even the ache in my chest.
Because despite the fractured lives we all carry, despite the bullets and blood and names erased from existence—this… this is peace.
And for now, we get to feel it. If only for one night.
Let the war wait.
Let the reception begin.
***
The reception’s in full swing now.
String lights zigzag overhead, soft and gold, casting a warm haze over the makeshift dance floor and linen-draped tables.
The sky above is ink-dark, stars swallowed by the glow of the event, but the air still smells like ocean and bonfire.
Laughter blends with low music and the clink of glass, but I stay near the perimeter, nursing my drink more for the motion than the taste.
The alcohol is decent, but I don’t trust myself drunk in a room full of people who know what I look like bleeding.
I spot Moe near one of the side tables, half-silhouetted in the dim.
The kid’s got his shoulders stiff, jaw locked like he’s trying to chew his way through a memory, and I know that expression a little too well.
I’ve worn it. I’ve buried friends wearing it.
Arms crossed tight over his chest, he looks like he’s holding himself together by sheer force of will.
He hasn’t seen me yet.
He’s locked in on something—or rather, someone—and I follow his line of sight instinctively. Then I see her.
Raylen.
She’s just as stiff as ever, scanning the area like she doesn’t know how to act in a public setting, or rather, like she doesn’t know what to do now that there’s no immediate threat to neutralize.
No firefight. No objective. Just people dancing and bad pop songs.
Moe’s eyes haven’t left her since she walked in, and hell, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what kind of storm’s brewing behind that stare.
I weave between a couple of Alpine soldiers mid-conversation, sidestepping a tipsy sniper and a tray of champagne flutes, angling toward him. There’s a second of hesitation when I get close—I don’t want to spook him—but it passes quick. I’ve never been one to dance around a moment.
I step up beside him.
“Stop staring,” I mutter, elbowing him just hard enough to slosh his drink. The glass tips slightly, and he flinches like I just pulled him out of a trench.
His scowl comes next, automatic. “I’m not staring.”
I snort. “You’re burning holes in her skull. People are gonna start thinking you developed laser vision. Or had a stroke.”
He takes a slow sip of whatever’s in his glass—champagne, if I had to guess—and tries like hell to act unfazed.
But I can see it. The way his throat bobs.
The twitch of his fingers around the stem.
The way his gaze drags back to her like a magnet every time he looks away.
The kid looks like longing wrapped in panic and dipped in guilt.
“Appreciate the medical concern,” he mutters.
I lean in slightly, keeping the grin just enough to needle him without pushing too far. “So… you two back together yet, or are you still practicing your professional level emotional constipation?”
He shoots me a glare that could peel paint. “Why do you always sound like you read one therapy book and never emotionally recovered from it?”
“Skimmed a pamphlet once,” I shrug. “Vet’s office. Had diagrams.”
It’s a lie. I sound straight out of a therapy book because of therapy, but he doesn’t need that information right now. I’m not ready to be that version of a father yet—the honest one. For now, he gets sarcasm and half-truths. It’s what I know.
He snorts—but it’s short-lived. His gaze drifts back toward her, involuntary as breath. Like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it anymore.
“I don’t know,” he says after a pause, voice quieter. “She came for the wedding. Not for me.”
The silence that follows is a different kind.
The kind made from shared weight. Years of knowing too many goodbyes, too many what-ifs, and all the things that never got said until it was too damn late.
The kind of silence where every version of “I’m scared” gets swallowed because no one wants to be the first to say it.
I look at him. Really look.
There’s a crack showing now, just beneath the surface of all that calm.
A fracture that wasn’t there before. I could say something.
Something decent, even—tell him that the way she looked at him earlier didn’t scream indifference, that love and fear look damn similar on the face of someone who’s already lost too much.
But just as I start to open my mouth, my phone vibrates against my thigh, cutting through everything like a blade. The sensation yanks me back to reality so fast I almost see stars.
I pull it out, glancing at the screen, and my stomach drops.
Shit. Larkin.
Moe must see it on my face. “Problem?”
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath and press the phone to my ear, turning slightly away as the voice on the other end comes through short, sharp, and so not fucking good. The music and laughter blur into nothing as her words sink in.
“There’s been an issue. Covert mission gone sideways. Most soldiers made it out, but one was taken hostage. Report back to base.”
The words land like a punch. One taken. One left behind.
My mind is already spinning through questions—who, where, what assets we’ve got near the grid—but there’s no time for any of it.
Duty first. Always. Even when it cuts straight through the thin skin of something soft we were just starting to grow.
I hang up just as King appears out of the night like a damn ghost, a half-eaten cupcake in one hand, a belt knife in the other. It would be funny if it wasn’t us. If it wasn’t real.
“What?” he grumbles around a mouthful of cake.
“We’re going,” I say, already checking my weapon under my jacket, fingers moving on autopilot. Safety. Magazine. Holster. “Now.”
King sighs like the universe is personally screwing him over again. “Knew it was too damn quiet.”
He wipes frosting on his thigh without blinking, turns to a stunned-looking lieutenant beside him. “Hold this. Don’t eat it.”
We’re moving before the kid can even nod.
The music fades behind us as we slip toward the trees. Light gives way to dark, laughter to wind. The sand shifts under my boots, then gives way to firmer ground as we hit the path that leads back to the vehicles. I don’t look back, not until I’m at the edge of the tree line.
Then I glance over my shoulder.
Moe’s standing there, watching us go. Caught between the dance floor and the shadows. Between a life that could be his and the war that already is.
I meet his eyes—just for a second—and give him a nod. It’s not goodbye. It’s not permission.
It’s a promise.
I’ll be back.