Chapter 21
Captain Jonathan
The moment the gates of the country club come into view, my instincts start screaming.
Not loud. Not panicked. Just that low, steady pull behind my ribs that’s kept me alive longer than most men I came up with. The kind that tells you everything looks right—and that’s exactly why it isn’t. The kind that never announces itself with fireworks, only with certainty.
I slow the car without meaning to, eyes sweeping the perimeter like muscle memory never took a day off.
Uniformed security at the entrance. Civilian guards mixed in just enough to blur the line.
Cars filter through in a neat, polite line, polished and expensive, families inside are dressed in white and navy and medals they only wear on special days.
Greenport’s finest, past and present, wrapped up in tradition and pride.
Men who used to command black ops now smiling beside women in pearls.
Retired ghosts shaking hands in daylight like they were never built for darker things.
A perfect target.
Delilah shifts beside me, smoothing her dress over her knees, the white fabric catching the sun like it doesn’t know what it’s walking into.
She looks… composed. Focused. Too calm for someone who’s survived what she has.
That scares me more than if she’d been shaking.
Shaking would make sense. This stillness reads like effort.
Like she’s gripping herself together from the inside and refusing to let anyone see it.
I clock exits. Count bodies. Memorize faces.
Note the valet stand, the side door near the service corridor, the two ornamental hedges that could hide a rifleman if someone were patient enough to crawl through dirt in a pressed suit.
My gaze tracks reflections in tinted windows, slow-moving shadows, guests who look too interested in nothing at all.
Mikhail would love this.
He wouldn’t rush it. He never does. He’d watch first. Let us settle.
Let us believe we’re safe because of the flags and the speeches and the illusion of control.
He’d want maximum impact—physically, politically, emotionally.
He’d want blood in a room built for memory and legacy.
He’d want Greenport to bleed where everyone can see it.
And Delilah?
She’s not just collateral. She’s leverage.
Her father. King. Her mother. The history. The symbolism. If Mikhail wanted to send a message to Greenport, there is no cleaner way than bleeding it in public and making sure the right people are forced to watch.
I park, cut the engine, and step out first. Habit.
Delilah follows a beat later, and the sound of her heels on pavement pulls my attention despite myself.
I don’t look at her right away. If I do, I’ll start cataloging all the ways she’s exposed, all the places I’d put myself between her and the world if it came to that, all the ways white makes her stand out against a crowd full of softer colors.
I don’t get that luxury.
Her dad spots us almost immediately.
He looks older than the last time I saw him.
Not weaker—just worn in the way men get when they’ve buried too much and still keep showing up.
His face breaks into a grin when he sees Delilah, pride written so clearly it makes something twist hard in my chest. He moves toward her with his arms already half-open, like every year she gets older still surprises him and delights him in equal measure.
I hang back while they embrace, eyes still moving, still counting. I catch fragments of conversation—her mother calling from behind him, Delilah’s small laugh, the rustle of dresses and handshakes and warmth that should feel harmless—but my focus never leaves the crowd.
Too many phones.
Too many smiles.
Too many blind spots.
I slip a hand into my jacket and feel the familiar weight there. Reassuring. Necessary. A promise in cold metal.
“Jon,” her father says, pulling me into a clasped handshake that turns into a brief, hard hug. “Didn’t think you’d actually make it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I say, and for once it’s not just a line.
He claps my shoulder, oblivious to the way my attention keeps drifting back to Delilah, to how she positions herself just slightly closer to me than she needs to.
Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for me.
Like she knows, even if she doesn’t consciously realize it, that this is where she’s safest. That if the room goes wrong, I’m the direction she’ll turn without thinking.
I hate that I’m right.
Her mother hugs me next, all perfume and fondness and the kind of familiarity that makes this whole thing worse. She thanks me for coming, tells me I clean up well, asks if I’m staying for cake. I answer where I should, nod when expected, and keep mapping the room around us even while I smile.
As we move inside, the noise swells—music, conversation, glasses clinking.
Normal. Civilian. Exactly the kind of environment that makes professionals sloppy and enemies patient.
Chandeliers throw warm light over polished floors.
White linens. Navy ribbons. Framed photographs of Greenport service years lining one wall like history can protect the people standing under it.
The whole place smells like expensive liquor, buttercream, and old money trying to look patriotic.
I lean in close to Delilah as we walk, my voice pitched low. “If anything feels off, you don’t second-guess it. You come to me. Immediately.”
She nods without argument, eyes forward. “I know.”
I glance at her. “I mean it.”
“So do I.” Her mouth barely moves when she says it, but I hear the edge beneath it. Not defiance. Resolve. “I’m not freelancing anything tonight.”
That should reassure me. It doesn’t. Knowing and surviving are two different things, and I’ve buried too many people who knew better.
I scan the room again, mind already running contingencies, routes, worst-case scenarios. Somewhere in all of it, a thought cuts through sharper than the rest:
If Mikhail makes his move today, he’s not taking her.
Not while I’m breathing.
And as the doors close behind us and the party fully swallows us whole, I realize with absolute clarity—
This isn’t a celebration.
It’s a countdown.
***
For a long while, nothing happens.
That’s the problem.
The night stretches on, smooth and almost deceptively warm, and the longer it behaves itself, the tighter everything coils inside me.
I move through clusters of old faces and older stories like a ghost, shaking hands, accepting drinks I don’t touch, nodding at laughter that comes a half-second too late.
Every conversation bleeds into the next—wars that never really ended, missions that were supposed to be classified but have softened into legend with age, men congratulating each other for surviving long enough to become anecdotes.
I hear my own name more times than I care to count. Captain Cash. Jon. That crazy bastard from the northern route. Half the room remembers versions of me I barely recognize anymore. The other half only know the cleaned-up myths.
Then hers.
“She was sharp even back then,” someone says, grinning like it’s a harmless anecdote. “Ran that op with you—hell of a thing for someone her age—”
I cut it off instantly.
“Don’t,” I say, calm but hard enough that the smile dies where it stands. “That’s not a story you tell.”
The man blinks, chastened, muttering an apology before drifting away.
I don’t wait for it to settle. I scan the room again, eyes flicking instinctively toward Delilah’s parents across the floor, toward the way her mother laughs with a hand at her throat, unaware of how close the truth keeps brushing past her.
Toward her father’s easy smile when people clap him on the back and hand him another drink, still believing his daughter is simply “back for a visit,” not stitched into the guts of Greenport itself.
They can’t know.
They were never supposed to know.
The longer the night drags on without incident, the more irritated I get—not relieved.
Mikhail doesn’t miss opportunities like this.
He engineers them. The absence of chaos starts to feel deliberate, like the held breath before a strike.
Like he’s here somewhere, watching us all relax by degrees, waiting for the exact right second to turn celebration into carnage.
My jaw tightens. My shoulders itch beneath my jacket. Every laugh sounds too loud. Every toast feels premature.
I spot Delilah near the edge of the room, listening more than talking, gaze sharp even when she smiles.
Her mother has clearly stationed her with relatives and old family friends, women who pat her hand and comment on how beautiful she looks, men who ask if Europe “suited her.” She answers just enough.
Never too much. Never without watching the room.
She looks radiant in a way that has nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with the fact that she’s still standing after everything that tried to break her.
The sight of her hits me unexpectedly hard.
I make a decision before I can overthink it.
“Come with me,” I murmur when I reach her, fingers closing lightly around her wrist.
She glances up at me once, reads something in my face, and doesn’t argue. She never does when it matters. She excuses herself with some soft lie to her mother and lets me lead her away before anyone notices too much.
The balcony is quieter, the night air cool against the back of my neck, city lights bleeding into the dark beyond the club’s grounds.
Music still leaks through the doors behind us, muffled now, softened by glass and distance.
For a second, I just stand there with her, grounding myself in the fact that she’s here, breathing, alive.
Not in a cell. Not on a table in the med bay. Here.
“I didn’t forget,” I say, reaching into my pocket.
Her brows knit in confusion until I press the small box into her hand.
Inside is a thin chain, understated, military-grade alloy disguised as something elegant.
The pendant is simple—unassuming to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at—but it’s etched with a symbol only the two of us would recognize.
A marker from a mission that nearly killed us both.
A coordinate hidden in plain sight. A promise that didn’t need words then and needs them even less now.
Her fingers still over it. “Jon…”
“For you,” I say quietly. “Something that means… you’re not alone. Ever.”
Her breath catches. I see it happen—the second the sentiment lands harder than the metal in her palm. She doesn’t speak. She just steps closer and kisses me.
It’s not gentle.
It’s heat and need and all the things we keep pretending aren’t building between us, her hands fisting in my jacket, mine sliding to her waist like muscle memory.
For a heartbeat, the world narrows to the press of her mouth and the way my name feels on her breath when she exhales against me.
Her body fits against mine with terrible ease.
Like we’ve been walking around the shape of this for months and both know it.
Too much.
Too close.
Too dangerous.
The sound hits before the thought finishes.
A loud bang from inside—sharp, sudden.
We break instantly.
Training snaps into place, bodies moving as one.
I’ve got my weapon in my hand before my pulse even spikes, Delilah mirroring me, stance perfect, eyes hard, ready.
We’re already repositioning, already calculating angles, already preparing to move.
My body knows the drill before my mouth does.
Hers does too. Which is exactly the problem.
The doors fly open.
“Surprise!”
The word crashes into us like a physical blow.
Laughter spills out, followed by music swelling louder, and then Delilah’s parents appear, her mother beaming, her father pushing a massive cake forward with a grin that falters the second his eyes land on us.
On our stance.
On the guns.
On the way Delilah hasn’t even fully lowered hers yet.
The room erupts into confusion—voices overlapping, someone shouting, someone else laughing nervously, trying to smooth it over like it’s a joke gone wrong.
A server nearly drops a tray. Someone’s aunt lets out a scandalized gasp.
Half the retirees go rigid on instinct, old training flashing through old bones, while the civilians just stare.
Her father’s face drains of color.
“Delilah,” he says slowly, and there’s a new note in his voice now. Not anger. Not fear.
Recognition.
My pulse spikes hard.
“Everyone just relax,” I say, stepping forward, forcing my tone into command even as my eyes keep sweeping the room. “It’s a misunderstanding. Let’s take a breath—”
But the pieces are already clicking into place for him.
I can see it happening, each detail lining up with brutal clarity—the stance, the weapon, the reflex, the way she didn’t hesitate for even a second.
The way I didn’t either. The noise around us is growing louder, messier.
Curious eyes. Stiff silence. Too many witnesses. Too many angles.
Exactly the kind of chaos Mikhail would use as cover.
My hand tightens around my weapon.
Too many people.
Too much emotion.
Too perfect an opening.
And all I can think is—
If this goes sideways, it won’t be because Mikhail planned it.
It’ll be because we handed it to him.