Heir of Courage (Guardian Security Dynasty #8)

Chapter 1

The steady thump of rotor blades cut through the humid Florida air, low and rhythmic, growing louder as the helicopter tracked along the coastline.

Reece King stood barefoot at the edge of the sand, the sound pulling his attention skyward as the chopper passed overhead, sleek and dark against the pale morning sky. Something in his chest tightened.

The beach dissolved.

Eighteen months ago. Myanmar.

The jungle pressed in on all sides, dense and alive with the buzz of insects and the distant call of birds.

The air was thick, heavy, and wet. Though sweat soaked through Reece's shirt, his hands were steady on his rifle.

The team moved in silence, single file through the undergrowth, boots soundless on the soft earth.

Deacon's voice came through the comms, low and clipped. "Two hundred meters. Eyes up."

Reece scanned the trees ahead, his vision sharp despite the low light.

The extraction point was a small clearing near the river, hemmed in by towering palms and thick vines.

Their asset, a German engineer who’d been held for six days, was supposed to be in a structure just beyond the tree line.

Intelligence said three hostiles, maybe four, but Reece knew better than to trust maybe.

Beside him, Ace moved like a shadow, his rifle up, finger resting along the trigger guard. Behind them, Bandit and Rip fanned out, covering their six. The team had done this a hundred times. They didn't need to talk—they knew their positions, priorities, and tactics.

Reece's heartbeat was slow and even. His focus narrowed to the terrain, the shadows, the faint shift of movement thirty meters ahead.

"Contact," he murmured into his mic. "Eleven o'clock. Single guard."

"Confirmed," Deacon replied. "Rip, you're up."

A breath. Then a soft thwick. The guard dropped without a sound, Rip's suppressed round catching him center mass. He crumpled into the ferns, and the jungle swallowed him.

They kept moving.

The structure was small, more of a shack than a building.

Wooden slats, a rusted metal roof. One door.

No windows on this side. Reece took point, pressing his back against the outer wall.

The wood was rough against his uniform, splintered and damp from the constant humidity.

He could smell rot and mildew, and beneath that, the sour tang of unwashed bodies.

Deacon's hand signal—two fingers, then a fist.

Two more hostiles inside.

Ace stacked up behind Reece along the same wall, then Bandit, while Rip stayed back, covering the approach. Deacon counted down silently with his fingers.

Three.

Two.

One.

Reece kicked the door. It splintered inward, and he was through, rifle up, acquiring targets in the span of a heartbeat. Two men. One lunging for a weapon on the table. One turning, mouth open to shout.

Reece fired twice. Center mass. The first man went down hard. Ace took the second, a clean double-tap that dropped him before he could get a word out.

In the corner, zip-tied to a chair, was the engineer. Thin. Pale. Eyes wide and wet with terror or relief or both.

"Friendly," Deacon said quietly, moving past Reece to cut the zip ties. "We're American. You're going home."

The man sobbed.

They moved fast after that, and Rip brought up the rear as they hustled the engineer back through the jungle.

The extraction bird was waiting, rotors already spinning, the downdraft flattening the grass and whipping up leaves and dirt.

Reece climbed in, yanking the engineer up behind him.

When they all loaded, the chopper lifted, tilting hard as they banked away from the clearing.

The engineer was crying. Thanking them. His voice cracked and broke as words in German and broken English tumbled over each other.

Reece said nothing. He just stared out the open door, watching the jungle shrink below them. Across from him, Ace grinned and gave him a nod. Bandit clapped the engineer on the shoulder. Deacon was on comms with Guardian, confirming exfil, his voice calm and professional.

It was a perfect op. Textbook. Zero complications.

But Reece felt nothing.

Not satisfaction. Not relief. Not even the usual low hum of adrenaline that would fade into exhaustion. Just a hollow space where something should have been.

He looked at his team. Men he trusted with his life. Men he'd bled with. And he realized he didn't want to do this anymore.

Not because it was hard. Not because he was scared.

Because something was missing. There needed to be more. What was his more, and where in the hell could he find it?

Present day. Florida.

The helicopter was long gone, a faint dot against the brightening sky, leaving the beach quiet again, with just the crash of waves and the cry of gulls overhead. Reece blinked, the memory fading. He was in Florida, and the sand was warm beneath his feet. The salt breeze lifted off the water.

He’d been gone from his team for almost a year.

A lot of soul searching had happened since he'd sat across from Deacon in a conference room and said, "I need time." Deacon hadn't argued, but he had asked why. And wasn’t that a bitch to answer.

“Guardian is my life, like it is yours.” Reece had stopped to try to get his thoughts and emotions on the same page.

“But …” Deacon prompted.

“But, boss, I feel emptied out. When I first started working, every mission was an adrenaline surge, especially when we got the primary out of harm’s way.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And … I mean, that’s still the goal, I love working with my team.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Ranger?”

“Fuck.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I feel like there’s something out there that I’m not doing. And that sucks because I still live to take down the scum, help people, and be a part of this team. But I need something …”

Deacon frowned. “Like what? Do you want your own team?”

“God, no. It isn’t that. There’s something missing.

I look at you and Echo, and I see you complete.

But you were complete before she came on the team.

The others, they’re happy; they thrive on the missions like I used to, but lately …

it isn’t enough to feed me. I love this world, this job and the team.

That will never change. But I need time to figure out what this hole is inside me.

Deacon was silent for a while as they stared at each other.

Then a slight smile lifted the corner of his mouth.

“Believe it or not, I understand. I get where you’re coming from.

We’ll miss you, Ranger, but you need to get yourself sorted and find your answers.

Take whatever time you need, then get your ass back here. There’s work to be done.”

Reece exhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders, stretching against the pull of tight muscles.

The movement sent a pleasant sting through his upper back.

He’d finished his workout an hour ago. Chest. Back.

Core. Every session was heavy and controlled.

Most people would call it punishing. It was the kind of work that left his muscles humming and his mind momentarily empty.

The questions were still there. Quieter, maybe.

But they hadn't left. He didn't feel complete and hadn't for a long time. He’d taken the year off to search for that missing part of himself. Maybe that emptiness was something he'd have to live with, or maybe it was how the rest of the world felt, too. Although he knew his dad didn’t feel that way, neither did his Grandpa Frank. That month in South Dakota had proven a lot to him. The men on both sides of the ranch were happy and fulfilled. They had what he wanted, but what that was he hadn’t yet unearthed.

Whatever it was, he hadn't found what he was looking for, and from all accounts, he wouldn’t.

His phone vibrated against the bench behind him, the buzz audible even over the distant crash of waves.

Reece frowned. Very few people had this number.

Crossing the sand, the granules warm and gritty between his toes, he picked up the phone. The screen was bright in the morning light, and he had to angle it away from the sun's reflection.

DEACON

A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Well, I'll be damned," Reece muttered, answering the call. "You finally miss me?"

There was a pause on the other end. Not long, but long enough to be telling. Reece could hear the faint hum of an air-conditioning unit in the background, the muted sound of an office space. The cool, recycled air was so different from the humid warmth pressing against his own skin.

"Don't let it go to your head," Deacon Alexander said. His voice was steady, professional, but Reece knew him too well. There was something underneath it. He was being cautious for some reason. "You got a minute?"

"For you? Always."

Another pause. Longer this time. Reece could picture Deacon in some conference room, probably rubbing the back of his neck the way he did when he was weighing his words.

Reece leaned back against the bench, the wood already warm from the sun, and looked out at the water.

Pelicans dipped low over the surf in the distance, their wings dark against the glare of morning light.

He’d carried the quiet expectation that this call would come eventually.

Guardian never let its people drift too far for too long.

Especially not Kings. Guardian took damn good care of their people, and the King family was the main fiber woven through Guardian’s structure.

"How's Florida?" Deacon asked.

"Hot. Flat. Good for lifting and swimming," Reece replied easily. A bead of sweat traced down his spine, slow and warm. Of course, Deacon would know exactly where he was. "Not much else."

"Yeah." Deacon cleared his throat, and Reece heard papers rustling, the soft scrape of a chair shifting. "Listen, I'm not calling to rush you. Your old man was really clear about that. This isn't an official call."

A smile tugged at Reece's lips. "Uh-huh."

"But," Deacon continued, hedging now. "Things have a way of stacking up. You know how it goes. And your name came up."

Reece closed his eyes briefly. The sun warmed his eyelids, red and orange, floated across his mind’s eye.

"Did it," he asked quietly, "or did you bring it up?"

A breath. Then a huff of a laugh. "Maybe."

Reece smiled wide, feeling the stretch of dried salt on his cheeks. "What's going on?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," Deacon said quickly. Too quickly. "Yet. This is more of a … well, let's go with a temperature check."

"On me."

"On you."

Reece shifted his weight on the bench and stretched out his legs, the sand warm and soft beneath his feet. The grains shifted under his heels, spilling over his toes. He’d wondered if coming back would feel heavy. If the idea would tighten his chest or stir doubt.

Instead, clarity settled in his gut, calm and undeniable.

"I'm coming back," he said.

And all types of noise exploded on the other end of the line.

"It's about time!" someone shouted, the voice loud enough to make Reece pull the phone slightly away from his ear.

Another voice whooped. A chair scraped loudly across what sounded like tile or concrete, the legs shrieking against the floor, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a fist slamming into a table.

He heard Echo's laugh mixed among the male voices, bright and sharp.

Deacon's woman was as lethal as the rest of the team, and she fit in seamlessly.

"Holy shit," Deacon snapped. "You idiots, I didn't even—"

Reece laughed, the sound surprised out of him, his chest loosening with it. The tightness he'd been carrying for months unspooled just a little. "You're on speaker, aren't you?"

"No," Deacon lied badly while someone in the background yelled, "Ranger's coming back!"

The noise swelled. Cheers. Laughter. Someone let out a long, relieved breath that carried more emotion than words. The chaos poured through the speaker, warm and familiar and alive.

Reece swallowed hard, his throat tight. The sound of their voices, rough and unguarded, hit him harder than he'd expected.

"Tell them to calm down," he said, voice rougher now.

"Give me a second," Deacon muttered. Reece heard him move, footsteps on hard flooring, sharp and purposeful, and then his voice turned sharp as he ordered, "All right, listen up. He hasn't even said when yet. Act like professionals."

That only earned another round of noise.

Reece stared out at the ocean, watching the light break and scatter on the water's surface, fractured and brilliant. Something warm and solid settled in his chest. He’d missed this. The team. The unspoken bond. The knowledge that he mattered not just for what he could do but for who he was to them.

"When do you need me?" he asked.

Deacon's tone shifted immediately. The background noise cut off, probably a door closing.

The sudden silence on the other end was almost as loud as the chaos had been.

"We're on mandatory break and then off on a short mission as a tactical unit for a priority asset.

" Which meant the team would be working with a Shadow.

"But, Reece, I meant what I said. If you need more time—"

"I'm good," Reece cut in. A gull cried overhead, sharp and piercing, the sound cutting through the salt air. "I think I was just waiting for the right reason, or maybe it was this call."

A beat. The line was quiet, but Reece could hear Deacon breathing, slow and deliberate.

"Then welcome home," Deacon said quietly. "I'll see you, later. We'll be waiting for you."

Reece ended the call and sat there for a long moment, phone loose in his hand, the screen going dark.

The plastic was warm against his palm, slick with the heat of his skin.

The restlessness that had haunted him for months eased, not gone but quieter.

The ocean breeze picked up, lifting the hair at the back of his neck.

Whatever had been missing didn't matter as much anymore. At least that was what he was telling himself.