Chapter Nine
Marsh prowled the infirmary like a caged predator, jaw clenched, arms locked across his chest until his muscles throbbed.
Eli lay in the bed before him, pale but breathing steady, the meds pulling him under.
The image of Eli slumped in the gravel, blood seeping down his arm, face twisted in pain and fear—it was burned into Marsh’s skull.
And, yeah, it made murder feel like a perfectly rational response.
Marsh had refused to leave his side. So now the whole damn debrief was happening here, under the sharp scent of antiseptic and the steady beeping of Eli’s monitor.
Across the room, Oren leaned his shoulder against the wall near the window, arms folded, eyes scanning the tree line beyond. Dale and Ty sat in chairs opposite him.
Ty’s face was unreadable, but his fists were clenched against his thighs, knuckles were white. “I froze,” he said suddenly. Quiet, bitter. “Back there. When the rifle came up—I didn’t move. Not until Eli shoved me.”
“You guarded him afterwards,” Oren said flatly, Texas twang just under the surface. “That counts.”
Ty looked over at him. “You didn’t hesitate.”
Oren slid his gaze from the window to Ty. “I might’ve left the Corps, but I didn’t leave my instincts behind. I see a threat, I take the shot.”
“That easy, huh?” Ty’s voice had an edge.
Oren’s gaze didn’t waver. “Sometimes it is.”
Ty let out a bitter breath. “You know, we all wore the uniform. We all did things in the name of orders, of country. I killed for mine. Over and over until the blood didn’t come off no matter how many times I washed my hands.
And maybe I thought I could leave that behind.
Be something else. Build instead of destroy. ”
Oren raised an eyebrow. “You think that gets erased because you pick up a blueprint?”
Ty’s head snapped up. “I think I don’t know if I could pull a trigger again. That’s the truth. I don’t know if I could take another life, even if it meant saving one.”
Dale broke in. “Both of you need to give a little here. Eli’s alive. Let’s not turn this into a damn morality trial.”
Marsh stood frozen for a beat, his breath shallow, pulse thunderous in his ears. Every fiber of him was wound tight, too tight, like his body didn’t trust the calm in the room. Not when Eli had almost died.
He’d lived through war zones that didn’t shake him this hard—but seeing Eli hit, watching him bleed, had done something worse. It had split him open.
All of them were talking—morality, instincts, regret—but none of it mattered to him. Not when Eli’s blood was still fresh in his memory, not when the scent of gunfire still clung to his skin.
Marsh turned, voice low and sharp. “None of that matters in this moment. He fucking got shot. Never should have happened.”
They all went quiet. Even the monitors seemed to still for a beat.
“None of this should’ve reached the gate,” Marsh continued. “And it sure as hell shouldn’t have reached Eli.”
Ezra entered quietly, now in full tac gear, handgun at his hip. He glanced once at Eli, nodded in approval, then sat down in a chair close to the doorframe.
“I recognized one of them,” he said without preamble. “Not his name. But his face. He was with Van once. Years ago. Didn’t say much. Private sector op we got pulled into, to clean up a mess in Ukraine. Dirty, deniable shit.”
Bateman, leaning near the med station, looked up. “One of ours?”
Ezra shook his head. “Mercenary. The type that doesn’t exist on paper.
But he had resources—gear, comms, training.
Whoever the Colonel is pulling from, he’s not scraping the bottom of the barrel.
These are top-tier ghosts with no flags.
If they’re showing themselves, it’s because they’re getting paid to. ”
Dale muttered, “And the Colonel has money.”
Ezra nodded. “More than enough. If he’s hiring ghosts, it means he’s not trying to hide anymore. He’s planning something loud.”
Marsh finally stepped away from the window, his hand brushing lightly across Eli’s blanket-covered shoulder. “Then we get louder.”
Blake entered quietly, carrying a tray of meds and supplies. He checked the IV line, adjusted the flow slightly, and changed out a syringe. “He’ll sleep deeper for a while,” he murmured to Marsh. “Give the painkillers time to reset his system.”
Eli mumbled in his sleep, voice slurred and barely audible. “Marsh ... will always choose you ... love you.”
Bateman snorted from the corner. “Jesus. He’s a romantic junkie even under sedation.”
Marsh didn’t flinch. “Ah, no. You don’t get to talk shit to my man on this topic.
Remember that farmhouse in Chechnya we were all holed up in that time?
You curled up like your body couldn’t decide if it wanted to give up or not.
You think I didn’t hear the way you whispered Blake’s name in your sleep?
How you loved the man, and that marrying him was the best damn thing you’d ever done? That’s what this is.”
Bateman lifted a brow but smirked. “Fair call.”
Hogan, leaning against the wall near the foot of the bed, glanced around. “Should we reach out to Kai? He’s still got contacts in signals intel. Might be able to pick up the mercs’ chatter.”
Bateman nodded, already pulling his phone from his pocket. “Worth a shot.” He stepped out of the room.
Ricky moved toward where Ezra had taken a seat, reached down, and pulled him to his feet before sitting down on it himself, and pulling Ezra down onto his lap.
Ezra didn’t resist, just glanced over his shoulder with a wry smile. “You’re really not subtle, you know that?”
Ricky grinned. “No need for subtlety when I am just claiming what’s mine.”
A minute later, Bateman returned, frowning at his phone. Hogan arched a brow. “That was fast.”
“He didn’t answer,” Bateman said, tone gone flat. He looked up slowly, concern flickering in his eyes. “Kai always answers. Something’s up.”
A chill settled low in Marsh’s spine. That kind of silence didn’t sit right—especially not from a man like Kai, who treated intel like oxygen. Something was brewing. Marsh could feel it in the way the air had turned sharp, the way instinct itched beneath his skin.
He looked back down at Eli, watched the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest, the gauze taped against his upper arm. His hand curled into a fist at his side.
Marsh looked back down at Eli, then to the group, voice low but steely. “This is the last time he gets hurt. Next time someone tries, they don’t walk away. Not ever.”
****
The next morning brought with it a shift in energy—less like recovery and more like preparation.
Eli noticed it the second he stepped outside.
More personnel had arrived overnight—trained, armed, alert.
The hum of drills and muted conversation filled the Ridge, but so did the underlying thrum of tension.
Security had tripled. Patrols rotated with military precision. It wasn’t paranoia. It was DEFCON.
Eli walked from the Ridge House to the Comms building, noting the increased surveillance coverage and temporary barricades positioned around construction zones.
His steps slowed as he passed the edge of the training fields and caught sight of the lab’s back doors propped open.
Curiosity tugged at him. Marsh’s innovation lab.
He slipped inside quietly, letting the door whisper shut behind him.
The sound of footfalls on the curved treadmill echoed in the wide space.
Marsh was running hard—shirtless, only in fitted black shorts, sweat slicking down his back and chest, a running blade extending from where his prosthetic usually sat.
He moved like a predator loosed from its cage, all precision and explosive grace.
Eli didn’t say a word. Just stood there, awe trickling in slow and hot. The sheer speed of him, the relentless pace, the control—it was unreal. Superhuman.
Marsh slowed to a walk, rolled his shoulders back, and turned without breaking stride. He grinned, eyes gleaming with mischief. “If you’re gonna stare that hard, the least you could do is buy me dinner first.”
Eli snorted. “If you didn’t want to be stared at, maybe don’t do something that makes you look like a damn Marvel hero.”
Marsh stepped off the treadmill, breathing heavier now, chest rising and falling fast but even. He grabbed a towel from the nearby bench, dragged it across his face and neck. “You here to gawk or did you miss me already?”
Eli smirked but stepped closer. “You were touchy this morning. Not in a bad way. Just... not your usual. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Marsh tilted his head, then nodded slowly. “Fair. But I’m not the one who took a bullet yesterday.”
“I’m not the one running like his ghosts are nipping at his heels either,” Eli replied.
They sat side by side on the edge of a worktable, close enough to feel each other’s heat.
Marsh glanced down at his hands, flexed his fingers, then shook his head. “I forgot how to breathe when I saw you on the ground. I’ve been in fire zones, ambushes, hell on earth—but nothing, nothing has ever scared me like that. Like the idea of losing you.”
Eli reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together. “You can’t protect me from everything. None of us are making it out of life alive, Marsh. We don’t get forever, so we make the most of what we’ve got. Every second.”
That gave Eli a thought and had him exhaling before speaking again. “Yesterday ... when those mercs said my choices would get people hurt—that my friends’ fates were in my hands—I’ve been thinking about that. Obsessing, actually.”
Marsh turned to level a long look at him, eyes steady. “But I know you’re not dumb enough to think that running is your best option. So, what are you thinking?”
Eli blinked. “You don’t think I’m dumb?”
Marsh frowned. “Why would I?”
“The Colonel ... he used to say that. A lot. Called me his pretty idiot.”
Marsh’s jaw flexed. “He’s full of shit. You outsmarted him more than once.
You figured out that the Colonel is an asshole, ran away from the prick, managed to get me to pull my head out of my own ass, and the true sign that you are a freakin’ genius—you let me love you.
That might be the smartest thing anyone’s done. ”
Eli swallowed hard. “You love me?”
Marsh smiled faintly. “Kinda hopelessly.”
Eli leaned over and pressed his lips to Marsh’s. “I love you, too, and, eww, you’re sweaty.” The two smiled at each other, then Eli shrugged. “To be fair, I have thought about setting myself up as bait or something, to try and bring them here.”
Marsh was already shaking his head, his expression darkening.
“First of all, love, there is no way in hell I’m letting you play bait.
That’s a hard no. My inner Alpha Male would riot, and I’d probably chain you to the damn bed to stop you.
Secondly, we both know they’re not just coming—they’re close.
I can feel it. Like pressure in the air before a storm. They’re going to hit fast, and soon.”
Eli nodded slowly, absorbing the weight of Marsh’s words. “Then we need to be smart. If they’re coming no matter what, we pick the battlefield. We control the terrain, set the rules. We make it ours before they even step onto it.”
Marsh’s grin cut through the tension like sunlight. “See? I told you—you’re smart as hell. That’s exactly the kind of thinking we need.”
Eli leaned into him, forehead brushing Marsh’s shoulder. “What about the therapy wing? It’s still under construction. If it gets trashed, we just rebuild. It gives us flexibility, and it keeps the Ridge itself out of the direct line of fire.”
Marsh hesitated, concern tightening his features. “You’d be okay with that? Seeing it torn up after all the work you’ve put in?”
“Yeah,” Eli said, surprised by the clarity of his conviction. “If sacrificing some time, sweat and tears means saving the lives of people I care about? That’s a price I’d pay every time.”
Marsh’s expression changed into one Eli had come to call his geek face, when he was planning something out in his head.
“We rig it. Reinforce certain areas, sure—but we leave others weak. Create kill zones. Trap points. Force them into narrow channels where we control the high ground. If they breach, they’ll walk straight into a gauntlet.
We turn the site into a tactical maze, not a building.
And later, we rebuild it properly, with the specs we wanted. ”
Marsh nodded. “It’s smart. We’ll run it by Bateman.”
They stood together, still close. Marsh leaned in, brushed a kiss to Eli’s temple. “You’re not alone in this. Never again.”
Eli smiled, warm and fierce. “Then come shower with me. You stink.”
Marsh laughed. “Only if you promise not to stare too hard.”
“I make no promises,” Eli grinned, and together they disappeared toward the locker rooms.