Chapter Seven
Oren woke alone in the bed he’d come to think of as theirs, and the cold stretch of sheets beside him was more jarring than he expected. He wasn’t used to waking without the warmth of Ty pressed close or the protective weight of Dale’s arm slung across his middle.
They had enjoyed another great night together last night and talked about that sweet little love note Oren had left for him.
He had no idea what it meant, but he would certainly be on his guard from now on.
Hell, even more so because of Dale and Ty.
Which made him think of his two men, and he was struck with the sudden need to know they were safe.
Throwing off the covers he dressed quickly and left the suite.
The early morning air outside bit at his skin, carrying the scent of dew-damp pine. He knew exactly where they would be. Especially Ty. The gym lights glowed gold through the tall windows, and the rhythmic thud of fists and grunts echoed faintly.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, heart already tightening at what he saw.
Ty and Dale were on the sparring mat, their hands wrapped and gloved—not bare-knuckled this time, but the gloves were thin enough that he knew they would feel every hit.
They were locked in a sparring match that pushed both of them, sweat slicking their skin, the sound of fists meeting flesh echoing through the space.
Ty moved like a man trying to outrun fire, every strike laced with too much fury, each dodge just a fraction too desperate.
Dale, grinning and laser-focused, matched him beat for beat, not yet recognizing the fine line Ty was walking between control and collapse.
Oren stepped closer, arms folding across his chest. He knew that look in Ty’s eyes. He’d seen it on men too close to the edge. Dale couldn’t see it—not yet. He was caught in the rhythm, enjoying the challenge, the fire, the tension. But Oren saw the storm brewing beneath it all.
Dale’s voice cut through the thudding rhythm. “Watch your right hook. You’re dropping your elbow again.”
Ty grunted, but didn’t answer. Oren knew that sound. He’d heard it before in firefights, in freezing cold marches through hostile territory. That was the sound of someone trying to outrun something.
Oren stepped forward as he watched Ty absorb another hard hit. “You trying to hurt yourself on purpose Ty, or just make Dale work for his win?”
Ty didn’t respond immediately, but Oren saw his eyes flick up. Saw the slight hitch in his rhythm.
Dale turned. “Morning. We’re almost done here.”
Oren arched a brow, eyes narrowing as he watched another brutal exchange. “Doesn’t look like almost done to me. Looks like a goddamn meltdown brewing—Ty’s throwing punches like he wants to crack your head open.”
Dale immediately stepped back with a frown. Finally seeing the state their man was in. “Fuck, Ty.”
Ty growled, a feral sound, as he flew at Dale again, his movements jerky and uncoordinated with fatigue, and Dale easily evaded the moves, and stepped around him. Ty whirled to face him again and almost fell.
“Stop, Ty,” Oren said as he stepped closer, but stopped when Dale threw out a hand.
“I’m fine,” Ty said, voice low and tight, breathless.
“You’re not,” Oren countered. “You’re trying to sweat out a ghost, or beat the shit out of it, and you’re gonna fall flat on your face if you don’t slow down. Talk to us.”
Ty wavered slightly on his feet, then leaned over to brace his arms on his knees, breathing hard. “It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Oren said. He moved closer and squatted down beside him. “You think I can’t see it? I know that look, I’ve seen it in my own mirror. You’re close to the edge, Ty. Talk to us before you go over.”
Dale took a step back, giving them space, watching closely now with dawning awareness. Oren didn’t look away from Ty, who finally met his gaze.
“I just... I don’t like not knowing what’s coming at us,” Ty muttered. “That message. Carson. The drones. It’s like we’re being hunted and we don’t know by who. That pisses me off.”
“I get that,” Oren said slowly. “Pisses us all off, but this is something more. You are punishing yourself, and I need to know why.”
Ty sat down hard, arms falling back to hold himself upright. “I feel like I failed.”
Oren dropped to one knee beside him, heart clenching. “Failed what?” he asked softly, though he already knew.
Ty, still breathing hard, turned his gaze up to meet Oren’s. “You.”
Oren’s chest tightened. He nodded once, slowly. “I know you do. But the part of you that sees clearly has to know that’s bullshit.”
Ty gave a short, humorless laugh. “Maybe. But that voice? It’s quieter. Doesn’t carry much weight in here.” He tapped his temple with two fingers. “And it damn sure doesn’t argue loud enough when guilt starts shouting.”
There was a silence that stretched, not awkward but necessary.
“I left you behind,” Ty said finally. “That explosion... I didn’t come back. I couldn’t. Took me days to even get help to you.”
Dale, standing nearby, stilled. Oren could feel the shift in the air. Ty’s pain was mirrored in Dale’s posture, in the guilt etched into every tense line of his body.
Oren reached out, gently cupping Ty’s jaw. “You were unconscious, Ty. Fighting to breathe. To survive. You didn’t leave me—hell, you weren’t even standing.”
Ty rolled his eyes slightly, but the tension in his shoulders eased a little.
“Still feels like I failed,” he murmured.
Oren looked past him to Dale, whose expression had darkened.
“You know Dale feels it, too, right?” Oren said.
Ty turned his head to look at Dale. “No, baby, this isn’t on you.”
Dale’s jaw flexed. “Apparently my logical brain is a dick, too,” he muttered.
Oren smiled faintly. “You’re both too damn hard on yourselves.”
“I pulled out without checking,” Dale said. “Didn’t confirm. Didn’t look. I just ... left.”
“But it’s not like you had a lot of time to do so,” Oren replied. “And it means something, that you carry that. That it still weighs on you. But don’t let it poison what we’re building now.”
He looked between them. “If something’s heavy enough to pull you out of bed without saying a word, you say it. If it drives you to beat yourself bloody in the gym, you fucking talk to me. We’re in this together. The three of us. Don’t shut me out.”
Ty and Dale both gave soft, almost breathless laughs. But Oren could see the shift. The release. The tension bleeding away as connection returned.
They stood, steadying Ty between them, and Oren pressed a kiss to Ty’s shoulder.
“Now come on,” he said. “Let’s get cleaned up. And then maybe someone can finally make me some damn coffee.”
****
Ty sat at Dale’s kitchen island, the warm scent of coffee and toasted bread mingling with faint traces of last night’s dinner.
Morning light spilled through the wide windows, pooling across the polished wood floors.
Oren leaned against the counter, hair still damp from his shower, wearing one of Dale’s t-shirts like it was his own.
Dale moved around the kitchen with practiced ease, his hands sure, every motion infused with a quiet focus.
Ty’s mind kept drifting back to the sparring session earlier.
He’d been wound tight, and Oren had seen it—felt it in the sharpness of his movements—but Dale had been too caught up in the competitive heat to notice.
It wasn’t surprising that Oren had picked up on it.
The man was observant as hell, and had known him for years.
Ty reached for a slice of toast and groaned at the shards of pain that radiated from his arms and side at the movement.
Oren scoffed a laugh. “Sore, Ty? Fucking serves you right, going into that sparring session with the voices going off in your head.”
Ty grimaced, slowly rotating his shoulder. He couldn’t even argue because that was exactly what he’d done.
Dale set plates down with a faint clatter, his gaze briefly meeting Ty’s before flicking away. “Eat. You two look like you could use it.”
They ate in silence for a beat before Ty broke it, studying Dale over the rim of his mug. “You’ve been quiet since yesterday’s meeting, Dale. What’s been going on?”
Dale exhaled slowly, setting his fork down.
“I’ve been thinking about Hogan. You know, since we found out Kai was part of Eli’s abduction, he hasn’t been the same.
Keeps it buttoned up, but I can see it. It’s the same look Ricky had after Ezra left—like he’s carrying something so heavy he’s afraid to set it down. ”
Oren’s brow furrowed. “This is the first I’ve heard you say anything about it.”
“Yeah,” Dale admitted, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Guess I didn’t want to put it out there unless I had to. But I’m not letting another brother slide into that kind of darkness if I can help it.”
Ty felt that one deep. He knew what it was like, carrying worry for someone you cared about—how it gnawed at the edges of you, made you restless.
He made a silent promise right then. Next time he saw Hogan, he’d have a word, even if it was just to let him know he wasn’t alone.
No one should have to shoulder that kind of weight by themselves.
Oren frowned. “You think Hogan’s close to doing something reckless?”
“I think he’s already carrying too much,” Dale said, voice low. “And pain like that makes men dangerous—to themselves and everyone else.”
The conversation shifted. Ty noticed Oren’s posture stiffen when Carson’s name came up. He’d clocked it before, but now it was impossible to ignore.
Oren’s voice was even when he spoke, but Ty knew the control it cost him. “What he said to me ... it was personal. ‘This is far from over. Some debts don’t get forgiven.’”
Ty studied him, the blunt honesty cutting deeper than if he’d tried to brush it off. “You think this goes back to our service days? That maybe you crossed paths before?”
Oren’s jaw tightened. He looked down at his coffee, eyes distant. “I don’t remember him. Not his face. But the way he spoke ... he blames me for something. I can’t shake the feeling it’s tied to what happened back then. To being taken.”
He hesitated, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
“There were nights in that cell where all I saw were dark shapes in the dark. Guards who played games with us, pitting us against each other, trying to break us down. They’d laugh when one of us cried out.
They’d drag one of us out and bring him back bloody just to make the rest of us watch.
Carson wasn’t one of us—that I would absolutely remember—those men, fellow soldiers who never made it out.
Harrison Walker, Jonty Rivers, and Franklin Knight.
Their names, their sacrifices, I will remember for all time.
Then there were the mostly faceless assholes who tortured us.
Farid, with the scar that split his lip.
Hamid with ice-blue eyes, who liked to use his fists, and Javed, who spoke barely any English but knew enough to mock us with our own words.
Their faces stayed with me, burned into memory the way we were trained to notice details—scars, builds, voices.
They have lived in my nightmares for years. ”
His knuckles whitened around his mug. “I thought I’d buried all that. But when Carson spoke to me yesterday, it felt like being back in that cell. Like the walls were closing in again.”
Dale’s gaze locked on him, sharp and protective. “Then we dig. We’ll find out what the hell his angle is. But make no mistake—this isn’t on you, Oren. Whatever he thinks, whatever grudge he’s carrying, it’s not yours to bear alone.”
Ty leaned forward, nodding. “We look at his work history, sites he’s been on in the last three years. If he’s been shadowing us, there’ll be a trail.” He forced a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Guy’s not half as clever as he thinks.”
Oren’s lips pressed into a thin line, but some of the tension left his shoulders. “All right. Together, then.”
Dale’s hand landed on the counter with quiet finality. “Together. Always.”
The silence stretched, weighted with all the things none of them had dared put into words. Ty cleared his throat, the words clawing their way out of him before he could stop them. “When the build’s done ... what happens to us?” His voice was quieter than he intended, but it carried.
Oren’s hand found his under the table, warm and grounding. “It should mean the start of something, not the end,” he murmured, giving Ty’s fingers a squeeze.
Dale glanced between them, his eyes softening, the hard line of his shoulders easing for the first time that morning.
“Hell, you think I put in a custom bed big enough for the three of us just for the project’s duration?
” His mouth curved with a wry half-smile, though there was more behind it—hope, stubborn and unshakable.
Ty huffed a laugh despite the knot in his chest. “Guess I should’ve known you weren’t the type to plan short-term.”
“Once the project is finished and the therapy wing is operational,” Dale said, voice steady, “we decide our next move. Together. No matter what comes.”
Dale glanced between them, a steady heat in his chest. “This is our line of departure.”
Ty’s brow furrowed for a beat. “That’s the step-off point, right? Where the mission officially begins.”
Oren’s grip tightened on both of them, his voice low but certain. “Means we don’t cross it until we’re ready—and once we do, there’s no turning back.”
Ty’s hand found Oren’s, Oren’s found Dale’s. Three grips, one promise.
They didn’t hesitate. Together, they stepped off.
****
Carson crouched in a makeshift camp on the Ridge’s edge, the flicker of a small, smokeless fire dying to embers.
He’d slipped out of the barracks before dawn, leaving only the message sprayed across the wall for Oren to find.
He could picture it now, Oren’s face twisting as he read it—rage, confusion, fear. All of it good. All of it deserved.
He kept low, careful to stay outside the sweep of the cameras he’d mapped out over the past week.
He knew where every blind spot was. Knew how to watch without being seen.
The drones that buzzed overhead sometimes weren’t his—he wasn’t sure whose eyes they belonged to—but that only sharpened his edge.
If others were circling, it meant the game was bigger than he thought.
Carson dragged a knife across a whetstone, slow and steady, imagining it was Oren’s throat. Hatred simmered in him, molten and constant. Oren had stolen too much from him already—blood, family, years swallowed by grief and rage. Now it was time to take it all back.
He leaned back against the shadows of the trees, lips curling into a grin. “Soon,” he muttered to the night. “Soon you’ll break, Oren. And I’ll be there to watch every second of it.”