Chapter Eight
Dale worked the bag until his shoulders burned and his knuckles hummed.
The gym was quiet this time of day, when the sun had yet to lift above the horizon—fans turning slow, the sharp tang of rubber floor and old chalk, a line of treadmills the color of a storm.
He counted off the last set in his head and made himself stop.
Too easy to chase the edge for no reason but the noise.
The sauna door clicked. Heat rolled out, bringing steam and the bite of eucalyptus.
Hogan stepped through it like he’d walked out of a cloud—hair plastered back, sweat tracking his ribs, towel low on his hips.
He had the face he wore when he thought no one was looking—the jaw clamped tight, lines grooved between his brows. Not swagger. Wear.
Dale grabbed a towel and a bottle of water and met him halfway across the gym floor.
“Hydrate,” Dale said, shoving the bottle into his hand.
Hogan huffed a laugh and took it. “Yes, Dad.” He drank hard, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, and failed to hide the wince that followed.
“You sleeping okay?” Dale asked.
“Barely.” Hogan’s gaze slid past him to the pool through the glass wall. The lights were low, water black as a bruise. “Head’s been ... loud.”
“Headaches?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his temple with a thumb. “Spikes. Like someone’s driving a nail in and then walking away.”
Dale angled him toward the bench. Hogan resisted for a second, then sat.
“Since the fight here at the Ridge?” Dale kept his voice even. Questions, not orders.
“Since before that, if I’m honest,” Hogan said. “They come and go. Nights are the worst.” He rolled the bottle between his palms. “Memory’s jumpy around that time as you know, but nothing that I can pinpoint, just ... flashes.”
“Could be that concussion you had from Chechnya, lingering.” Dale let that sit. “Talk to Blake.”
Hogan’s mouth tugged. “Blake’ll ground me. I need to be able to fly.”
“Maybe he’ll fix you first.” Dale met his eyes. “We need you fixed more than we need you pretending.”
Hogan looked away. The pool lights rippled cold across his skin. For a long beat, they listened to the fan and the slow tick of cooling metal.
“Drones are pissing me off,” Hogan said finally. “You think it’s Kavaci?”
“Feels like it.” Dale stretched his shoulders until something clicked. “Commercial frames. Whoever’s flying them isn’t guessing. Mapping rhythms, probing fence lines. Someone’s building a picture.”
Hogan nodded then pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes. “I keep thinking I’m missing something important. It’s there one minute, and then it’s gone.”
Dale sat beside him, close enough to be chosen, not forced. “You can talk to me.”
“I know.”
“I mean it,” Dale said. “Whatever it is, whenever. If you need anything, I’ll be your ace in the hole.”
Hogan flinched. Not big. Enough.
Dale stayed at the line of departure—the invisible start line you don’t cross until the op goes live. You wait there, breathe there, think there. “What?”
“Nothing.” Hogan shook his head and tried for a smile that didn’t land. “It’s a good line.”
“It wasn’t a line.”
Another beat. Hogan’s shoulders dropped a fraction. “Thanks.” His voice had a rough note in it. “I don’t deserve the way you show up for people.”
“Not how that works.” Dale nudged his knee. “Go easy on yourself.”
Hogan’s laugh was thin. “Yeah, sure, like that’s something that comes easy for guys like us.” He stood, the towel hitching. “Pool’s calling.”
“Go see Blake after,” Dale said.
“Fine. I’ll message him.” Hogan lifted the bottle in a vague salute. “And I’ll actually go see him in person later on today. Promise.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
They walked to the glass together. The pool lay long and quiet, lane ropes trembling in the air from the HVAC. Hogan’s reflection looked like a man split in water and light.
“You want company?” Dale asked.
Hogan shook his head. “If you get in, you know it’ll turn into a fucking race. I need laps, not penance.” He glanced at Dale, something like apology tucking in behind the sarcasm. “I’ll be fine.”
“Be careful.”
“That I can do.”
Hogan headed for the locker room that connected the pool and the gym. The swing door flapped once, twice, and he was gone.
Dale leaned his shoulder to the glass and let the gym sounds find him again. He should have felt better. He didn’t. What he felt was the same itch he got when they were about to face the enemy, or when shit was about to hit the fan.
He walked over the padded mats in one corner of the gym, toed off his sneakers and dropped down into a stretch, buying himself a minute. Then he pulled his phone from his locker and opened a new note.
— Blake: Hogan is getting migraines, needs to be checked, don’t let him skate—
He hesitated, then added another line to his to do list for later that day.
— Bateman: drone rhythms—review gate approach, cross with fence walks, look for repeaters—
He slid the phone away. The bag waited, mute and patient. He almost went back to it but didn’t. Enough hitting things for one morning. The work wasn’t always about force.
The pool lights shifted as a body cut the surface—first stroke long and smooth. Hogan, no doubt already counting laps in his head, pushing for the kind of tired that could drown out his thoughts. Dale watched for a count of five, then six, until the need to stand and guard the water passed.
He grabbed his hoodie, looped the towel around his neck, and headed for the door. On the way out he flicked the sauna to cool, the same way he always set a room back to neutral when he left it. Habit. Or superstition. Or both.
He didn’t look back at the pool again. He didn’t have to. He’d check on Hogan later. He’d nudge Blake. He’d pin Bateman on the drones. And if the headaches were more than headaches, they’d handle that, too.
They always did, until they couldn’t, and then they found another way.
He left to walk back to his suite. Ty was cooking for them tonight, and he didn’t want to miss a minute of their time together
****
Ty’s drawings spoke in the language of certainty. Every line had purpose. Every note sat where a foreman under stress would look for it. Oren checked the math in his head, not surprised when it all balanced. Steel behaves if you respect it. So does concrete. People—less so.
The half-built extension to the therapy wing was a thing of beauty in his eyes.
Something that sparked all the senses. With it still being only about seventy percent done, wind found every gap and made a voice of it.
Temporary lights hummed, casting shadows against the walls and floor.
A length of chain bumped on a scaffold, and the ever-present scent of wood and steel filled the night air around him.
Oren rolled the tube of plans and started the walk-through he’d promised—eyes on spans, anchors, bracing, the small choices crews made when they thought no one was looking.
It was hard to stay focused, especially as he knew that by now Ty would be in Dale’s kitchen, sleeves shoved up, telling Dale to sit and let someone else take care of dinner.
Oren could picture the domestic hum and looked forward to being a part of it.
Halfway down a corridor framed in bare studs, the hair lifted on his forearms.
Watched.
He was being watched.
He didn’t turn fast. He settled into the stance that had kept him alive—weight centered, hands loose, breath open.
“Late night for an engineer to be out walking through the site.”
Carson stepped out from the bend of the hall. Boots scuffed, jacket creased like he’d slept in it. His insolent smirk ever present.
“You’re looking a little worse for wear there, Carson,” Oren said.
“You’re no oil painting yourself.” Carson’s glance slid along the studs, the corners, the angle of the temp lights. “Looks clean.”
“How’d you get in?”
“I’m a man not many places can keep out.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.” He nodded down-hall. “South run’s lazy. Camera rolls past a dead strip every forty seconds. Your guy trusts the spec sheet.”
Oren filed it away and would speak with Marsh about it tomorrow. He doubted it was true. Marsh didn’t miss shit like that. Something else was going on here.
“What brings you back here?” Oren asked, moving slightly to the left, to give himself room. “And how did you know I’d be here?”
“You always stay late. The last walk through, checking to make sure your minions haven’t done something they shouldn’t have, or taken a short cut. Can’t have the mighty Redline team fail on a build.” Carson held his gaze. “What would the world think.”
“You don’t know us that well.” Oren practically growled.
“I know enough.” His chin ticked at the plan tube. “He draws it. You make sure it stands.”
“Leave Ty out of it.” Oren growled.
“Didn’t say his name.”
“Say what you came to say.”
Carson closed the space by a step, shoulder to a stud. “You’re alone. That’s why I’m here at this time. No cameras. No chance of anyone walking in on us. Just you and me.”
Oren took a half step toward him. “If you want to take a run at me, try it.”
Carson’s smile thinned. He drew a pistol, low and neat. “Not tonight.”
Oren didn’t take his gaze from Carson’s not even to track the weapon.
“I decide when I pull the trigger.” He kept the muzzle down. “And when I do, you’ll see it coming. They all will.”
The temp light cut across his face and something snagged in Oren’s chest. Brown, he’d always thought.
Not now. The eyes threw the light back—blue, cold, wrong enough to hitch his breath.
For a beat there was cold concrete under his shoulder blade and a slow drip he didn’t want to remember. There was something there—something.
He blinked it off. “You going to do something now or just talk my fucking ear off.”