Chapter 36
CALDER
“Don’t.” Weston’s voice is sharp.
It’s too late. The words are already there in my throat. “I’m the one she can live without. Buck’s stable. T.J. already trusts you. I’m the guy who wakes up half out of his head, bringing nightmares instead of peace.”
Buck takes a step toward me. “That’s not true.”
“It’s practical.”
“It’s bullshit.”
The force in Buck’s voice should check me. Instead, it makes something in me bare its teeth.
“You want practical? Fine. This only works—” I point around at the three of us again, more sharply this time. “—when everybody gets to pretend there’s enough time. Enough room. Enough safety. But under pressure? Real pressure? This gets people killed.”
Weston goes still, never a good sign.
Buck’s stare hardens. “You think this is pretend?”
“I think it was easier before.”
Before Elena. Before feelings were involved. Before love—yeah, shit, I’ll admit it to myself—turned every decision into a question of who matters the most and who gets left bleeding.
“Careful.” Buck’s tone is low and dangerous now, but I still don’t stop. Maybe I’ve been wanting this fight. Might as well rip the wound open instead of hiding it under strategy and logistics.
“I’m serious,” I say. “Before now, sharing a woman was physical. No claims, no promises. The future wasn’t hanging on it, and nobody had to wonder who got chosen if things went bad.”
Weston flinches. It’s a small movement, and most people wouldn’t see it, but I do, and so does Buck.
“You think that’s all this is to her?” Buck asks me.
“No.”
“Then what the fuck are you saying?”
“I’m saying feelings complicate the chain of command.”
Buck stares at me like he wants to grab me by the shirt and shake sense into me. “This isn’t a mission.”
“It becomes one when there’s a hostile operator with a kill list.”
Weston finally speaks, his tone sharper than either of ours. “Enough.”
He turns to Buck first and says, “He’s scared.” Then, to me, “And you’re being an asshole about it.”
I let out a breath that almost passes for a laugh. “Fair.”
“No.” Weston’s voice is flat. “Not fair, just true.”
The three of us are still standing close together, roughly forming a triangle in the center of the office. Brothers-in-arms. Idiots. Men who’ve survived too much together to start lying now.
“We’re all scared,” Weston says. “I get what extraction would mean. Elena somewhere unfamiliar, always looking over her shoulder. T.J. wondering why he can’t call his friends.
One or more of us not there. It fucking sucks.
” He turns my way. “But it’s too late to turn this into something simpler just because simpler would hurt less. ”
He’s right, and I hate him a little for it.
Without even trying, Elena punched straight through armor I’d thought was welded shut. T.J., too. There’s a constant exposed place under my ribs now, and it’s far too fucking late to do anything about it.
Buck sinks onto the edge of the desk. “You’re not extra.” I look away, but he doesn’t let me. “Look at me.”
His expression is hard, but not cold. “We’re all in. On her, and on T.J. That also means we’re responsible when things get ugly. Nobody gets pushed aside just because their damage shows more.”
“You don’t know that,” I say.
“I do. You think Elena Ramirez is with any man by accident?”
No. She isn’t, and that’s part of the problem.
Weston steps back to lean against the wall, arms crossed. “For the record, if any of us starts making decisions based on who we think is easiest to lose, we’re screwed.”
I rub the back of my neck, suddenly tired in a way sleep can’t fix. “So what, then? We act like this is sustainable?”
“A threat shows people what really matters,” Buck says.
Weston nods. “That part’s already decided.”
The room goes quiet, but it’s different now. I turn the laptop back in my direction so I can face what’s in front of us. “We need contingencies.”
“Agreed,” Buck says.
Weston pushes off the wall. “Start with the worst case.”
I reach for the legal pad and scribble things down. “Worst case. Kozlov pushes fast. A coordinated strike at both the house and the school. Maybe uses a diversion and forces us to split.”
Buck moves in beside me. “Elena and T.J. need a go-bag in both locations. Tonight.”
“Already halfway there,” Weston says. “I started one at the house.”
Of course he has.
For the next hour, we talk routes, coverage, weapons, and shifts.
We decide on safe houses and who makes the next call if a line goes dead.
We draw up a schedule for who stays with Elena at the school, and who takes nights at the house.
We talk about how to keep T.J.’s world from collapsing while we prepare for it to do exactly that.
It’s familiar in the worst ways. The three of us, bent over a threat matrix, deciding how to hold a perimeter around people we can’t afford to lose.
Only this time, it’s not a mission objective. It’s home.
And for the first time all night, when I think about what comes next, I don’t picture myself as the one left outside the line.
I picture the three of us holding it.