Chapter 6
SIX
Ash had operated in war rooms carved out of embassy basements and concrete bunkers half a world away. He’d planned raids while mortars shook dust from ceilings. He’d built strike maps on folding tables slick with humidity while adrenaline pulsed through his system.
None of those rooms had ever unsettled him.
This one did.
Not because of the latest intel scrolling across the main screen about a terrorist responsible for killing thousands.
Because of Ellory.
Ash’s focus kept slipping, as if someone had nudged a compass inside his chest a few degrees off north.
He hadn’t slept more than an hour at a stretch.
Most of the night he’d lain flat on his back, sheets twisted around his legs, his body hard and restless as if he were twenty again and didn’t know what to do with the ache for a woman.
He’d tried breathing exercises. Tried those silly grounding ones that Ellory used too. Not even a cold shower helped.
When he finally drifted off near dawn, she’d followed him into his dreams.
Now she wasn’t even in the room, and that was the only possible way he could absorb the intel Con was laying out.
Ash folded his arms across his chest and forced his mind to lock in on the shell corporation leases. Some pointed to physical properties. Many were bogus trails meant to throw off anyone looking for Cipher.
Dante enlarged a map. “We’ve located two additional offices tied to the network and linked by the same financial handler. Both were funded from accounts that also paid for safety-deposit boxes.”
New maps appeared on the screen.
“Upstate New York.” Con pointed to one. “And one in Wyoming.”
“Wyoming,” Ash echoed.
Silence washed over the room. Wyoming wasn’t just a location on a map—it came with ties to Blackout.
Now Ash sat up in his spot.
“Who else is close?” Ash asked the room. “Sierra team?”
Con shook his head. “Out of range. We need someone closer.”
Mason straightened. “Get Denver on it.”
Mason and Denver had once been inseparable, or so Ash had been told. Then Denver sustained too many head injuries that sidelined him from Blackout.
The room held its breath.
Con nodded toward Dante. “Patch in Black Heart Security.”
The security agency in Wyoming was run by Denver Malone and his brothers. All ex-military and as good as any Ash had ever seen. They were also close enough to the property in question to do some surveillance for Charlie.
The map flickered, replaced by faces. Denver appeared first, broad shoulders taking up a large portion of the screen. Theo stood beside him, and a third brother that Ash didn’t know leaned into the frame from the other side.
Grins broke over the faces surrounding the war room table as they set eyes on their brother-in-arms again. Denver’s smile was as wide as the Wyoming sky.
“Charlie,” he drawled out. “Good to see y’all. You might know my brothers Theo and Carson.”
The two men wearing cowboy hats gave them nods of greeting but didn’t speak.
Ash’s gaze snagged on Theo for a beat. He’d been within inches of recruiting Theo to the team.
The guy had the grit, discipline and tactical skills required to make Blackout.
Ultimately, Theo chose to stay on with his family’s security agency.
If he hadn’t, Ash wouldn’t be sitting here now, and suddenly he saw what an honor that was.
Con didn’t waste time. He laid out the intel about the properties before presenting his plan. “Two teams. Simultaneous entries. We don’t give Cipher time to relocate or reinforce.”
Denver didn’t miss a beat. “We’ll handle Wyoming.”
Looking at the men on the screen, Ash felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time…since before the op that went sideways and forced him to make the decision to leave his SEAL team and recruit for Blackout.
It was the thrill of belonging to something big. Something important.
“Charlie rolls at 2300.” Con’s command had every man sitting up straighter. “Coordinate your entry window to match.”
“Copy,” Denver responded.
They signed off with nods. The screen went dark, and chairs scraped back from the table.
Con jabbed a finger at all the men who would be part of the task force. “Six operatives. Mason, Dante, Chickie, Steele, Sinner.”
Ash met Con’s stare, volunteering. “I’ll grab my gear.”
“Park it.”
The quiet yet firm words sent a wave of anger through him.
“Request to join the task force, sir.”
Con’s gaze flicked to him. “Denied.”
Ash clenched his jaw. “I’m taking point.”
Con held his stare a long moment before speaking. “No. I am.”
The room went still.
Ash frowned. “Sir?”
Con’s voice lowered. “This ends tonight. I’m not sending my team into the final strike while I sit behind a desk.”
Then he shifted his attention back to Ash.
“You’ll run the war room.”
Ash stiffened.
Con’s gaze sharpened. “You know all the pieces of this op. We need someone who sees the whole board.”
From the corner of his eye, Ash saw Sophie look up at her significant other, her heart in her eyes—and fear too. They could be walking into an ambush. It wouldn’t be the first time Cipher laid a trail for them to follow, and shit went wrong.
Ash’s jaw tightened as he forced back the words that would only earn him a reprimand.
“I’m putting you in charge here.”
It took a second for Con’s words to hit home.
“Here.” Disbelief flattened his tone.
“Chase needs to remain here with Alyssa.” Chase was the last man standing from Echo team. Cipher had been hunting him and the former ambassador—Alyssa—for what he believed to be wrongs against his mother.
“Ash, you coordinate with Elin, Sophie…”
Ash held his breath, his body already knowing what was coming.
“And Ellory.”
His pulse ticked once. Hard.
“With respect,” he said tightly, “that’s a misallocation of resources.”
Con’s brows winged upward. “Walk with me.”
They moved to the far edge of the room. The others focused on their roles in getting this op off the ground without a hitch.
Con faced him squarely. “I’ve read your file.”
Ash didn’t react outwardly. Of course he understood his CO knew everything about each person on base, right down to their shoe size. It didn’t shock him that Con knew everything about him too.
But it made him nervous.
Ash met his stare.
“I know what you’ve run. I know what you’ve commanded. And I know what happened on that last op.”
The air between them thickened.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Con’s voice came out quiet.
Ash swallowed once, but that was the only reaction he’d allow himself.
“I gave you space to process it on your own. You’ve had time. Now we do it my way.”
“Or the highway?” Ash’s attempt to lighten the mood crashed and burned.
Con held his gaze. “You’re dead. There is no highway. This is your life. This is your family. You don’t always like everyone in a family as big as this.”
Ash’s brow crinkled. “You think I don’t like everyone here?” His tone might be flat but only because it was suffocated beneath something too big to name.
Con didn’t answer.
“How could I not like you? Any of you?”
There was no sink or swim in this game. Sinking meant every single man—and woman—sank too. After what Ash went through on that last op, he would never let that happen again.
Con knew it.
His words worked up his throat, rough and thick. “Sinner makes the best damn pizza I’ve ever had. He obsesses over dough like it’s a classified file.”
They all knew Sinner’s pizza was his way to show how much he cared about them all because, to him, food was love.
“Sophie’s a damn cryptology machine. She can crack patterns most agencies would spend months chewing on. Elin and Dante are such pros at cyber and comms that by the time a door gets kicked in, they’ve already owned the building.”
He exhaled slowly. “You lead with intelligence and heart. That’s rare, from what I’ve seen.”
His voice dropped another notch. “Everyone here has my six. Every one of you, including the women who are strong enough to survive a house full of men. Hell, you even let Elin keep that ridiculous dog.”
He pointed at the cute pup sprawled out under the table at her feet.
He liked them. More than that—he was starting to love them.
And that scared him more than taking live fire. The walls that served him all these years had kept him functioning when he threatened to break.
Now those walls were thinning.
Ellory’s voice echoed in his head. Should we build walls or bridges?
Being in charge meant protecting her too. His lungs burned as he filled them with too much air.
As if his thoughts summoned the woman, Ellory stepped into the war room, a file tucked under her arm, close to her curves, looking composed. As if she hadn’t hijacked his dreams twelve hours ago.
He had to lead for the good of the team. For his own good too.
Ellory’s stare snagged on his, and in those vivid blue depths, he found that he wanted to stop living like a man already half buried.
* * * * *
Ellory spent most of her life earning her place. First, finding her “tribe” in school settings, then years clawing up every rung of her career until no one could question her being there.
She had earned her place in rooms like this one, filled with screens and men who were used to being in charge. She learned that she didn’t need to yell louder than the other kids on the playground. She simply outworked them, outthought them and outlasted them.
Which was why it irritated her beyond reason that one man standing too close undid her composure in mere heartbeats.
Ash hadn’t spoken a word to her since she entered the war room hours before. But his presence charged her system like static in the air before a storm.
She felt him before she saw him.
Knew when he shifted his weight.
Knew when his attention swung to her.
Not being in control of herself was throwing her off.
When Sophie informed her that Ash was in charge of the op, Ellory’s gaze found him immediately. But he was as unreadable as ever—self-possessed, closed off—giving nothing away.