Chapter 7 #2
“Simple math that gets us killed.”
“Only if we're sloppy.” He limped toward his demo pack and started checking the inventory. “We go in quiet, avoid engagement, grab what we need, and ghost out before anyone knows we were there.”
“And if that doesn't work?”
His grin widened. “Then I blow something up, and we run very fast in the opposite direction.”
Despite everything, the danger, the impossibility, the sheer stupidity of what he was proposing, Willow felt herself smile. Actually smile, genuine amusement cutting through the fear and exhaustion.
“You're absolutely insane,” she said.
“So, I've been told. By you and so many others.” He pulled out det cord, timers, and shaped charges, laying them out with the care of someone organizing art supplies. “But I'm also right. We stay here, we're sitting ducks. We move now, during the storm, we've got a chance.”
She knew he was right. Hated that he was right. But sitting still had never saved anyone.
“Fine,” she said. “But we do this my way. Quiet entry, minimal engagement, surgical extraction.”
“See? You're even starting to sound like a demo expert.” He was repacking his bag, his movements practiced and efficient despite the injuries. “Surgical extraction. I like it.”
“I mean it, Levi. No unnecessary explosions.”
“Define 'unnecessary.'”
“Any explosion that alerts every guard in a fifty-mile radius.”
“Where's the fun in that?” But he raised his hands in surrender when she glared at him. “All right, all right. Quiet. Surgical. No fun explosions. Scout's honor.”
“You were never a scout.”
“How do you know?”
“Because scouts don't grow up to be—” She stopped, catching herself.
“To be what?” His voice was soft, dangerous. “What exactly do you think I am, Willow?”
The question hung between them, loaded with implications and unspoken truths. She could deflect, change the subject, maintain the fiction they'd both agreed to. But the lies were getting heavier, harder to carry.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that you're very good at killing people. And I think someone pays you to do it.”
He didn't deny it. Just watched her with those blue eyes that had seen too much death. “And that bothers you?”
Did it? She wasn’t sure, and that said more about her than it did about him. “Should it?”
“Depends on whether you think the people I kill deserve it.”
“Do they?”
“Every single one.” No hesitation. No doubt. “I don't do wet work for dictators or cartels. I don't kill civilians. I take out targets that need eliminating. Traffickers, terrorists, the kind of evil who make the world darker just by existing.”
“Who decides that? Who determines who deserves to die?”
“Not me. I'm just the finger on the trigger.” He limped closer, close enough she could see the gold flecks in his eyes, could smell cordite still clinging to his skin. “But I've seen the intelligence. The evidence. Before I take a shot, I know exactly who I'm killing and why.”
“And Morales?”
Something cold flickered across his face. “Morales has murdered hundreds of people. Trafficking victims, rival cartel members, civilians who wouldn't cooperate. He's got mass graves on three continents and enough blood on his hands to drown in.”
“So, you're going to kill him.”
“Yes.”
“What if someone else wants him alive?”
The question was out before she could stop it, too direct, too revealing. Levi's eyes narrowed, reading between the lines.
“Someone like who?” he asked softly. “Someone like your people, maybe? The ones you report to on that encrypted radio?”
They stared at each other, both balanced on the edge of revelation. One more push and all the lies would collapse, mission parameters exposed, conflict inevitable.
Thunder crashed, loud enough to rattle the hangar walls.
Willow stepped back. “We should get ready. Storm won't last forever.”
Levi held her gaze for another moment, then nodded. “Yeah. All right.”
They moved apart, gathering their gear, checking their weapons, and preparing for another impossible mission. But something had shifted between them. It was an acknowledgment that the lies were thinning.
But they wouldn’t reach a full truth. Well, at least not tonight. Tonight, they had a maintenance depot to raid and a plane to salvage.
The rest could wait.
The storm was still raging when they left, rain coming down in sheets so thick that Willow could barely see ten feet ahead. Perfect cover. Terrible conditions.
They moved through the jungle in tandem, Levi limping but keeping pace, both of them soaked within minutes. The humidity was suffocating, turning every breath into an effort. Water ran down her face, stinging her eyes, plastering her hair to her skull.
The maintenance depot appeared through the downpour like a fortress. High fences, guard towers, spotlights sweeping the perimeter. But the storm had driven the guards inside, leaving only skeletal security visible through rain-blurred windows.
“There,” Levi whispered, pointing to a service gate on the east side. “Blind spot between light cones.”
They moved in, keeping low and using the storm as cover. The fence was chain-link topped with razor wire, but it was nothing Willow couldn't handle. She pulled out wire cutters and started working while Levi kept watch.
The metal resisted, each cut loud despite the rain. Her hands cramped, slipping on wet tools, but she kept working. Cut. Cut. Cut. Creating a gap just wide enough to squeeze through.
“Go,” she hissed.
Levi slipped through, then her. They were in.
The maintenance hangar loomed ahead. It was massive, well-lit, and filled with the shapes of aircraft in various states of repair. Exactly what they needed.
They moved between shadows and equipment, staying low. Willow's mental checklist ran on repeat: fuel lines, engine parts, avionics, anything they could salvage for the Beaver.
She found the parts room in the back. It was locked, naturally. But Levi produced a lock-pick set from somewhere and had it open in under twenty seconds.
“Hidden talents,” she murmured.
“I'm full of surprises.”
The room was packed. There were shelves of parts organized by type and size. Aircraft heaven. Willow started grabbing items, stuffing them into the duffel bags they'd brought. Fuel pump. Spark plugs. Altimeter. Compass. Every piece was a step closer to getting that Beaver airborne.
Levi worked beside her, moving with surprising efficiency for someone who claimed not to know mechanical work. “How do you know what fits?”
“De Havilland Beaver, DHC-2, single-engine radial. Most of these parts are universal or can be adapted.” Grabbing wire bundles, she threw them in the bag. “You pick this up fast for an engineer who doesn't do mechanical.”
“I learn quick when properly motivated.”
They worked in silence, rain drumming overhead, the clock in Willow's head counting down. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.
Too long. They'd been inside too long.
“We need to move,” she said.
“One more thing.” Levi was standing at a cabinet in the corner, examining something. “Willow. Look at this.”
She joined him, and her stomach dropped.
The cabinet was full of aviation fuel. It was high-grade, expensive, and exactly what they needed. But underneath, barely visible, were wooden crates stenciled with familiar markings.
“Shit. Military ordnance. Missiles. The kind used on attack helicopters.”
Levi nodded and scratched his ear. “Morales is arming his aircraft,” he said softly. “He's not just running drugs. He's preparing for war.”
“We need to document this.” She pulled out her phone, started taking pictures. Evidence. Proof. Everything Reeves would need to—
Lights flooded the parts room.
“Don't move!”
Guards. Three of them, weapons raised, blocking the only exit.
Willow froze, phone still in hand. Beside her, Levi's hand drifted toward his weapon, subtle but deliberate.
“Don't,” she hissed.
“We're trapped.”
“I know.”
The guards moved closer, shouting in Spanish. Drop the bags. Hands up. On your knees.
Willow's mind raced through options. Fight … low probability of success, three against two, poor positioning. Run … nowhere to run, backs to the wall. Talk—
One of the guards grabbed her arm, roughly, shouting louder.
And that was when Levi moved.
He was fast. Holy hell, he was faster than someone with his injuries should be.
He had the first guard's weapon turned aside before the man could fire, following through with an elbow strike that dropped him cold.
The second guard swung his rifle around, but Levi had already pulled a shaped charge from his vest, armed it with a thumb switch, and held it up.
Dead man's switch. The implications were clear.
“Nobody moves,” Levi said in perfect Spanish, voice deadly calm. “Or I blow us all to hell.”
The guards froze.
Willow stared at him. He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. The charge was real, but surely, he wouldn't …
His eyes met hers. And she realized he absolutely would. “Oh, shit.” She let the words slip out.
“Guns down,” he ordered. “Nice and slow.”
The guards complied, weapons clattering to the floor. Their faces had gone pale. They knew exactly what he was holding.
“Grab their rifles. We're leaving.”
She moved quickly, gathering weapons first, then the equipment they needed. Levi backed toward the exit and took the larger bag when she passed him. His thumb never left the dead man's switch, the small red light blinking steadily.
They made it to the door, then outside into the rain. The storm had intensified; the wind now howled, turning the rain horizontal.
“Run,” Levi said.
“What about—”
“RUN!”
She ran.
They hit the fence line, squeezed through the gap, and were twenty yards into the jungle when the explosion came.
Smaller than his others, this one was controlled and precise. Just enough to collapse the parts room doorway, trap the guards inside but leave them alive. It would buy them time.
Only the next explosion stopped them. They both looked back. The munitions and jet fuel had exploded.
“Yeah, there were more munitions in that building than we saw. What I did wouldn’t have triggered that without ordnance in the immediate area.” Another explosion rocked the ground under them. Levi smiled brightly. “Buy, hey, what a show!”
“You're insane!” she shouted over the rain and thunder.
“You keep saying that!” He was grinning, actually grinning as they turned and crashed through the undergrowth. “But we got the parts!”
They did. Two bags full of exactly what they needed, plus photographic evidence of Morales's weapons cache. Well, not that it mattered anymore. Another explosion lit up the sky.
Mission successful.
Completely, utterly insane.
And somehow, impossibly, Willow found herself laughing. It was wild, breathless, the kind of laughter that came from surviving something that should have killed you.
Levi joined in, and they ran through the storm together, two liars carrying stolen parts and matching smiles, while behind them, the depot erupted into chaos.
They made it back to the hangar as dawn broke, exhausted and soaked and alive.
Willow dropped the bags, checked their surroundings, then turned to Levi.
“You could have killed us.”
“But I didn't.”
“You could have.”
“But I didn't.” He stepped closer, rain still streaming down his face. “I was in control, Willow. Always.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to be angry. But he'd saved them, again, with precisely calculated violence that had somehow kept them breathing.
“You enjoy this,” she said quietly. “Flirting on the edge of insanity. The moment right before everything explodes.”
His smile was different now. It wasn’t sunshine, but something darker, more honest. “I enjoy control. Everything else is noise.”
There it was. The truth she'd been circling, the answer to who Levi really was beneath the charm and humor.
A man who lived in the space between chaos and control and thrived there. She took a deep breath and realized she’d lived in that space most of her life. It was as if she’d found a friend she’d never known she needed. Perhaps more than a friend.
Thunder rolled across the sky one last time, and in the growing light, Willow looked at the bags of parts they'd stolen, the impossible plane they were going to resurrect, and the man standing beside her who'd just held a live explosive to keep her safe.
They were both smack in the middle of that space now.
They controlled their destiny. No one else.
“We're going to die doing this,” she said.
“Probably.” He picked up one of the bags. “But not today.”
“Not today,” she agreed.
And together, they started unpacking the pieces of their impossible plan.