Chapter 23 #2
“Now, I have a ten-year plan. And all of it involves Daniel.”
Laughter rippled through the kitchen. I took a long sip of wine, feeling the warmth spread through my chest.
“It’s a lot,” I said quietly. “All of this.”
Audra’s expression softened. She glanced toward the main room, where Beckett was making faces at one of the twins, then back at me.
“When I first got here, I kept waiting for someone to figure out I didn’t belong.
Like there was a test I was going to fail, and then they’d ask me to leave.
” She paused. “That feeling doesn’t go away overnight. But it does fade.”
“How?”
“You just…keep showing up. Keep letting them show up for you.” She shrugged. “Eventually, you stop being surprised when they do.”
Lark nodded. “It gets easier. Trusting that you belong here. That you’re not just tolerated—you’re wanted.”
The words hit somewhere deep. I looked at both of them—Lark with her nervous energy and fierce heart, Audra with her quiet strength and hard-won peace—and I saw understanding in their eyes. They’d been where I was. Standing on the outside, wondering if the warmth was real.
“I’m not just Coop’s girlfriend to them,” I said slowly. “Am I?”
“No.” Lark’s smile was gentle. “You’re Mia. That’s enough.”
I was still turning that over in my mind when Coop’s phone buzzed.
The sound shouldn’t have meant anything. Phones buzzed constantly in a room full of people. But I saw the way Coop’s expression shifted as he read the screen. The careful blankness that settled over his features.
“Travis needs me and Hunter to come over,” he said to no one in particular. “Looks like I may need to go back undercover with Oliver’s organization.”
The room didn’t go silent. Conversations continued, laughter still bubbled up from somewhere near the fireplace. But I noticed the way certain heads turned. The way Beckett’s posture straightened. The way Hunter was already moving, pressing a quiet kiss to Jada’s temple.
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
Coop hesitated. “Mia—”
“I’m coming.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then nodded.
I hadn’t been back to Travis’s since the night Coop had carried me out of there, but it looked the same. Normal from the outside. The kind of place you’d drive past without a second glance. But I knew what waited inside.
We found Travis in his command center, surrounded by screens, fingers flying across a keyboard. Hunter had beaten us there. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, face unreadable.
“Feds called.” Travis didn’t look up. “Oliver’s planning another sale. Big one.”
“When?” Coop asked.
“Day after tomorrow.”
I’d pieced together the basics over the past two weeks.
Travis had been a federal agent once—CIA.
The feds still came to him when they needed help, but he didn’t leave his house anymore.
So when the opportunity to infiltrate Oliver’s operation came up, Coop had volunteered.
Travis had the connections. Coop had the ability to actually go in.
Coop rubbed the back of his neck. “So soon? Fuck, I’m more than a little surprised. I wouldn’t have thought he’d regroup so fast.”
“The feds have had me watching the usual suspects pretty carefully, looking for any movement. Talk about this buy started popping up on multiple dark web places today.” Travis pulled up files on one of his monitors.
“They’ve been looking for another opportunity to get back in with Oliver. This is it.”
“And they want Coop to make an appearance.” Coop’s voice was flat. Controlled.
“You’re still their best asset. You’ve got the cover, the access.” Travis finally turned to face us. “They’re saying this is a short mission. Go in, plant trackers on the shipment. Get out. They handle the rest at a later date. Straightforward, to use their term.”
“Straightforward,” Hunter said, the word dripping with skepticism.
Travis gave a one-shoulder shrug. “They wanted Coop to wear a wire. I shut that shit down immediately. No way in hell Oliver isn’t going to check for that, and you’re not going to get a bullet in the brain.”
Silence stretched between them. I stood near the doorway, arms wrapped around myself, trying to read the currents I didn’t fully understand.
Travis pulled up more screens—satellite imagery, communication logs. “Oliver’s given us an opening. They don’t want to wait.”
The men kept talking. Logistics, timing, contingencies. But I’d stopped listening.
I was too focused on Coop.
The shift had already started. His shoulders squared, his jaw tight. The warmth that had surrounded him at dinner—the laughter, the easy teasing—was draining away, replaced by edges and angles. His eyes had gone distant, calculating. Cold.
This was the man who could walk into danger and become whatever he needed to be. The operative. The persona. The mask that fit too well and worried him in quiet moments.
He caught me staring and crossed the room to take my hands.
“I want to do this.”
“Coop—”
“I’m ready for this to be over.” His thumb traced circles on my knuckles. “Being that guy, even for a few weeks… It takes something out of you.” His eyes held mine. “One more run, and I’m done. The feds can take it from there. And I can finally just…be here.”
He didn’t say with you. But he didn’t have to. It was written in every line of his body, in the way he held my hands like I was the only real thing in the room.
Everything in me wanted to say no. To beg him not to go back, not to become that cold-eyed stranger again.
But Oliver was still out there. Still dangerous. If this mission helped put him away for good, we could finally move forward.
I nodded.
Relief washed across his face. He pressed his forehead to mine, just for a moment.
“One more time, I’ll do it,” he said to Travis. “Make sure they understand that they only get me one more time. This whole situation feels rushed to me, but if they want their last use of Coop to be for this, I’ll make it happen.”
Travis’s expression flickered—something dark and knowing. “I’ll make sure they understand. Whether they actually listen…” He shrugged. “Feds hear what they want to hear.”
Coop agreed that he’d be back tomorrow to finalize details, and we left.
The drive home was silent. I stared out the window at the dark Montana road, at mountains invisible against the night sky. My mind wouldn’t stop cycling through everything that could go wrong.
Beside me, Coop was already different. His hands on the wheel were steady.
His eyes scanned the road with tactical precision, checking mirrors more than necessary.
The man who’d kissed me that morning, who’d laughed at dinner, who’d held my hand while I worried about remembering names—he was still in there somewhere.
But another layer had settled over him. Harder. More alert.
I reached across the console and took his hand.
He squeezed back. Didn’t speak. Didn’t look at me.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was heavy. Full of all the things neither of us could say.
I studied him in the glow of the dashboard lights. The set of his jaw. The tension in his shoulders. The way his thumb moved absently across my knuckles while the rest of him was already somewhere else, running scenarios, preparing for what was coming.
This was what it looked like when the man I loved started preparing to walk back into hell. To become a demon who fit in there.
Ryan and Coop. Not two different people. Just different facets of the same man—the gentle hands and the tactical mind, the easy laugh and the cold focus.
If I was going to love him, I had to love all of him.
Even the parts that scared me.