Chapter 3
The black Tahoe eats the last blocks of our trip, the engine a low, predatory growl that feels more at home on the dusty roads of Kandahar than the pristine cobblestones of Westbridge County.
As we pull through the gate, the world transforms. Landscaped lawn—impossibly green—rolls out like a carpet.
Gothic stone buildings, softened by centuries of ivy, stand like ancient sentinels.
It’s a fantasy, a carefully curated bubble of academia and privilege. It feels like another planet.
Hawk nods, his eyes already scanning clusters of students drifting across the walkways, faces bright with careless optimism. He’s looking for a target—but also exits, sightlines, and threats. Second nature. “You good for the meet-up with Gabriel?”
“I’ll be fine.” The lie comes out smooth and practiced. “It’s just coffee.”
He doesn’t push. Instead, he pulls the Tahoe to the curb in front of a sprawling brick building that screams donated by a dead billionaire. “Keep your phone on. I’ll text when I have eyes on her.”
“I’ll be five, maybe ten, minutes behind you.” I climb out of the SUV, and I shut the door behind me with a solid thunk. Students move in loose clusters around me, backpacks slung over one shoulder, phones in hand, and conversations bleeding into each other.
Through the glass, I spot Gabriel. He’s sitting at a table near the window, barricaded behind a laptop and oversized headphones.
He looks older than the last time I saw him.
His hair is longer, falling into his eyes, and he’s got the start of a beard.
Or rather, more scruff than beard. He looks like a stranger wearing my son’s face.
I reach for the door handle, then pause for half a second.
This part has never gotten easier. The bell dings over the door when I walk inside, and Gabriel glances up without the faintest hint of a smile.
He slowly takes off his headphones, the motion deliberate—even a little resentful—before setting them on the table.
“Dad.”
“Gabriel.” I take the seat opposite him, the small plastic chair groaning under my weight.
Silence blooms between us, thick and suffocating.
I flag down a passing barista and order two black coffees, hoping the transaction will help to fill the void before turning my attention back to my son.
“Thanks for coming.” The words sound foreign and clumsy as they spew over my lips.
He shrugs. “You said you were stopping by.” His gaze flickers over my shoulder like he’s already mapping an exit.
“Right…” The barista drops two paper cups on the table, and I push one toward him. “So… how are classes?”
“Fine,” he answers, his attention on the laptop between us.
“Good. That’s… good.” I take a sip of scalding coffee, nearly burning my tongue. I’m failing. This whole experiment in fatherhood is a catastrophic failure. “You still enjoying engineering?”
“Bio,” he corrects. “Bioengineering.”
“Right.” I knew that. Or I should’ve.
He gives me a look that’s not quite annoyed, but close. Like he’s trying to figure out what I’m doing here. “You didn’t come here to talk about my major,” he grouses.
“No,” I admit. “I was in the area. Thought I’d stop by.”
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
“How’s your mom?”
He shrugs again. “Same.”
“That good or bad?”
“Depends on the day.”
Fair.
I dip my head, not pushing further, already knowing exactly how she’s doing.
Isabella and I didn’t divorce on poor terms. We still talk several times a month, mostly about Gabriel.
The two of us were barely eighteen when we were surprised with her pregnancy, and we had no business getting married.
But we did. While our marriage barely lasted two years, joining the military to give my family a better life forced me to turn my life around.
Had I not joined the army, I’m certain I’d be exactly where the guys of the gang I used to run with are—dead or behind bars.
His fingers tap lightly—and restlessly—against his cup, like he’s waiting for something.
Likely for this to be over. I shift slightly, trying to find a better angle into the conversation.
“How’s… uh…” My mind blanks. He’s mentioned her name before.
It starts with an M. Macey? Madison? “Mikayla,” I guess, stepping onto thin ice.
He glances up at me, and I catch a glimmer of raw pain before it shuts down behind a wall of cold indifference. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think we’re going to work out.”
“You okay?” I ask.
His gaze meets mine, and he looks at me, really looks at me, like he’s weighing whether or not that question deserves an honest answer.
“Yeah,” he says after a second. “I’m fine.”
Yeah… Fine… The two words that make up his half of almost every conversation we have, not actually sharing anything with me.
He’s so much like me, it hurts. Same walls and same instinct to retreat when things get close.
I gave him the best and worst parts of me, and somehow skipped everything in between.
I lean forward slightly, resting my forearms on the table. “You can tell me if you’re not.”
“That’s kind of the problem, though, right?” He huffs out a breath, shaking his head. “You show up every once in a while and act like we’re going to have this deep conversation, and then you disappear again.”
“I’m here now,” I insist softly.
“Yeah, but for how long?”
I don’t answer right away because my answer is shit.
Five minutes… Maybe ten… With no definitive return date.
His eyes flick to his laptop again, then back up at me.
“I’ve got class in a few minutes,” he mumbles, shutting the lid. “So… I appreciate the coffee, but I have to get going.”
“Right. Of course.” I push back slightly as he stands abruptly, slinging the strap of his book bag over his shoulder. For a second, it looks like he might say something else, but he doesn’t. “See you around, Gabriel.”
“Yeah.” He turns and walks out, disappearing into the flow of students outside without glancing back.
I sit there for a second longer than I should, a familiar, hollow ache spreading in my chest. This is how it always goes. Short and uncomfortable, like we’re both trying to meet somewhere in the middle yet missing each other by just enough that it never quite works.
After dumping the half-drank coffees into a nearby trash and paying the tab, I make my way outside. I pull my phone out as I step onto the sidewalk and fire off a text to Hawk.
On my way.
I pocket the phone and start walking toward Anderson Hall, letting the job push its way to the front of my mind. Work is easier. Clean. Work makes sense.
Hawk is leaning against the wall just inside the entrance, arms crossed, and watching the flow of students coming in and out like he’s been there for hours instead of minutes.
He straightens slightly when he sees me.
“I’d ask how coffee went, but based on your face, I’m going to make assumptions. You okay?”
“Fine,” I grumble with a sigh, clearly indicating that I am not, in fact, fine.
He studies me for a second, then nods. “All right, let’s retrieve the asset and get to the airport.”
I push through the heavy wooden doors, the smell of chalk dust and old paper hitting me like a wave.
Inside, a professor drones about molecular binding affinities in a voice dull enough to flatten the room.
Hawk follows immediately behind me. Our heavy bootsteps echo on the polished floors as we make our way down the steps of the stadium toward the front of the lecture hall.
Toward the waterfall of dark, wavy hair, sitting three rows from the front.
I don’t need to see her face to know it’s her.
The professor falters, his words dying as he takes in our faces. Following his gaze, heads turn inquisitively toward us. She turns, her wide, umber eyes are filled with confusion—then fear—when they find mine. Not dropping her stare, I bark, “We need Mackenzi Bradenburg.”