Chapter 30
Kenzi
Dozer comes out of surgery six hours later. Six hours. Three hundred and sixty minutes. Twenty-one thousand six hundred seconds, not that I count them, exactly, except apparently, I do because my brain is a deeply unhelpful place when it has nothing productive to dissect.
The bullet comes out clean from a spot that misses anything permanently vital by a margin the surgeon calls, with visible professional astonishment, "genuinely lucky."
I decide immediately that I hate the word lucky.
Lucky is finding twenty dollars in an old coat pocket.
Lucky is getting the last chocolate croissant at a coffee shop.
Lucky is not a bullet entering a man's body and missing the things required to keep him alive by fractions of an inch.
That's not luck. That's the universe terrifying the absolute hell out of me and then expecting gratitude afterward. And I am grateful. Really. But, I don’t call it luck.
I sit in a hospital hallway for every one of those six hours, still wearing clothes stiff with dried blood that isn't entirely his, and don't move until somebody tells me I can see him.
Ghost tries once. "You should change."
"No."
"You've got blood on you."
"I noticed."
"You've also been awake for—"
"Ghost."
He looks at me for a second, then apparently recognizes something in my face that tells him pushing further would be hazardous to his health. "Coffee?"
"Yes."
He brings me one. I forget to drink it.
Hunter sits beside me for almost an hour without saying anything, which turns out to be exactly the correct amount of conversation.
He hands me a bottle of water and makes me drink it.
Nobody tells me Dozer is going to be fine until they know.
I appreciate that. False reassurance has always irritated me. Tonight, I think it might break me.
So I wait.
And somewhere outside that hospital, while I'm staring at the same ugly beige tile and trying not to replay the moment I found Dozer on the museum floor, the world starts changing.
By the time I finally get a reliable signal on my phone, the story is everywhere.
The headlines are filling all my social media feeds.
Senator Whitmore Cole. Falsified pharmaceutical trials.
Laundered funds. Illegal human experimentation hidden behind fraudulent consent forms. A private security contractor conducting black operations on American soil.
Federal officials compromised across multiple agencies.
Cole's public statement hits the news. He’s calling it political persecution and claims that the evidence is fabricated.
He claims that the private security organization is rogue and he’s not connected to it in any way.
He’s believed for approximately eleven minutes before the first independent lab verifies our forensic package.
Then another. Then the financial records start surfacing.
Then someone inside his own network decides prison sounds considerably worse than cooperation and starts talking.
By nightfall, Senator Whitmore Cole is in federal custody. Two more names follow, then four. The arrests cascade the way arrests do once the first domino falls somewhere nobody can prop back up.
And still, sitting beside Dozer's hospital bed while a machine monitors every heartbeat I pretend I'm not listening to, none of it feels like victory yet.
Not completely.
Not while Dozer is laying in this bed.
Ryan's death isn't part of Cole's conspiracy. That grief belongs to something else. It’s an older wound.
This case can't fix that, and to be honest, nothing can.
But buried inside the falsified trial records, I find three families who were handed carefully sanitized versions of their loved ones' deaths.
Three families who never knew the people they loved had been used in trials they hadn't properly consented to.
They will now no doubt get lawyers and sue, and I hope they win every penny they sue for.
I know what it feels like when somebody gives you a story because they don't think you can handle the truth. I know what unanswered questions do when you leave them alone long enough. They don't disappear.
So when investigators finally contact those families, I ask to participate. Not because I need credit. Because I want someone in the room who remembers those names belonged to people before they became case numbers.
Getting to hand those families something real doesn't heal Ryan. But it heals something. Maybe that's enough. Maybe healing isn't about making the old wound disappear. Maybe it's about finally discovering the wound isn't the only thing that gets to remain.
Two days after the museum operation, Hunter comes to see me while Dozer is sleeping off the last of the sedation and IV antibiotics are doing their slow work. He's been upgraded from intensive care to a regular room, which I have decided means I am legally allowed to breathe again. Mostly.
Hunter finds me in the waiting area outside Dozer's room with my laptop open and approximately twelve tabs running because apparently nearly losing the man I've fallen for has not cured me of my inability to sit still.
"You know hospitals generally encourage patients' families to rest."
I look up. "I'm not family."
Hunter gives me a look. I close the laptop halfway. "Fine. Technically debatable. I don’t think he’d agree with you." He sits across from me. "You did something remarkable."
I make a face. "That sounds dangerously like praise."
"Try to survive it."
"No promises."
The corner of his mouth moves. Then he gets serious. "Cole's people had reach into three separate federal agencies. You took the entire network apart with more nerve than most trained operators I've worked with."
"I had help."
"You had a team." His gaze stays on mine. "But the work was yours."
I don't know what to do with that. Praise has always made me slightly uncomfortable. Criticism gives me something to solve. Praise just sits there expecting emotional maturity. Unreasonable. Hunter lets me sit with it anyway.
Then he says, "DOD called this morning."
That gets my attention. "What did they want?"
"You."
I blink. "That's unfortunate."
His mouth twitches. "They want you back. They offered full reinstatement. Better clearance than you had before and an upgraded position."
"Of course they do."
"I even negotiated an official apology for the layoff."
I stare at him. "On letterhead?"
"I didn't ask."
"Missed opportunity."
Hunter leans back. "They're serious."
I know. That's the problem. Two weeks ago, this offer would have been everything. Vindication. Proof that nine years hadn't been disposable after all. Proof that somebody finally realized eliminating my position had been a mistake. I should want it. A part of me does.
Then I look toward the hospital room where a massive, stubborn operator is currently recovering from a bullet wound he got while standing between me and men trying to destroy evidence.
"And you?" I ask. "What's Spartan Elite offering?"
Hunter is quiet for half a second. "Director of Digital Forensics and Intelligence."
I sit straighter. "That's a real title?"
"It is now."
I almost smile. "Full authority to build out the department however you see fit. Staffing. Equipment. Procedures. Operational integration. Whatever you need."
"Budget?"
"Within reason."
"Define reason."
"No."
"Hunter."
"You can terrorize accounting after you sign."
Now I do smile.
"Higher risk than DOD," he continues. "Worse hours.
Considerably less bureaucracy standing between you and actually doing the work that matters.
" His expression stays carefully neutral.
"I'm not going to pretend I'm not hoping you say yes.
" Then his eyes flick toward Dozer's room.
"But I need you to make the choice for yourself. Not for anyone else."
Something inside me softens. Because he knows. Of course he knows. Hunter notices far more than he admits. But, I imagine anyone around us in the last two days would be a fool not to notice.
I look toward Dozer's closed door. "I appreciate you saying that."
"I mean it."
"I know."
And I do. The distinction matters. I don't want to choose a job because I want a man.
I don't want to wake up six months from now wondering whether I rebuilt my entire life around someone else before figuring out what I wanted for myself.
Dozer would hate that too. Maybe that's one of the reasons I trust him.
He has never once asked me to become smaller so he can feel bigger beside me.
I think about Ryan. About twenty-three-year-old me joining DOD while grief was still new.
I wanted purpose. For nine years, the DOD gave me good work.
Important work. I don't regret it. But the system also proved how easily it could decide I was expendable when a spreadsheet told it to.
Then, the second my name became useful again, suddenly the door reopened.
I think about Elite and the team offered there. Ruby. Ghost. Hack. Hunter. People who understood that truth wasn't something you admired from a safe distance, but something you had to fight to protect.
"I want Spartan Elite."
Hunter doesn't react immediately. So I keep going. "Not because of Dozer."
"I know."
"I want that on the record anyway."
"Noted."
I inhale. "I've spent nine years doing careful, correct work inside a system that treated me as disposable the second budgets got tight.
I want to build something that answers to the truth first and bureaucracy never.
" Something warm settles into my chest as I say it.
Certainty. "I want the department you're offering.
I want to build a forensic program that doesn't wait for somebody powerful to decide a victim is important enough to investigate.
I want to be the person who makes sure nobody ever has to wait for a body to wash up on the news before somebody finally looks hard enough to find the truth in it. "
Hunter smiles. "Then welcome to Spartan Elite."
I grin. "Officially?"
"Officially."
The happiness hits. "Thanks, Hunter. Thanks for believing in me."
Hunter stands. Before he leaves, his hand settles briefly on my shoulder. We’re family. No blood required.
A few minutes later, a nurse tells me Dozer is awake. I am out of that chair before she finishes the sentence.
He looks terrible. He’s pale and there’s gauze visible beneath the hospital gown. Bruising already darkening along his side. His eyes find mine immediately. Everything else disappears.
"You look terrible," I say, taking the chair beside his bed.
"Feel worse."
"You took a bullet like an absolute maniac."
"Told you I had it handled."
I stare at him. "You did not have it handled. You had it barely survived. There's a meaningful difference."
His mouth moves into almost a smile.
I reach for his hand being careful of the IV. His fingers close around mine immediately. That simple contact nearly undoes me. I hide it with sarcasm. Obviously.
"Also, the surgeon says you're genuinely lucky."
"Good."
"I told him I object to the terminology."
"Of course you did."
"Luck is finding fries at the bottom of the bag. This was anatomical probability behaving unusually in our favor."
He looks at me for a long second. "I missed you."
Everything inside me stops. There are six million possible smart-ass answers. Not one of them comes to the surface.
"You were unconscious for most of it."
"Still."
His thumb brushes weakly across my knuckles. I lean closer. "I missed you too."
There. Real. No joke. We're both growing. It's disgusting.
"I took the job," I tell him. His eyes sharpen slightly. "Spartan Elite. Director of Digital Forensics and Intelligence."
Something crosses his face. Pride. Definitely pride. And underneath it, relief he probably thinks he's hiding. He's not.
"Good."
I laugh softly. "That's it?"
"You'll be good at it."
"I know."
That earns me the look. I smile, real and unguarded. "I didn't take it for you, by the way. I want that on the record."
"Wouldn't have wanted you to."
Of course.
"I took it because it's mine. The work. The team. All of it."
"I know that too." His fingers tighten around mine. "Doesn't mean I'm not glad you'll be down the hall."
Something warm unfurls beneath my ribs. "Down the hall?"
"Hopefully."
"I was planning on claiming an entire wing."
"Of course you were."
"And painting it."
His eyes close briefly. "No."
"Bright colors."
"Kenzi."
"Possibly a mural."
He opens his eyes. "Wait until you see our actual headquarters."
“I was told it’s bright lights and sanitized walls.”
“It’s expensive.”
“Expensive? Definitely going to need some color.”
“Absolutely not.”
I grin. There he is. Alive. Annoyed. And mine.
I lean down carefully, mindful of every tube and every place I know hurts.
His free hand comes up slowly and touches my cheek.
I turn into his palm. Then I kiss him slowly.
I’m not afraid of alarms going off or bullets flying by our heads this time.
Just his mouth against mine and his hand warm against my face.
The promise we made before the operation settling into us.
When I pull back, I keep my forehead against his. "There's an after," I whisper.
His mouth curves. "Told you."
"You're going to be insufferable about being right."
"Probably."
I smile.
"I don't say things I don't mean," he murmurs.
I close my eyes. For once, I don't need to catalog the moment. I just let myself have it.
Maybe that's what healing actually looks like. Not forgetting the hurt. Not pretending it didn't change you. Just finally making enough room beside the grief for something good to grow alongside it.
And for the first time since Ryan’s death, I know exactly what I want to do with the after.
Live it. With him.