Chapter 28 Ethan
Ethan
We don’t slow.
Not for terrain.
Not for obstacles.
Not for anything.
The helicopter cuts low over the landscape, blades tearing through the air, and I stand at the open edge, eyes locked on the ground below like I can see her—
like I can reach her—
Every second stretches too long.
Every second she’s out there—
injured—
with them—
I push harder.
Even when there’s nowhere left to push.
“They’re heading for a secondary site,” Jonah calls from behind me.
“Of course they are,” Aaron mutters.
I don’t look back.
“Fortified?”
“Yeah,” Jonah says. “And not small.”
Good.
More of them.
More targets.
Ronan steps up beside me, steady even with the chopper shifting under us.
“You go in like this,” he says, voice low, “you don’t come out.”
I grip the frame tighter.
Wind whipping past.
“I’m not going in alone.”
A beat.
Then—
a shift in the air between us.
Understanding.
“Good,” he says.
Because he sees it.
All of it.
The line I crossed the second she was taken.
The fact that there’s no coming back from it.
I check my weapon again.
Click.
Slide.
Ready.
Not because it needs it.
Because I do.
“We get her back.”
The words aren’t loud.
But they land.
Ronan nods once.
“Yeah.”
Aaron’s grin is sharp when he leans forward.
“Then we burn the rest down.”
My eyes stay locked ahead.
Exactly.