Ivy
Hampton, Virginia
The laughter dies in my throat the moment I see him.
Kyler.
His eyes—those dark, devastating eyes I once trusted more than my own reflection—lock on mine. Steady. Unrelenting. There’s no warm-up, no buildup. Just him. All fire and control and purpose.
The temperature in the room drops.
“Ivy.” His voice is even, but there’s an edge beneath it, like the echo of something explosive held barely in check.
From the corner of my vision, I catch Dalton shifting. Subtle. Watchful. He’s the kind of pretty you expect to see playing a fighter pilot in a big-budget movie, not actually strapping into one. But even he can’t protect me from Kyler. From the keeper of my own heart.
I lift my chin. Meet his stare. “What are you doing here?”
The room freezes with us, caught in the thick, quiet tension of a moment that could go anywhere.
Alinna and Wells stand by the kitchen, faces flickering between concern and confusion.
Logan has one hand laced tightly with Lila’s and the other hanging by his side, loose but ready.
His eyes are all steel, tracking Kyler’s every move.
And then there’s Nick Townsend, who just walked through the door, his gaze flicking between all of us, reading the room like the seasoned officer he is.
Kyler exhales, grounding himself. “You’re going to hear about it soon anyway, when they inevitably call for another joint op. So I’ll make it simple. The mission from a few months back—it didn’t stay clean. Target got out. Disappeared.”
His tone is clipped. Measured. But there’s something lethal under it.
“Before he vanished,” Kyler continues, “he gave us one final gift. The leak? It’s not just military intel. It’s operator names. Family members. Addresses.” His eyes harden. “Delta’s been compromised.” Then quieter. Sharper. Right through the ribs. “Ivy, your name is on that list.”
Logan’s entryway falls away.
I’m not in his house anymore. I’m in a room with no windows. The air thick and wet, smelling of mildew and blood. The cold crawling down my spine like it remembers where to settle.
The celebratory noise. The people. The warmth. It’s all gone. Swallowed whole.
My heart jackhammers. My breath shortens, hands cold. Like it was the night I forgot what hope felt like. Kyler’s words echo through my head, bouncing off everything I thought was safe.
Kyler takes a step closer to me, his hand reaching for mine like he can see my spiral coming, but just before he makes contact, he pulls away.
“You’re sure?” I don’t recognize my own voice.
“I am.” Kyler studies me, assessing every detail like he knows my own thoughts. His hands clench and unclench. I almost go to him. Almost beg him to wrap his strong arms around me and make me safe again.
Hadley.
Her name slams into my chest, knocking the breath from my lungs. My world realigns in an instant. Nothing matters except her. I swallow hard, my voice sharp and immediate. “Hadley. I need—”
A brief, unguarded moment of softness flickers across Kyler’s handsome face before his mask locks back into place. “Hadley’s safe. She’s still with your mom. I went there first. That’s how I knew where to find you.”
The unspoken fear for our daughter curls between us.
Dalton’s voice cuts through the thick silence. “And you thought you’d show up here, drop this bomb, and expect her to do what exactly?”
Kyler’s jaw tightens as his dark eyes land on Dalton. “I expect her to understand that I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
It shouldn’t sting like it does but his words are loaded with double meaning.
Dalton steps forward, slow and deliberate. The room is too tense, too charged. I can feel the barely restrained aggression rolling off both of them.
Kyler’s shoulders are squared, jaw tight, hands curled into fists at his sides. His eyes are searing through me, and when he speaks, his familiar voice cuts through the air. “You need to take this seriously, Ivy.”
He’s not yelling. He never yells. But his voice is a command, forged like he was, under intense pressure.
“I am taking it seriously,” I snap back, even though my voice is thinner than I want it to be. “But you haven’t really explained anything.”
Kyler exhales through his nose, frustration flickering across his face.
“The details don’t matter.” Classified—unspoken—but true.
After five years of marriage to a person whose life is hidden away, I’ve learned to hate that word.
“What matters is keeping you and Hadley safe. Fuck, Ivy.” He scrubs a hand over his face, scratching his short beard.
“These assholes have the names of my family, don’t you get that? ”
Logan takes a measured step forward, his grip still locked around Lila’s hand. There’s nothing casual in his stance. His strong frame angles just enough to put himself between her and the growing tension, his posture a wall of calm force. “Hey,” he says, eyes fixed on Kyler. “Maybe take a breath.”
It’s not a challenge. But it is a line.
That’s when Dalton moves. Quiet, controlled, and completely unshaken.
He steps in like he’s been watching long enough, like he’s read every shift of tension between us and decided it’s time to cut the wire.
“And start from the beginning.” He doesn’t raise his voice, his presence alone is a shift. Gravity tilting toward him.
Kyler turns toward him slowly, like a predator deciding if it’s worth the effort. Built to fight and to win. “You don’t get to step into this,” he says, voice low. A warning that seems to pause time.
“You came to us,” Dalton says.
“No, I came for Ivy.”
Again.
He came for me again.
The edges of my vision go black. Alinna is at my side instantly.
Her fingers close around my arm like a cue in rehearsal, subtle, firm, and urgent.
I follow without resistance, letting her guide me back, my feet moving instinctively with hers as she leads me closer to Wells.
My spine stays straight, shoulders loose, but every muscle is braced.
Trained awareness thrumming through me like music just beneath the surface.
Nick doesn’t shift an inch. He stands beside Kyler like part of the foundation, but his gaze is anything but still.
I see it in the subtle narrowing of his eyes—a tactical sweep of the room, one I recognize from years spent watching Kyler move through crowded spaces with that same calculated awareness.
The air hums like the seconds before a curtain rises, charged, thick with anticipation. But this isn’t a stage. There’s no choreography to fall back on here. Just instinct.
Dalton doesn’t back down.
Kyler is brute strength and fury tempered by discipline. A weapon forged in chaos and sharpened by war. His presence commands a room the way a storm commands the sea.
But Dalton, he’s quieter. A jagged glacier hidden beneath still water.
His hair catches the light, a little too long on top, messy in that accidental-on-purpose way.
He’s not as massive as Kyler. No one is.
He’s all lean muscle and coiled strength.
Like he already knows how the fight ends, and he’s just deciding how messy it needs to get.
Kyler is fire. Dalton is ice.
And somehow, both of them are wildly, maddeningly attractive.
“I’m not here to get in the middle of anything,” Dalton adds, tone even. “But if we’re all on the same side, maybe we act like it.”
Kyler lets out a sharp breath, stepping back just enough to show he’s done. For now.
His eyes don’t go to Dalton. They land on me.
And I know what he’s thinking.
He’s not angry because someone stepped in.
He’s angry because I didn’t stop him.
Because I let someone else stand between us.
And maybe because for the first time since we met, someone did.
And I didn’t hate it.