Kyler
Above the Lebombo Mountains, South Africa
I’ve never been to church.
But right now, I’m praying like a fucking sinner at the gates of hell.
We’re wheels up, tearing through the dark, and all I can think is we should’ve seen this coming. Hell, somebody did.
That kid…Everett. Ghost. Sharp as a damn scalpel.
Brought up some recon a few months back.
Small movements in the valley, barely a blip on anyone’s radar.
Command brushed it off. Low priority. Nothing actionable.
But I remember the way he looked during that debrief, like his gut was screaming something no one else could hear.
And he was right.
The Chinook’s cabin is dim, vibrating with the steady thrum of twin rotors and the muted clatter of gear. My rifle rests across my lap, gloved hands clenched too tight around the grip. The operators around me are calm, checking kit, nodding once as they run through the assault plan in their heads.
I’m the newest guy here. Passed OTC just over a month ago. My body’s still carrying the last of the bruises. My mind still reeling. I haven’t even earned a proper nickname yet. They just call me “Wade.” No one gives a shit about your name until you’ve bled next to them in a fight.
Tonight will be my first combat op as a full-blooded member of the unit—Cipher Team.
And Ivy’s one of the hostages.
The mission came down fast—intel traced four missing American women to an insurgent faction operating in Northern Cape, South Africa.
An opportunistic splinter group with cartel ties and a taste for American political leverage.
Hostage demands haven’t been made yet. They don’t need to be.
A Tier 1 unit going in before sunrise tells you all you need to know about what our government expects to happen if we wait.
I wasn’t even supposed to see the target list. But I caught her name—Ivy Amelia Berkley—as it scrolled across the SITREP briefing. And my fucking world stopped. I all but begged Jackson, our team leader, to get Cipher on the op.
Ivy’s had my heart since the night in that bar nine months ago. I didn’t wait. Didn’t play the game. I called her that night when I got home. And just over a month later—about a week before OTC—I finally told her who I am. What I am.
I remember driving to her apartment. I remember rehearsing what I could say and how I should say it.
I remember the three hours passing before I felt even a little prepared.
But I knew I couldn’t go dark for six months during training without her understanding why.
I couldn’t expect her to wait for me if she didn’t know what she was waiting on.
And I needed her to wait for me.
I was sitting on the floor, back against the couch. Her small frame curled up against me. I remember her asking if I was going to disappear again. I remember cringing because she hadn’t seen me disappear. Not yet. Not like she would.
I said her name and she turned to face me. Sitting cross-legged in front of me on the rug in the living room of her college apartment.
“There’s something I need to tell you. And I need you to hear all of it before you say anything.” I’d rehearsed this part in my truck. Not much else though.
Her amber eyes sparkled with concern. But she didn’t say anything, just rested her small hand on my knee.
I remember my palms sweating. “You know I’m Army. But I haven’t told you what I do for the Army.”
She nodded for me to continue.
“I’m part of a unit called 1st SFOD-D. Most people know it as Delta Force.”
Her lips parted in surprise. I remember wanting to kiss them but forcing myself to finish explaining. “Delta? Delta...like the guys who wear all black and kick down doors and jump out of planes and...and…” She trails off.
I nodded. I remember looking at her mouth again and forcing my eyes back to hers.
“We don’t advertise. It’s black ops. People outside the community barely know we exist. I was a Ranger before this for years.
Everything I do is classified. Where I go.
Who I’m with. What we do. I can’t talk about it, even with you.
The night we met I had just completed selection. ”
She nodded again, processing. “And you’re telling me now because…”
“Because I love you,” I said, my voice low. “And I’m tired of lying. You deserve better than half-truths and vanishing acts.” I remember mentally beating myself up. Livid at how I fucking told her I loved her. In the middle of confessing who I was. That I’m this trained killer.
She didn’t say anything for way too long. “How dangerous is it?”
There was no sugarcoating it. “Very.”
“Have you…” I remember how nervous she was to ask. “Have you killed someone?”
“Yes.”
She wrapped her arms tightly around her body. I remember the way she looked at me. No judgement. Only concern. “And you keep doing it?”
“If I have to. To protect people. To stop worse from happening.”
She nodded slowly. “Why did you tell me now?”
“I start the Operator Training Course next week. And we’re cut off. No phones. No emails. No visits. It’s six months.”
I remember the understanding passing across her pretty face. She nodded once. “I don’t care what you do. I care who you are. And who you are is a man I love with everything I am.”
I remember the relief. The kiss. The night. I remember knowing when I headed back to Bragg for OTC that as soon as I got the chance, I’d marry this girl.
That was eight months ago.
Now we’re thirty minutes out, flying dark and low, heading toward a secure LZ outside a remote farming village where the compound sits like a ghost on satellite.
“Ten minutes,” comes through the headset.
I check my rifle, my sidearm, my NVGs. I’ve run these drills a hundred times, but nothing feels the same now. Not with her down there.
Jackson nudges my shoulder, he’s been in Delta for eight years. “You good, Wade?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, though the word tastes like iron.
He studies me, then leans closer. “Focus on the mission. You get in your head now, people die.”
I nod. He’s right. I know he’s right. But every second we’re still in the air, Ivy’s one second closer to being lost forever.
She was supposed to be safe. Studying abroad in Cape Town. Teaching ballet to underprivileged girls and sending me pictures of her sunburnt, smiling face. We talked seven days ago. She said she loved me. Said she was scared sometimes, but happy.
I shouldn’t have let her go. Not that she gave me a choice, but I should have put up a fight. She would have at least heard me out.
We touch down smooth and silent. The night is thick, dust in the air, stars overhead, a sliver of moon. We move fast and low through the scrub, weapons up, eyes on infrared. The compound is nestled behind a rise in the land, camouflaged with makeshift barriers and brush netting.
Cipher is on primary breach and extract. Talon’s our overwatch and support. They’ve got sniper cover and perimeter eyes from the high ground. We’re going in fast, hitting the compound’s weak point, and getting the hostages out before anyone knows what happened.
ISR confirmed at least nine hostiles. Two roving patrols. One lookout. The hostages' heat sigs are inside the east wing of the main structure. We have thirty minutes to breach and exfil before reinforcements arrive.
Stone signals our stack. Jackson sets the charge on the back entrance. The door splinters, and we’re in.
Flash-bangs go first—one, two.
“Cipher 1 to Talon Team, we’re in,” Jackson says, then we’re clearing rooms.
And then the real chaos begins.
It’s fast. Brutal. Controlled only by our training and the hours we spent prepping for every possible variable.
The hallway branches, tight, narrow, dim. Novak and I take west, weapons up, slicing the corner.
We barely clear the first threshold before two tangos round the bend, shouting in a dialect I barely register before I squeeze the trigger. Novak’s already dropping the second, clean center-mass shots, before the first man even hits the floor.
We advance. Another opens fire near the kitchen. A wild spray that rips through drywall inches from my shoulder. He’s sloppy. Overconfident. It costs him. Novak cuts him down mid-yell with a three-round burst.
But there’s noise now. We’ve lost the element of surprise.
“Cipher 3 to all teams. Room clear. No hostages yet. Moving east,” Novak reports through gritted teeth as we stack near another junction.
We sweep left, then right. Room after room. Cleared. Empty.
My gut twists.
This doesn’t feel right.
We were told the hostages would be here. Centralized. Together. But the more doors we breach, the more I start to believe the intel was wrong.
“Cipher 4, we’ve got bodies, two hostages here,” Stone reports from another wing. “One’s critical. No sign of your girl.”
Fuck.
I shove into the far corridor, my gut dragging me forward. It’s narrower here. Less trafficked. Darker. The heat shifts. It’s thicker, like the air hasn’t moved in hours.
And then I see it.
A heavier door at the end of the hall. Reinforced. Steel bolts. Dead space behind it.
That’s where they’d keep her.
“Cipher 4 to Cipher 1 we need a breach,” I bark.
Jackson barrels around the corner, nods once, and slaps a charge against the frame. I count the beat of my heart twice before he triggers it. The blast echoes down the corridor, disorienting. Dust pours from the ceiling.
We’re in.
Smoke clouds the entry and for a second I can’t see shit. I push through it, weapon up, expecting fire.
Instead, it’s still.
Ivy’s on her knees bloodied, lip split, wrists tied together behind her back. My heart stops.
She’s not alone.
Two tangos. One man’s crouched behind her, one hand laced through Ivy’s blonde hair, using her like a shield.
The fucking coward. His eyes are wide, bloodshot.
His other hand is pressing a rifle to her temple.
He’s shouting. “Los my nie! Ek skiet haar! Ek sweer dit!” Don’t move! I’ll shoot her! I swear it!
Afrikaans. My mind registers it instantly as one of half a dozen languages I speak fluently. It rolls easy in my head.