Chapter 20 The Vow #3
“Not bad for a beginner.” Fuse moves behind her. He winces slightly as he twists, a fleeting expression of pain that vanishes as quickly as it appeared.
He focuses on Cassie, adjusting her posture. “Feet wider. Bend your knees. You want to absorb the recoil through your whole body, not just your arms.” He repositions her hands. “Thumbs forward. Trigger finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.”
“Like this?”
“Better.” He steps back. “Now. The target is fifteen meters. Don’t worry about accuracy. Don’t worry about grouping. Your only job is to pull the trigger without flinching. You ready?”
“Ready.”
“Safety off. Site alignment—front site on the target, rear sites blurry. Slow breath. Squeeze the trigger.”
The gun bucks in her hands. The sound is sharp, flat—suppressed by the range’s acoustic dampening but still loud enough to make her flinch.
“Not bad.” Fuse checks the target. “You hit paper. That’s more than most people manage on their first shot.”
“I pulled left.”
“You anticipated the recoil. Natural instinct.” He hands her fresh ammunition. “Again. Slower this time. Let the gun surprise you.”
She reloads with fumbling fingers. Takes her stance. Fires.
This time the grouping is tighter. Still left of center, but closer.
“Better.” Fuse nods. “Again.”
“Let your breath out halfway before you squeeze,” a voice says from the shadows behind us.
Thorne steps into the light. He’s wearing tactical gear now, looking ready to step onto a transport.
“Hold it at the bottom of the exhale,” he instructs, moving to Cassie’s other side. “Natural respiratory pause. Your body is steadiest there.”
Cassie adjusts. Exhales. Holds. Fires.
The shot hits dead center.
“Nice,” Thorne says.
“Show off,” Fuse grumbles, but he’s grinning. “All right, new guy. Grab a lane. Let’s see if you shoot as good as you talk.”
“I shoot better.” Thorne moves to the next station.
From the bench, I track her progress. Cassie empties magazine after magazine into the target.
Fuse is patient, professional—correcting her grip.
Thorne offers quiet, specific advice between his own drills.
By the third box of ammunition, her grouping has tightened significantly.
By the fifth, she’s hitting center mass consistently.
“Natural aptitude,” Fuse observes, joining me on the bench while Cassie reloads. “She’s got steady hands and she listens. Most people can’t get past the flinch response for weeks.”
“She’s motivated.”
“I can see that.” He’s quiet for a moment, watching her fire another round. “She’s good for you. I haven’t seen you this focused in years.”
“I’m always focused.”
“You’re intense. There’s a difference.” He leans back, crossing his arms. “The old Diego—the one who showed up after Colombia—he was running on fumes and rage. Going through the motions, taking risks that made the rest of us nervous. We kept waiting for the mission where you didn’t come back.”
“Ghost said the same thing.”
“Ghost says a lot of things. Doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
” Fuse’s eyes stay on Cassie. “She gives you something to fight for besides the mission. Something personal. I can see it in how you move, how you position yourself relative to her. You’re not just protecting an asset. You’re protecting someone you love.”
The word lands like a physical blow.
Love.
“I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to.” Fuse grins, leaning against the partition. “I’ve known you for years. I’ve seen you take bullets for strangers, charge into buildings that were actively on fire. You’ve got a hero complex the size of Texas.”
“I don’t have a hero complex.”
“You definitely have a hero complex. Hell, if it weren’t for your guardian angel working overtime, you’d have been dead ten times over.”
“Don’t have a guardian angel …”
“Says the man who’s been shot, stabbed, and blown up more times than I can count.
Call it luck, call it divine intervention.
You survive things you shouldn’t survive.
” He gestures at Cassie. “But this is different. This isn’t about saving a stranger.
This is about building something. A future.
” His grin fades into something more serious.
“Don’t waste it. Don’t let the mission become an excuse to sacrifice yourself. She needs you to come back.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because in a few hours, you’re flying into a fortress.
When things go sideways—and they will—the temptation to be the guy who stays behind to buy time, to take the hit so the team gets clear …
It’s going to be there.” He holds my gaze.
“Don’t do it. Not this time. You’ve got someone waiting.
Be a partner, Halo. Stay alive because she asked you to, not just because survival is tactically convenient. ”
I don’t have an answer. But something in his words settles into my chest, filling spaces I didn’t know were empty.
Cassie finishes her magazine. Turns to us with a smile.
“My grouping improved thirty percent.” She holds up the target—center mass peppered with holes. “Fuse was being generous, but I’ll take it.”
“Not generous.” Fuse stands. “Accurate. You’ve got talent.
Keep practicing and you might actually be useful in a firefight.
” He slaps me on the shoulder as he passes.
“I’m going to prep the breach charges. You two take a break.
Reconnect. Do whatever it is that couples do when they’re not running from killer robots. ”
He disappears into the equipment room.
Cassie crosses to me. Sits on the bench, close enough that our shoulders touch.
“He’s nice.” She keeps her voice low. “Under all the flirting and the jokes.”
“He is. He’s also right.”
“About what?”
I turn to face her. Take her hands.
“About coming back. About staying alive.” I search her eyes, looking for the words I’ve never been good at saying. “I’ve spent years treating every mission like it might be my last. Not because I wanted to die, exactly. But because I didn’t have a reason to want anything else.”
“And now?”
“Now I have you.”
She leans into me. Presses her forehead against mine.
“Then come back,” she whispers. “Whatever happens in Nevada. Whatever we find. Come back to me.”
“I will.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
It’s a lie—I can’t promise anything in a combat zone. But it’s also the truest thing I’ve ever said. Because for the first time, I want to keep the promise. I want to survive not just because survival is instinct, but because there’s something waiting on the other side worth surviving for.
Ghost finds me an hour later.
I’m in the armory, running a final check on my kit—rifle, sidearm, spare magazines, the compact trauma kit that’s saved my life twice. The routine is soothing, meditative. Muscle memory taking over while my mind processes everything that’s happened.
“Halo.” Ghost’s voice is quiet. Controlled. He steps into the armory, letting the door close behind him. “A word.”
“Sure.”
He crosses to where I’m standing. For a moment, he just watches me work—hands moving through the familiar patterns, checking chambers and counting rounds.
“She’s staying.” Not a question.
“I know.” I meet his gaze. Hold it. “She’s the reason I’m still functional. The reason I’m not operating on autopilot, waiting for the mission that finally puts me in the ground. I have to come back.”
Ghost is quiet for a long moment. His expression doesn’t change—it rarely does—but something shifts in the quality of his silence. The assessment giving way to something more personal.
“Colombia,” he says finally. “When I found you in that warehouse. You had a gun to your head.”
The memory surfaces. Unwanted. Unavoidable.
A concrete floor sticky with blood—not all of it mine. The bodies of the men I’d killed scattered around me like broken toys. The Glock pressed against my temple, finger on the trigger, the noise in my head so loud I couldn’t hear anything else.
Sofia was dead. The cartel had taken her, and I’d been half a world away. The guilt was a physical weight crushing my chest. Easier to end it. Easier to follow her into the dark.
And then Ghost’s voice, cutting through the static: Put the gun down. That’s an order.
“I remember.”
“You weren’t going to pull the trigger because of the cartel.” Ghost’s voice is flat. Clinical. The voice of a man who’s seen too many operators eat their weapons. “You were going to pull it because you wanted the noise to stop.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been watching you for years. Waiting for that moment to come back.
Waiting for the mission where you finally decide not to come home.
” His pale eyes search my face. “Every extraction, every firefight, every time you put yourself between a bullet and someone else—I’ve been counting.
Measuring how much risk you’re willing to take.
Trying to calculate when enough will finally be enough. ”
I don’t have an answer. Because he’s right. Because somewhere underneath all the professionalism and tactical precision, there’s always been a death wish. A quiet certainty that the way I live will eventually become the way I die.
“I’m coming back,” I say.
“Because of her.”
“Because of her.”
Ghost nods slowly. Something that might be approval—or relief—flickers across his weathered features.
“I’ve seen a lot of operators destroy themselves. Some of them fast, some of them slow. Most of them never find a reason to stop. They just keep going until the mission kills them or they kill themselves.” He pauses. “You’re one of the best I’ve ever worked with.”
“Thanks.”
He turns toward the door and pauses at the threshold. Looks back.
“For what it’s worth.” He pauses. “I’m glad you found someone. You deserve better than dying alone in a warehouse somewhere.”
Then he’s gone. The door closes behind him.
I stand alone in the armory for a long time, surrounded by weapons and ammunition and the tools of a trade I’ve practiced for most of my adult life.
Ghost is right. About all of it.