Chapter 40 Mission Report Complete Fubar
KADE
This whole mission is fucked.
I’ve been in this business long enough to trust my gut, and right now my gut is screaming that this entire op is a setup.
Jake and I geared up at the armory like we always do—weapons checked, comms tested, extraction plan confirmed. But Bergen never showed. Neither did the rest of the team.
“Where the hell is everyone?” Jake muttered as we waited in the empty hangar.
That’s when his phone buzzed with a message from Bergen.
Change of plans. Better if you handle this as a duo. Less likely to draw attention. Get in, get out, keep it clean.
I should have trusted my instincts then. Should have called it off. But the thought of Viktor Petrov still breathing, still potentially threatening Amanda, overrode everything else.
So we flew the five hours to Tijuana, landing at the private airfield around seven a.m. Empty. No sign of Petrov, his plane, or anyone else who was supposed to be there.
We waited. Watched. Scanned radio frequencies. Nothing.
“This is bullshit,” Jake mutters now, adjusting his position for the hundredth time. His sniper rifle is broken down in the case at his feet, but his hand keeps drifting toward his sidearm like he’s expecting trouble. “Bergen said Viktor would be here at 0800. It’s past eleven.”
I check my watch again, even though I know exactly what time it is: 11:17 a.m. We should have been wheels up and heading home hours ago, mission complete, Viktor Petrov bleeding out on runway tarmac.
Instead, we’re sitting here like a couple of idiots, watching airport maintenance crews go about their business while our supposed target remains a ghost.
“The whole operation felt rushed,” I say, scanning the perimeter for the dozenth time. “Bergen pushing us out the door at 0200, insisting we couldn’t wait another day. No intel brief, no backup plan, just ‘get there fast and finish it.’ ”
Jake nods, his jaw tight. “And where the fuck is the rest of the team? Since when do we run ops with just two guys?”
That’s what’s really eating at me. Bergen’s message last night made it sound like time was critical, like we had one shot at Viktor before he disappeared forever. At the time, it made sense. Now it feels like we were deliberately isolated.
My phone buzzes.
BERGEN
Abort mission. Target relocated. RTB ASAP.
I show Jake the screen. He stares at it for a long moment, then looks up at me with an expression that mirrors my own thoughts.
“Return to base?” Jake’s voice is flat. “After dragging us down here in the middle of the night?”
I’m already moving toward our plane, parked on the far end of the tarmac where we left it hours ago. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
The walk back to the aircraft feels longer than it should, the heat radiating off the asphalt in waves that make the air shimmer. Jake’s quiet beside me, but I can practically hear his brain working through the same questions that are gnawing at me.
We were set up. The question is why.
I run through the preflight check faster than I should, my hands moving over the controls with barely contained aggression. Jake straps himself in without a word, watching me with the careful attention he usually reserves for hostile territory.
By the time we’re airborne, heading northeast toward New York, the paranoia has crystallized into cold certainty in my gut. This wasn’t a mission. This was a distraction.
“Talk to me,” Jake says once we’ve leveled off. He’s sitting in the small passenger cabin, his equipment bag at his feet, looking every inch the professional soldier except for the troubled expression on his face.
“They wanted us out of the city,” I say, voicing what we’re both thinking. “Question is who and why.”
“The why seems pretty obvious.” Jake is already pulling up intel reports on his tablet. “Keep us busy while they handle business elsewhere. Business they didn’t want us around for.”
I think about Amanda, probably at work right now, completely unaware that there might be a target on her back. The thought makes my fists clench.
“I should have stayed,” I mutter, staring out the small window at the landscape scrolling by below us. “Should have told Bergen to fuck off and handle it himself.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Couldn’t I?” I turn to look at him. “When has Bergen ever pulled us on a job that fast? When has he ever sent just two operators for work this critical?”
Jake doesn’t have an answer for that, because we both know the truth. Bergen’s been solid for years, reliable, by the book. This was completely out of character, which means either he’s compromised or he’s working an angle we’re not seeing.
Neither option is good.
“What’s going on with Raven?” I ask, partly to change the subject and partly because I’ve been wondering about their whole gaming situation for weeks now.
Jake shifts uncomfortably, which is answer enough. “Dunno what you mean,” he says, deflecting.
“You’re still logging in. Still playing with her.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So your job was surveillance. Keep tabs on Amanda through her sister. Job’s done, man. You don’t need to keep stringing her along.”
Jake’s jaw tightens. “I’m not stringing her along.”
“Then what are you doing?”
The silence stretches, and I can see him wrestling with an admission he doesn’t want to make.
Finally, he exhales and runs a hand through his hair.
“I like her, all right? She’s funny, she’s smart, she doesn’t take shit from anyone.
And she has no idea who I really am or what I do for a living, which is…
” He trails off, shaking his head. “It’s refreshing, I guess.
Talking to someone who just sees me as Jake the gamer instead of Jake the guy who kills people for money. ”
I study his face, seeing an emotion I hadn’t expected. “You care about her.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” He looks uncomfortable with the admission. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, well, join the club.” I lean back in my seat, thinking about Amanda’s messages last night. The way she opened up, let me see past all her walls. The raw honesty when she admitted she was falling for me.
“Speaking of complicated,” Jake says, fixing me with a pointed look, “when the hell are you going to tell Amanda who you really are?”
His question makes me feel like I’ve been shanked. It’s the same one I’ve been asking myself for weeks now, the same one that keeps me awake at night.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Bullshit.” Jake leans forward, his expression serious.
“You’ve been dancing around this for months, playing games, pretending to be someone else.
She’s falling for you, Kade. Actually falling for you.
And when she finds out you’re the same guy who disappeared on her eight years ago, how do you think that’ll go over? ”
“She still has my name,” I say quietly.
Jake stares at me. “What?”
“Amanda. She never changed her name back. She’s still Amanda Steele legally, but everywhere else—work, friends, her apartment lease—she’s Amanda Bennett. But where it officially…” My words trail off.
Jake snorts. “Dude. That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Oh, man, you’re really reaching here.” Jake’s grinning now, shaking his head. “Maybe she just never got around to changing it. Maybe the paperwork was a hassle. Maybe she was too busy, I don’t know, trying to put her life back together after her husband vanished without a fucking word.”
I glare at him, but he’s not done.
“Or maybe—and hear me out on this—she kept it because she really, really hates the DMV experience. You know how much women love spending their day off in government buildings, right?”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m just saying, there could be a million reasons that have nothing to do with her secretly pining for you.
” Jake’s still smirking, but then his expression shifts, gets more serious.
“Look, man, I get it. You want to believe she still cares. But you left her. Just packed up and disappeared like she meant nothing to you.”
The humor drains from his voice completely now.
“You think keeping your name is some kind of romantic gesture? She probably hates what that name represents.”
“I had to leave.” The words come out rougher than I intended. “People wanted me dead, and they were willing to go through her to get to me. I couldn’t—”
“I get it.” Jake’s voice loses the edge.
“I get why you did it. I’m in this life, too.
Hell, it’s why we don’t date, right? No personal lives, no attachments that can be used against us.
” He pauses, running a hand through his hair.
“But to her? You just up and vanished. No explanation, no goodbye, nothing. She doesn’t know about the threats or the life or any of it.
All she knows is that her husband disappeared without a word. ”
I want to argue with him, want to defend the choice I made eight years ago. But the truth is, he’s right. I was a coward. Instead of trusting Amanda with the truth, instead of giving her the chance to decide for herself what risks she was willing to take, I made the choice for her.
And it’s been eating at me ever since.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I ask. “Walk up to her and say, ‘Hey, remember that husband who left you broken and alone in a hospital bed after a motorcycle accident? Surprise, it’s me, and I’ve been stalking you through a spicy chatbot app’?”
“Better than letting her fall in love with a lie.”
The words feel heavy with truth I don’t want to face.
“She’s not falling in love with a lie,” I say finally. “She’s falling in love with me. The real me. Just… not all of it.”
“The real you is the guy who left her.”
“The real me is the guy who’s spent eight years making sure she’s safe. The guy who’s killed every threat that came near her. The guy who’s never stopped loving her for a single fucking day.”
Jake’s expression softens slightly. “Then tell her that. Stop hiding behind the helmet and the fake name and tell her the truth.”
Before I can respond, my phone starts ringing, Cal’s name on the screen.
I answer immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s been an incident.” Cal’s voice is tight, controlled, but I can hear the edge underneath. “They took Amanda.”
The words erupt in my chest. For a second, I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t process anything beyond the fact that the worst scenario I’ve ever imagined has just happened.
“What the fuck do you mean they took her?” My voice is barely controlled, rage and terror warring in my chest.
“She left the building around three. Employee exit. When she didn’t come back, I checked the security footage. Three men, unmarked van, professional extraction. They knew what they were doing.”
“How long ago?”
“Forty-five minutes. I’ve been tracking her phone. They’re still moving, heading north toward the Bronx. Do you have any idea who might want her?”
There’s only one group with the resources and motivation to pull an operation like this.
“Yeah,” I say, more to myself than to Cal. “I think I do.”
“I’ve got a lock on her location,” Cal continues. “I can send you coordinates—”
“Don’t bother. I’ve got her location myself.” I’m pulling up the tracking app on my phone. I can get a location on her phone and through the device I slipped into her purse on our first date. The little dot shows her moving steadily north, just like Cal said.
“We’re landing within the hour,” I tell him. “Meet me wherever she is.”
“Kade, I—” Cal’s voice cracks slightly. “I gave you my word I’d keep her safe. I fucked up.”
“Forget it,” I snap, already calculating flight time, approach vectors, extraction possibilities. “Let’s just get her back.”
I hang up and turn to Jake, who’s watching me with grim understanding.
“The Petrov family?” he asks.
“Has to be. The whole mission was a setup to get us out of the city. They wanted us out of the way so they could take her.”
“Revenge for what we did to Marko.”
I’m already adjusting our flight path, pushing the throttle forward. The engine responds with a surge of power that presses us back into our seats.
“Viktor wasn’t in Tijuana,” I say, my hands moving over the controls. “He was in New York, planning this.”
Jake straps himself in, checking his weapons automatically. “How do you want to play it?”
I don’t answer immediately. I’m staring at the GPS screen, watching that little dot that represents everything I care about in the world. She’s scared. She has to be. Probably thinking this is exactly what happened before—that the man she’s falling for has abandoned her when she needs him most.
But this time is different.
This time, I’m coming for her.
This time, nothing is going to stop me from bringing her home.
“However we have to,” I say finally, pushing the throttle to maximum. “Whatever it takes.”
The plane surges forward through the sky, eating up the miles between us. In the distance, the skyline of New York starts to resolve from the haze.
I’m coming, baby doll.
Hold on.