Chapter 15 #3
"For not doing this alone. For letting me be part of it."
She reached up. Touched his face briefly. The gesture was small, private, the kind of thing she wouldn't have done if the screens were still live.
"You were always going to be part of it," she said. "This is as much yours as mine."
Ring's voice came through the speakers, carefully neutral. "Not to interrupt, but I'm uploading the Council package now. You should both review it before it goes to Archangel. Make sure I didn't miss anything."
Raven almost smiled. Ring's timing was, as always, impeccable.
"Send it over," she said. "We'll review it."
"Sent. And Raven?"
"Yes?" Her answer was accompanied by a heavy eye roll.
"Good briefing. Anubis and I will have preliminary logistics ready for team staging by morning, assuming we get authorization."
She smiled a bit and, with genuine gratitude, answered, "Thanks, Ring."
The speakers went quiet.
Dan looked at the tablets on the table, at the evidence they'd spent six weeks gathering, at the intelligence architecture that Ring had built and that would, if the Council agreed, become the blueprint for dismantling the Black Scroll Society.
"What are the chances they authorize?" he asked.
"I would assume it’s high," Raven said. "Archangel wouldn't take it to them if he didn't think it would pass. And the evidence is solid. Ring doesn't miss things."
"And if they don't?"
"Then we keep building the case until they do." She paused. "But they will. This is too big to ignore. The Council exists to authorize operations like this."
Dan nodded slowly. Processing.
"So, we wait," he said.
"We wait."
He looked at her. At the woman who'd been his partner once, who'd become his partner again, who was about to lead him into the most dangerous operation either of them had ever attempted.
"I'm glad we're doing this together," he said.
"So am I."
They stood in the safe house dining room with the evidence of six weeks' work spread across the table and the weight of what came next settling over them both.
Somewhere in the Philippines, Alexei Mori was training more assassins. Building more cells. Expanding the Black Scroll Society one careful operation at a time.
But not for much longer.
If the Council authorized the mission—no, when the Council authorized it, they'd finish this. Together.
* * *
The call came thirty-six hours later.
Raven was reviewing tactical maps of the Cagayan Valley region when her phone rang.
She answered immediately.
"We have authorization," Archangel said without preamble. "Full operational clearance. Elimination authorization for Alexei Mori and any active threats. The Council wants this done fast and clean. No international incidents. No footprint."
Her heart rate didn't spike. She'd been expecting this, though hearing it confirmed made it real in a way the briefing hadn't.
"Understood," she said. "When do we move?"
"Anubis is assembling the team now. Havoc is the only one on an op and can’t be called off. You brief them tomorrow morning, stage equipment tomorrow afternoon, wheels up tomorrow night. You'll be in the Philippines in forty-eight hours."
"Copy that."
"Raven."
"Yes, sir?"
"Everyone comes home. That's not a suggestion."
"Yes, sir."
"Whatever it takes."
“As long as it takes, sir.”
The line went dead.
She set the phone down and looked at Dan across the room. "We're authorized."
He stood from where he'd been reviewing Ring's facility schematics and crossed to her. "When?" he asked.
"Tomorrow night."
He nodded once. “It almost seems unreal. I’ve been working toward this for so long.”
"It’s real, and we should get some rest," she said.
"Tomorrow's going to be long." She looked at him.
At the man who'd come back from the dead to finish this.
At the partner she'd thought she'd lost, destiny or fate had given back.
"Tomorrow you’ll meet the team," she said. "They're going to have questions."
"I'll answer them."
"Some of them are going to be about us."
He almost smiled. "I know."
"And?"
"And I'll tell them the truth. That we trained together. That we're finishing what we started years ago. And that they can trust me because you trust me."
She reached for his hand.
He took it.
"They're good," she said. "My team. You'll like them."
"I already like anyone who kept you alive for years while I couldn't be here."
She felt that emotion land on her heart. The weight of what he'd been carrying for years, unable to help, unable to be there, trusting that someone else was doing what he couldn't.
"They kept me sane, too," she said. "They're family."
"Good. Then I'll do my best to be worthy of them."
They stood in her drab suburban living room with tactical maps spread across every surface and the knowledge that in forty-eight hours, they'd be going to war against people they'd once trained beside.
It should have felt heavier.
It should have felt more complicated.
But standing there, holding his hand, knowing that whatever came next they'd face it together—
It just felt right.