Chapter 26 RYDER
RYDER
Kate sleeps peacefully next to me, her breathing is slow and even, her face turned slightly into the pillow, lashes dark against her cheeks.
The early light through the ranch curtains paints her in soft gold, a kind of warmth that still doesn’t feel real in my hands.
I’ve been awake for hours. Dawn has always been my hour, the quiet stretch of time where the world is still and my mind is sharp.
But this morning, sharpness isn’t the thing keeping me awake. It’s her.
My arm is stiff where it’s draped across her waist, healing muscles protesting the position, but I don’t move.
I’d rather feel pain than risk waking her.
She shifts once, murmuring something incoherent, her fingers tightening briefly around the fabric of my shirt.
The sensation hits deep, unsettling in the way softness always is.
She trusts the space beside me, and that I’ll still be here when she opens her eyes.
Yesterday plays on a loop in my head—her voice, the way she said she wanted more, how she looked at me like I wasn’t a weapon or a ghost, but a human being she wanted no matter how damaged. I told her I didn’t know how, she told me she’d teach me, and I promised her I’d try.
The promise sits heavy in my chest. I’ve made promises before—contracts wrapped in blood and precision, vows to complete jobs, to eliminate targets, to disappear cleanly—but this is different.
The thought should make me scoff. Instead, it makes my throat tighten because it’s made me realize that I’m in love with her.
The realization is quiet, almost clinical, and still it shocks the hell out of me.
Love isn’t something that belongs in my life.
Love is a liability, a weakness, an open door.
I built my existence around closed doors, solitude, and around the idea that wanting is how you get killed.
And yet here she is, sleeping in my bed like she belongs there, like she always has.
And for the first time in a long time, I realize that I really do want to stay.
Julian fusses softly from the cot near the window, a small, restless sound that sharpens into a whimper. I move immediately, grateful when Kate doesn’t stir, step out of bed and cross the room, lifting him with practiced hands. He blinks up at me with eyes too knowing for a baby.
“Easy,” I murmur under my breath, more instinct than tenderness. “Daddy’s got you.”
Daddy. Yes. That’s another title I’m taking up. Yesterday I asked Kate to let Julian take my last name, and she agreed.
Coming back home, seeing all my siblings happy with their spouses and kids, made me wish for the same—for someone who belonged to me—and I realized that Kate and Julian are those people. Now I just have to make good on my word so that she never regrets giving me a chance.
I change him quickly, then carry him out before he can wake Kate.
Rook and Ash are already there in the hallway, sitting like sentries.
They’ve been on edge since the attack, muscles coiled, eyes tracking every sound.
They sniff Julian gently, tails thumping once, then they follow us downstairs and into the kitchen that smells like coffee and bacon when we walk in.
The rest of the house is already awake. Beck is leaning against the counter, a smug grin on his face, as soon as his eyes land on Julian in my arms.
“Didn’t think you were the domestic type,” he muses.
“You think wrong a lot,” I retort.
Ella looks up from her laptop, coffee in hand. “Don’t scare him off, Beck. He’s trying.”
“Trying what?” Beck asks innocently. “Parenthood? Feelings? Shirts that don’t look like tactical gear?”
“Shut up,” I mutter, shifting Julian higher.
Julian hiccups softly, and Beck’s expression softens for half a second before the humor snaps back into place.
“Morning, brother,” Zane’s voice comes from behind me, steady as ever.
I nod once before I start moving around the kitchen, measuring water into the kettle, warming the milk, and testing it against my wrist. Julian watches me with round, alert eyes, like he’s taking notes.
Rook and Ash track every step I take, nails clicking softly against the hardwood. I fill their bowls, food first, then water, and they eat with the disciplined patience of trained animals.
After Julian is well fed and burped, I begin plating breakfast without thinking too hard about why I’m doing it: eggs, toast, fruit, and bacon.
I’m sliding it onto the counter when Kate walks in. She looks like morning belongs to her—hair loose, face bare, eyes bright in a way that makes the room feel warmer. She pauses when she sees me, something soft passing over her expression.
Then she crosses the space like she’s done it a hundred times and curls into my side.
Her head rests briefly against my shoulder, her arm slipping around my waist. My body goes rigid on instinct, the old reflex screaming at contact, closeness, and vulnerability in the open.
For half a second, I don’t know what to do with myself.
Then she exhales, content, and the tension eases. She’s teaching me like she said she would. Slowly, patiently, and with touch instead of words.
“Good morning,” she murmurs.
“Morning, beautiful,” I manage, because I have to try too.
Beck makes a choking sound. “Did he just—“
“Beck,” Ella warns.
He makes a zipping gesture with his fingers over his lips and tosses the key away. Good. One more word from him and he’d be eating through a straw.
Kate smiles as she gestures at the plate. “Is that for me?”
I nod, and her eyes lift, surprised. “Ryder…”
“It’s food,” I mutter.
“It’s effort,” she corrects gently, and kisses my shoulder like punctuation.
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t.
We settle down to eat, and I put Julian down in his bouncer, the dogs sprawled nearby like living walls.
Conversation drifts around us—Quinn walks in talking about town projects, Ava teasing Zane as she feeds Luella, and Beck being unbearable until Quinn puts Oliver in his arms and his dad mode is activated.
It’s warm and familiar in a way I never thought I’d want.
For a few minutes, it almost feels like I could do this whole staying and sticking around thing. Then a shrill, insistent pulse from my phone cuts clean through everything. Rook’s head snaps up immediately, and Ash follows, muscles tightening.
Kate’s smile fades. “Ryder?”
I don’t answer as I pull the phone from my pocket.
The alert on the screen makes my blood run cold.
There’s a compound perimeter breach back in the home we left a week ago.
My thumb taps the live feed, and the image loads—rain blurring the lens just enough to make everything feel unreal, but the shapes moving through my property are not unreal at all.
They cross the perimeter swiftly, stepping over the snow-damp ground with the kind of discipline that doesn’t belong to thieves or lost hikers.
They reach the main structure, and there is no hesitation as one of them tries to force the door open.
I built my home to be impenetrable, so the only way they are going to get in is if they hack my system or bomb their way in.
They are not patient enough for the former, so I watch as they set up explosives by the steel doors and move back.
I mute the sound then, rage coursing through me as I watch the door fly inwards, metal shrapnel going everywhere.
Within seconds, they are inside—dark figures passing room to room. They tear through the place with purpose, opening cabinets, overturning furniture, ripping down panels. They are looking for me.
When they don’t find what they came for, they stop searching and start destroying, and I can almost feel it through the screen—the tantrum of men denied their prize.
In the foreground of the feed, a figure steps forward, taller than the others, unhurried, as if this is not battle but ceremony. I recognize him immediately. Hassan Yusuf Barre. He wasn’t among the first eight, but this time he’s come himself. My jaw locks so hard it aches.
Kate’s fingers dig into my sleeve. “Oh my God…”
He pauses, tilting his head slightly toward one of the cameras, then his gaze locks dead on the lens. I unmute the feed, and his voice comes through low and clear. “I’m coming for you, Morgan.”
Then he gives a small signal, and they all walk out. Then my home erupts—fire blooming through steel and glass, the compound engulfed in flames.
Kate’s breath catches sharply, and Julian fusses, startled by the sudden tension. The dogs are rigid at our feet. Her face is pale, eyes fixed on the phone in my hands and the words Hassan spoke like a promise.
Zane’s voice is the first to cut through the kitchen. “What the hell was that?!”
I look up and my family is watching me like they’re watching a fault line crack open beneath the house. I don’t answer in the kitchen, not with babies here. They are far too young for that.
“Family meeting. Now!” I say instead, and my voice leaves no space for argument.
The room shifts immediately. Daisy and Aria are ushered toward the younger ones, put on babysitting duty, doors close, and the house rearranges itself until only the adults remain, gathered in the dining room like this is court.
Dad sits at the head of the table, Zane stands with his arms crossed, Jace is quiet, eyes sharp, soldier brain already planning strategies, while Beck hovers near the wall, restless energy barely contained.
Ella is upright beside her husband Cole, jaw tight, her fury barely leashed.
Tessa sits with a tablet in front of her, like she can hack God if she needs to.
Quinn’s expression is calm in that corporate way that means disaster is being processed efficiently.
Ava’s arms are folded, her gaze on Kate for half a second before returning to me.
Kate sits without really sitting, Julian against her chest, like she doesn’t trust the chair to hold her. She didn’t want to let him go with the other kids, and I didn’t have it in me to tear him away from her, not after everything we’ve been through.
Now that it’s just us adults, they all look at me, waiting for answers.
“There’s no clean way to say it,” I begin, because there isn’t. “I know you all have a hint as to what I do since I’ve come through for you in one way or another, but I’m a contract worker. Private, off-the-books kind of jobs that governments pretend don’t exist.”
I pause to let that sink in before I continue. “About a year ago, in LA, I had a contract. Yusuf Aden Barre.”
Jace’s face hardens immediately, familiar with the name. “Al-Shabaab?”
“Yes, one of their leaders. He was using the airport as a shield, but I tracked him down and had a shot lined up…” My eyes flick, unwillingly, to Kate. “And then the rooftop door opened.”
Kate goes very still as she starts putting two and two together.
Beck swears under his breath. “You’re telling me—“
“She walked into my line of fire, and the mission failed. So the contract terms changed to Somalia. Same target, different location. I used the peace talks in Mogadishu and went in undercover as a photographer.”
Kate’s fingers tighten around Julian, eyes widening. “So you…” she whispers, voice thin.
“I killed Barre,” I affirm.
The confirmation lands like a stone dropped into deep water. Kate closes her eyes for a moment, devastation contained behind her teeth. No hysteria, just the quiet grief of having her suspicions made real.
“So, what we just witnessed on your phone?” Zane asks, already aware.
“His son, Hassan Yusuf Barre. He’s been killing everyone tied to that operation.
State Department, FBI…” I pause to look at Kate.
“Journalists… Anyone present when I took him out is on a kill list. I don’t know how he managed to track me down, but he sent eight men first, and when they failed, he decided to finish the mission himself. ”
Zane leans forward, hands flat on the table. “So what now?”
Before I can answer, my phone vibrates again, this time with a call. I tilt the phone to show Kate the caller ID.
Her head snaps up. “Addison?”
I nod and answer immediately. “Sinclair.”
Her voice comes tight, controlled panic under stubbornness. “Ryder. I just landed at JFK, but something’s wrong.”
Kate’s face crumples. “Addy…”
I wrap my arm around her shoulders to offer comfort. “Talk to me. What’s going on?” I demand.
“I think someone followed me off the plane,” Addison continues. “Or I’m losing my mind, but I don’t think I am.”
Fuck! They’ve found Addison as well. Things are getting too serious too fast.
“You’re not,” I assure her, calm as stone. “Listen carefully. Get on the next flight to Texas.”
She hesitates before replying. “Ryder… if I’m being followed—“
“Let them follow you. It’s about time we put an end to this,” I reply.
Addison’s voice drops. “I don’t want to bring war to you guys.”
I look at my brothers, my dad, and the family that always has my back. My brothers’ expressions sharpen, understanding immediately.
I let a small, lethal smile cut through the dread. “It’s okay. We’ll be ready.”
And with those words, the truth settles fully into the room: The war is no longer out there.
It’s coming home to Iron Stallion.