Chapter 18 Lies by Omission
LIES BY OMISSION
Three Months Later
"You need to take that?" Nadia asked from the driver's seat.
"No. He'll understand." Mara silenced the phone and focused on the warehouse. The mission came first. It always came first. Logan knew that. Just like she knew that sometimes he'd go radio silent for days or weeks when his team deployed and she couldn't ask where or why or when he'd be back.
The extraction went smoothly. Three women secured, transported to a safe house, and handed off to local contacts who'd help them navigate the system. By the time Mara got back to L'Abri S?r, it was almost dawn. She crashed for four hours, then woke up and called Logan.
He answered on the second ring. "Hey. You okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry about last night. I was working."
"I figured." His voice was warm, understanding. "How'd it go?"
"Good. Three out. All safe." She couldn't give him details about where or who or what organization she was with, and he never pushed. Just accepted what she could tell him and filled in the blanks with trust. "How was your day?"
"PT was brutal. Risk is convinced I can get full range of motion back if I just push harder. Pretty sure he's actually trying to kill me." Logan paused. "But the arm's getting stronger. Doc says another month and I should be cleared for operations."
"That's great." Mara meant it even as part of her worried about what that would mean for them. Cleared for operations meant deployments. Meant weeks or months where they couldn't talk. Meant the dangerous work that defined both their lives. "You must be relieved."
"Yeah. I miss it. Miss my team. Miss doing the job." He was quiet for a moment. "But I'm also going to miss having time to call you every night."
"We'll figure it out. We have so far."
They had. Three months of video calls and texts and voice messages left when they couldn't connect in real time.
Three months of good morning messages and goodnight calls and sending each other photos of random things throughout the day.
Three months of learning how to be together while being apart.
It wasn't easy. There were nights when Mara wanted nothing more than to feel Logan's arms around her.
Days when she'd see something funny and reach for her phone to tell him only to remember he was in a briefing or training or asleep on the other side of the country.
Moments when the distance felt impossible and she wondered if they were both crazy for trying to make this work.
But then he'd call and his voice would make everything better. Or she'd get a text that said something ridiculous and she'd laugh despite the exhaustion. Or they'd video chat and just exist in comfortable silence, both doing their own thing but together in the way that mattered.
They'd developed routines. Logan would send her a photo every morning of his terrible breakfast at the DFAC with increasingly creative complaints.
Mara would send back pictures of whatever she was looking at, whether it was the sunrise over the bayou or the chaos of the ops center or Winter doing something stupid during training.
They'd established a code for when one of them was on a mission and couldn't talk.
A simple text that just said "working" so the other wouldn't worry about the silence.
Logan had started learning about trafficking, reading articles and statistics and trying to understand the world Mara operated in.
He never asked for specifics about her operations, but he wanted to understand why it mattered.
What drove her. Mara did the same, researching special operations and the kind of work Delta did, even though Logan couldn't tell her details about his missions either.
They learned each other's schedules. Mara knew that Tuesday and Thursday mornings Logan had PT with Risk that left him too sore to do anything but complain afterward.
Logan knew that Mara ran intelligence briefings on Monday mornings and that she was always grumpy until she'd had at least two cups of coffee.
They found pockets of time that overlapped and protected them fiercely.
But they also learned that sometimes the work had to come first. That missions didn't wait for convenient timing. That deployments happened with little notice and no guarantees.
"I've been thinking," Logan said. "About coming down there again. Maybe in a few weeks when I get cleared. Spend a long weekend. See you in person instead of through a screen."
"I'd like that." Mara smiled. "I could actually plan this time. Show you the parts of Louisiana that aren't New Orleans."
"The bayou?"
"The real bayou. Where the alligators live and the trees grow out of the water and you can't hear anything but nature for miles."
"Sounds perfect." His voice softened. "I miss you, Mara."
"I miss you too."
They talked for another hour before Logan had to go to a team meeting. Mara went to the ops center where Quinn had pulled up three new potential targets. Dallas, Phoenix, and Seattle. The work never stopped. The need never ended.
Two weeks later, Logan got cleared for full duty. He called Mara from the doctor's office, excitement clear in his voice. "I'm back. Officially. Full operational status."
"Congratulations." Mara was in the middle of planning an op in Phoenix but she pushed the files aside to focus on him. "How does it feel?"
"Like I can finally breathe again. Like I'm myself again instead of this broken version sitting on the sidelines." He paused. "Hawk wants to do a shakedown deployment. Make sure I'm actually ready. Nothing major, just two weeks in Eastern Europe doing some joint training with local forces."
"When do you leave?"
"Four days."
Four days. Mara felt the familiar twist in her stomach that came with knowing he'd be gone. "Okay. We'll make the most of the time we have."
They talked every night for those four days.
Long conversations that stretched past midnight.
Making up for the time they'd lose when he deployed.
On the last night before he left, they video chatted for three hours.
Logan was already packed, his gear staged by the door, ready for the early morning departure.
"I won't have my phone where I'm going," he said. "Probably no communication for the full two weeks. Maybe longer depending on how things go."
"I know how it works." Mara had done enough operations to understand operational security. No phones. No personal communication. No way to reach him if something went wrong. "Just come back safe."
"Always do." He looked at her through the screen, his expression serious. "Hey. This thing we're doing. It's working, right? You're not having second thoughts?"
"No second thoughts. Are you?"
"Not even a little bit. But it's hard. Being apart. Not knowing when I'll see you next." Logan ran a hand through his hair. "I just need to know you're in this with me. That we're doing this for real."
"I'm in this, Logan. For real. Distance and deployments and all the complications that come with what we do." Mara leaned closer to the screen. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Good. Neither am I."
They said goodbye that night knowing it would be weeks before they talked again. Mara went to bed trying not to think about all the things that could go wrong on a deployment, even a training one. Trying to trust that Logan knew what he was doing and that his team would keep him safe.
Three days after Logan deployed, Mara's team got actionable intelligence on a trafficking ring operating out of Seattle. High-confidence target. Eight women confirmed. Window of opportunity closing fast. They were wheels up within twelve hours.
The Seattle operation was more complex than Atlanta had been.
The women were being held in multiple locations across the city.
Quinn's intelligence was solid but incomplete.
They spent three days doing surveillance, mapping patterns, identifying security weak points.
Mara worked eighteen-hour days, coordinating with Nadia on tactical planning while Kira prepared medical supplies for women who'd likely been abused.
When they finally moved, it was a coordinated strike across four locations simultaneously.
Mara led the team hitting the main house while Winter and Reese covered two satellite locations.
Everything had to happen at once or they'd lose someone.
The traffickers would scatter, take the women with them, and months of intelligence work would be wasted.
The operation took six days from start to finish.
Surveillance, planning, execution, extraction, and handoff to local resources.
Eight women out. Clean operation. No casualties.
But the toll it took was real. Mara came back to L'Abri S?r exhausted and satisfied in the way she always was when the work went well, but also keenly aware of how much she'd missed during those six days.
Missed Logan's calls. Missed his voice. Missed the easy back-and-forth that had become part of her daily routine.
She'd sent the "working" text before they'd gone in and hadn't been able to check her phone until it was over.
When she finally could, there were a dozen messages from him.
Checking in. Saying he understood. Telling her about the small things in his day. Saying he missed her.
But coming back also meant silence. No messages from Logan. No updates. No way to know if he was okay or when he'd be back. Just the waiting and the trust that he'd call when he could.
She threw herself into work. Helped Quinn with intelligence analysis. Trained with Winter on new hand-to-hand techniques. Spent time with the women at L'Abri S?r who were rebuilding their lives. Kept busy so she didn't drive herself crazy wondering.