23. Wynn
WYNN
The maintenance trail wasn’t a trail.
It was a crack in the mountain.
We climbed sideways through a narrow channel between two rock walls, our shoulders scraping stone with every step.
Lucas stayed behind me.
Close enough to catch me whenever my injured leg weakened.
Which happened more often than I wanted to admit.
“I can feel you watching me,” I whispered.
“I’m not watching.”
“You haven’t looked away from my leg in ten minutes.”
“I’m assessing.”
“That sounds suspiciously like watching.”
His hand settled against my waist as I stepped over a fallen tree.
“If you fall, I’m carrying you.”
“I won’t fall.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“And I was right.”
“You fell out of a helicopter.”
“The helicopter fell.”
“With you in it.”
“That’s completely different.”
Boone’s voice drifted from ahead.
“Is this what your marriage always sounded like?”
Russ answered immediately.
“Their marriage?”
“Yes.”
Lucas sighed.
“We’re divorced.”
Boone looked over his shoulder.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Keep walking.”
“Yes, sir.”
Despite the pain burning through my thigh, I smiled.
The last six years seemed impossible here.
The Brave talked to me as though I had never left.
Boone still teased me.
Russ still pretended he didn’t.
Hawk quietly noticed everything.
Adam still sounded like an exhausted father trying to keep all of us alive.
And Lucas…
Lucas still made me feel protected and infuriated in equal measure.
Only now, I understood the fear behind his control.
He loved me.
I had heard the words.
Said them back.
Yet they felt fragile.
Too new.
As though the mountain might swallow them if we didn’t hold on tightly enough.
The trail opened suddenly.
A concrete structure sat between two cliffs.
Half buried.
Almost invisible beneath moss and tangled vines.
The windows had been covered with metal shutters.
A rusted antenna leaned against the roof.
The observation post looked abandoned.
Lucas stopped.
“What?” Adam asked.
“The antenna.”
“What about it?”
“It was down when I left.”
Hawk studied the structure.
“Wind could’ve moved it.”
“No.”
Lucas’s rifle came up.
“Someone tried to raise it.”
Adam immediately signaled the team into cover.
Boone and Russ moved toward opposite sides of the clearing.
Hawk scanned the windows.
Lucas pushed me behind a boulder.
“Stay.”
I caught his sleeve.
“You need a new word.”
“I need you alive.”
“Then say that.”
His expression softened.
“Stay alive.”
“That I can do.”
He pressed one hand against the side of my face.
Just for a second.
Then he moved toward the building.
Adam reached the door first.
A heavy chain hung from the lock.
It had been cut.
Recently.
Lucas touched the exposed metal.
“No rust.”
“Meridian?” Boone asked.
“Maybe.”
Adam raised three fingers.
Two.
One.
Lucas kicked the door open.
The Brave flowed inside.
I waited behind the boulder.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Too long.
Then Lucas appeared in the doorway.
“Clear.”
I released the breath I had been holding.
Russ helped the pilot inside.
Boone limped after them.
I followed Lucas into the observation post.
The air smelled like damp concrete and old dust.
Broken equipment covered one wall.
A metal table stood in the center of the room.
Several bunks had collapsed beneath the weight of time.
Someone had painted over the American markings.
But beneath the faded black paint, I could still see part of a flag.
Lucas looked around.
Something moved across his face.
Memory.
Pain.
“What happened here?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Lucas.”
He walked toward the far wall.
“This post monitored weapons moving through the mountains.”
“For whom?”
“Everyone.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give you.”
I hated that sentence.
It had lived between us for most of our marriage.
I looked away before he could see how much it still hurt.
Lucas noticed anyway.
“I’m sorry.”
My gaze returned to his.
He had almost never apologized for classified answers before.
He would simply become quiet.
Distant.
Impossible to reach.
Now he was trying.
That mattered.
“I know there are things you can’t tell me,” I said.
“I didn’t know how to tell you anything.”
“So you told me nothing.”
“Yes.”
His silver eyes held mine.
“I thought silence kept you safe.”
“It made me lonely.”
“I know.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“I think you’re beginning to know.”
He absorbed the difference.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
Adam called from the rear of the post.
“Lucas.”
We followed him into a small storage room.
A section of flooring had been pulled aside.
Beneath it sat a steel compartment.
Open.
Apparently empty.
Lucas stared at it.
“The cache.”
“Someone got here first,” Adam said.
“When?” I asked.
Hawk crouched beside the opening.
“Recently. Possibly within the last few weeks.”
I looked at Lucas.
“Meridian knew about this place.”
“Almost no one knew.”
“You did.”
“Five operators assigned to the mission knew about the cache.”
“What happened to them?”
His expression closed.
“Two died. One disappeared. One left the military.”
“And the fifth?”
“Me.”
Cold crept along my spine.
“Who disappeared?”
“Evan Minser.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to Adam.
He looked sharply at Lucas.
“Minser?”
“You know him?” I asked.
“By reputation.”
Adam’s voice had hardened.
“He came from Ghost’s old team. He specialized in covert transportation networks—moving people and weapons without leaving records.”
Exactly what Meridian was doing.
“Was he assigned here with you?” Hawk asked.
Lucas nodded.
“It was a joint operation. Minser built the emergency cache.”
Boone leaned against the wall.
“And now it’s empty.”
“Coincidence?” Russ asked.
Lucas stared into the compartment.
“No.”
I stepped closer.
Something had been scratched into the inside of the metal lid.
One word.
FATE.
“Lucas.”
He saw it.
Every man crowded around the opening.
The letters weren’t old.
Bright steel showed beneath them.
Someone had carved the word recently.
My pulse quickened.
“Whoever opened this cache wanted us to connect it to Fate.”
“Or wanted Lucas to,” Adam said.
Lucas reached into the compartment.
His fingers moved along the bottom.
Then stopped.
“What?”
“There’s a false panel.”
He pressed one corner.
The steel floor lifted.
Beneath it lay a single radio.
Ammunition.
Medical supplies.
And a black envelope.
Lucas picked it up.
His name was written across the front.
LUCAS SPENCER.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Lucas and me.
We were standing outside our first apartment.
Younger.
Happy.
Married less than a month.
Lucas had one arm around my waist.
I was laughing at something he had whispered.
The picture had been taken from across the street.
My blood turned cold.
“Who took that?”
“I don’t know.”
Lucas flipped it over.
A message covered the back.
YOU WERE WARNED TO LET HER GO.
THIS TIME, SHE WON’T COME BACK.
Lucas stopped breathing.
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer.
“Lucas.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
His hand tightened around the photograph.
I saw it.
Recognition.
Not of the handwriting.
Of the warning.
“You’ve heard those words before.”
He looked toward the others.
Every man remained silent.
Waiting.
Finally, Lucas reached beneath his tactical shirt and removed a small metal tag from the chain around his neck.
I had seen it countless times during our marriage.
He never removed it.
Even while sleeping.
I had assumed it belonged to someone he’d lost.
He turned it over.
Six words had been engraved into the metal.
LET HER GO OR SHE DIES.
The room tilted.
“When did you get that?”
Lucas’s face filled with regret.
“Three days after I signed the divorce papers.”
My knees weakened.
He caught me.
“You knew someone was threatening me while I was waiting to file?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you never called?”
“I had already signed because I thought I was setting you free. Then that arrived.”
He looked down at the tag.
“I knew someone had been watching you. I increased your security and tried to find them.”
“You disappeared.”
“I was trying to identify the threat without leading them back to you.”
“Then I filed the papers.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me.”
His silver eyes glistened.
“The tag convinced me staying away was the only way to keep you alive.”
The truth struck harder than the helicopter crash.
Lucas hadn’t only believed I deserved better.
Someone had threatened to kill me if he tried to stop the divorce.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t prove the threat was real.”
“You let me believe you didn’t care.”
“I let you hate me because hatred seemed safer than a grave.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“You watched me walk away.”
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
I touched the metal tag.
He had carried it for six years.
A reminder.
A punishment.
“You should’ve trusted me.”
“I know.”
“You should’ve let me decide.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“I know, Wynn.”
A light blinked on the buried radio.
Once.
Then again.
No one had turned it on.
Hawk grabbed the device.
“It’s receiving a transmission.”
Static filled the room.
Then a familiar voice emerged.
The same man from the satellite phone.
“Welcome back, Spencer.”
Lucas stepped in front of me.
“Minser?”
The man laughed softly.
“It took you long enough.”
Evan Minser.
The missing operator from Ghost’s former team.
The man who knew about the cache.
The man who had been watching us for years.
Lucas raised the radio.
“You threatened my wife.”
“I saved her.”
“You destroyed my marriage.”
“No. You did that yourself.”
Lucas flinched.
Minser continued.
“I told you to let her go. You obeyed. You were always such a good soldier.”
“Where is Elise?”
“Geneva.”
“Is she alive?”
“For now.”
“And her daughter?”
A pause.
“Very good.”
My hand closed around Lucas’s arm.
“What is Fate?” I demanded.
Minser laughed.
“Mrs. Spencer. The woman who found the file.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
The radio crackled.
Then his voice returned.
“Assuming you survive the next sixty seconds.”
Hawk looked toward the door.
Red hostile markers appeared on his damaged tablet.
One.
Then another.
And another.
They surrounded the observation post.
“Move!” Adam shouted.
An explosive round struck the roof.
The ceiling collapsed.
Lucas threw himself over me as concrete and dust filled the room.
The old post shook.
Another explosion hit the outer wall.
Boone dragged the injured pilot behind the metal table.
Russ fired through a broken window.
“They’ve surrounded us!”
Adam looked toward the cache.
“Is there another exit?”
Lucas raised his head.
Blood ran down his cheek.
“Yes.”
He pulled the steel compartment completely free.
A narrow tunnel opened beneath it.
“Everyone down!”
Boone stared into the darkness.
“Where does it lead?”
Lucas pushed me toward the opening.
“To the river.”
Boone sighed.
“I knew there would be a waterfall.”