Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
PRIEST
Iris is laughing at something on her laptop when my phone buzzes.
She's been doing that lately. Laughing. Not the controlled, professional sound she uses in briefings.
A real laugh, loose and warm, usually directed at something Sadie texted her because those two exchanged numbers at Sunday dinner and haven't stopped since.
This morning she's curled in my bed wearing my flannel shirt, legs bare, hair still messy from an hour ago when I woke her up with my mouth between her thighs.
The coffee I made her sits on the nightstand.
My Bible sits next to it. Her reading glasses on top of my Bible.
Our things. Mixed together. Like they belong in the same space.
The phone buzzes again. Sully.
"Frankfurt server cluster went dark six hours ago. Someone wiped it. Professional job, multi layer erasure. They know we were looking."
My hand stills on the counter. Iris's laugh dies. She can't hear the call, but she's looking at me now. Reading.
"What does that mean for the timeline?"
"It means they're accelerating. If Volkov knows his comms infrastructure is compromised, he'll push the remaining operations forward. Weeks just became days."
Days.
"Get Deck on a secure call. Full team briefing in one hour."
Hanging up, I set the phone down. Iris is already closing her laptop.
"How bad?"
"Frankfurt's been wiped. Sully thinks Volkov is accelerating the kill order."
Her jaw tightens. She swings her legs out of bed, feet hitting the floor. "How much time?"
"Days. Not weeks."
One blink. That's all she gives the fear before she locks it away. Out comes operational Iris, moving to the bathroom, emerging ninety seconds later fully dressed, hair twisted up, boots on.
The briefing runs for an hour. Deck from the lodge, Sully presenting data, Wolfe reporting no movement on the perimeter. Boone has contingency plans.
"Option one, tighten the perimeter and wait for them to come to us. Option two, move Iris to a secondary safe house. Option three, go offensive. Use Iris's data to identify Volkov's team before they reach us."
"Priest, your call," Mace says. "She's your principal."
Every operator on this call knows what option three means. Going offensive means leaving the mountain. Means moving toward the threat instead of waiting. Means I'd need to operate in the field for the first time in six years.
Means leaving Iris behind.
"Option one," I say. "We hold position. Tighten the perimeter. Wolfe doubles his tracking rotations. Sully, I need everything you can pull from the wiped servers. Fragments, metadata, anything they missed during the erasure."
"On it," Sully says.
The call ends. Iris stands at the window with her arms folded. Not looking at me.
"You picked the defensive option."
"It's the right call."
"You picked it because option three puts you in the field. Away from me."
Damn her. Damn that analytical brain.
"I'm not leaving you unprotected."
"The entire Guardian Peak team is here. I'd be surrounded by former special forces operators with a state of the art sensor grid. I'd be fine."
"You'd be fine. And I'd be somewhere else. No."
She turns. "This isn't a tactical decision. This is personal."
"Everything about this is personal, Iris. You showed up on my mountain. You're sleeping in my bed. You're wearing my shirt." The words come out harder than intended. "So yes, it's personal. And personally, I'm not leaving your side."
"Even if going offensive is the smarter play?"
"Even then."
Her eyes search mine. Whatever she finds there makes her exhale slowly, deliberately. A reset. She crosses the room, stops a foot from me.
"Prague," she says quietly. "You made the tactical call then too. Removed yourself from the equation because it was the smart play. And it cost us seven years."
The truth of that statement sits in my chest. Heavy. Immovable.
"I'm not making the same mistake."
"You're making the opposite one. Choosing proximity over strategy because you're afraid of what happened last time.
" Her hand comes up. Fingers press flat against my sternum.
Right over my heart. "I don't need you to choose me over the mission, Jax.
I need you to trust that choosing the mission doesn't mean losing me. Not this time."
My throat closes. Because she's right. And because the last time I chose the mission, I lost her for seven years. Every cell in my body rebels against the idea of walking away from her again, even temporarily. Even with the full team covering her.
"I'll think about it."
"That means no."
"That means I'll think about it."
She drops her hand. Steps back. The distance between us feels wrong. Three days of no distance at all has recalibrated my understanding of personal space. Anything farther than arm's reach is too far.
"I'm going to take a walk," she says.
"Inside the perimeter."
"Yes, yes." She grabs her jacket. Stops at the door. "Jax?"
My name. Always undoes me.
"I didn't come here so you could die protecting me. I came here so we could both survive."
The door closes behind her. Through the window, I watch her take the trail toward the tree line. Still inside the sensor grid. Still within the trip wire boundary. But farther from me than she's been since she arrived.
My phone buzzes.
Mace:
She's right, you know.
Me:
About what.
Mace:
All of it. You picked option one because you're scared. Going offensive is the right call and you know it.
Me:
I'm not leaving her.
Mace:
Nobody's asking you to leave her. We're asking you to trust us to keep her safe while you go do what only you can do.
Me:
And if something happens while I'm gone?
Mace:
Then ten former special forces operators failed simultaneously, which has literally never happened. She's safer here than anywhere on the planet. You're the one at risk on an offensive op.
Me:
That's different.
Mace:
Because you matter less? That's not how this works anymore, brother. You've got someone waiting for you to come home now. Act like it.
Sitting down at the table, I read the messages twice. Mace is the steady one. The one who sees everything, says just enough, never pushes unless the push matters.
This push matters.
Through the window, Iris walks the perimeter trail. Her hands are in her jacket pockets. Her head is down. She's thinking. Running calculations. Mapping outcomes. Always the analyst, even when she's angry. Even when she's hurt.
Even when she's right.
A knock at the door. Not Iris. She wouldn't knock.
Opening it, Deck stands on my porch. Arms crossed. Green eyes sharp.
"We need to talk about option three."
"Mace sent you."
"Mace suggested. I decided." He steps inside without waiting for an invitation. Typical. "I've been where you are. Vivian was in my cabin, someone wanted her dead, and every instinct told me to stay within arm's reach. You know what happened?"
"You got shot."
"I got shot because I was too close to the situation to think clearly.
If I'd trusted my team sooner, taken the tactical offensive when Boone recommended it, the assault on the cabin never would've happened.
" He sits in my chair. The one by the door.
My chair. "Iris is smart enough to know you're compromised.
Your team is strong enough to protect her.
The question is whether you're brave enough to let us. "
The word brave lands. Because bravery for me has always meant running toward the danger. Putting my body between the threat and the people behind me. The idea that bravery could mean walking away, trusting others, letting go of control. That's a different kind of courage.
"How long?"
"Sully thinks he can trace Volkov's operational cell through the metadata fragments. Seventy two hours to locate them. Another forty eight for an extraction op."
"Five days."
"Five days. Wolfe and I run the offensive. You coordinate from here with Sully's intel. Iris stays on compound with Mace, Cade, Ryder, and Boone. That's four operators on site. Five if you count Hayes, who's already pissed he wasn't assigned to her detail."
Five days away from the cabin. Five days of trusting his team with the only person on the planet he can't afford to lose.
"Let me talk to her first."
Deck stands. Nods. "That's the right call."
He leaves. The door closes. The cabin is quiet.
My phone sits on the table. The last message from Mace glows on screen.
You've got someone waiting for you to come home now. Act like it.
Outside, Iris turns at the far end of the perimeter trail. Starts walking back toward the cabin. Her chin lifts when she sees me standing in the doorway.
Even at fifty yards, her eyes find mine.
"I'm going offensive," I tell her when she's close enough to hear.
Her stride doesn't break. She walks right up to me on the porch. Stands on her toes. Kisses my jaw.
"I know," she says. "Mace texted me too."
Of course he did.