Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The SPS compound was nothing like she'd expected.
Alyssa had imagined something military—concrete and razor wire, the kind of place that announced its purpose with every sharp angle.
Instead, it looked more like a modern campus for a tech company or school. It was set back from the road on forty acres of private land, facing the Bitterroot Range.
You wouldn't see the reinforced walls, the bulletproof glass. Mack had told her there were perimeter sensors buried beneath the gravel drive, which at the moment still had a lot of snow on it. The satellite array on the roof was disguised as a weathervane.
She’d officially met Garrett, Dr. Montgomery, and a dozen other operatives that went by codenames. Mack fit in here, and it was nice to see how all of them respected him.
It had been a full day since the rifle crack and the tarmac and Blake shoving them to the ground. Twenty-four hours since Mack had held her on the runway and said, “It's over.”
Yet, in her heart, it felt like time had bent again. Her life had changed overnight, just as it had after the party.
Alyssa sat in the compound's common room with a cup of coffee she hadn't touched and watched the last of the daylight fade behind the mountains.
Her eyes were still irritated, and sometimes everything looked slightly soft at the edges, like a sketch done in charcoal instead of pencil.
But her vision was improving, thanks to the drops the ER doctor had given her.
Mack was across the room, sitting in a leather chair with his head tipped back and his eyes closed.
He had four stitches on his temple, and his right arm was freshly bandaged.
He’d been diagnosed with a mild concussion and told to rest, which Mack had acknowledged with a nod that meant I heard you, not I'll comply.
Thank goodness Dr. Montgomery and Garrett were forcing him to.
She watched him breathing in the chair and knew he wasn't sleeping.
She could tell by the set of his jaw, the way his fingers rested on the arm of the chair—still, but not relaxed.
He was listening. Tracking the sounds of the compound, the way he tracked every environment.
But his body was finally, grudgingly, admitting that it had limits.
She looked at the ring on her left hand. The diamond caught the fading light. She'd put it on that morning, after Garrett and Claire had retrieved it from the half-burned apartment. She hadn't taken it off since.
Claire entered the common room, smiling at her but looking completely exhausted. “Hey, there.”
Mack opened his eyes. Sat up. The operative reassembled itself in seconds—alert, focused, ready.
Claire set her bag on the table and looked at both of them. "I have updates. Some of them are good."
Mack and Alyssa joined her at the table.
”Blake is cooperating fully,” she said. “His testimony, combined with the evidence gathered during the joint FBI-DEA operation at the party, gives the task force enough to move against VidaCorp and Frontera Trade Solutions.
Warrants have been executed on VidaCorp's offices in Missoula, Seattle, and San Diego. Mateo Vega had been arrested at his home in Scottsdale. Rafael Guerrero is the subject of an active manhunt.”
“Are they still after me?” Alyssa asked.
"Their Montana operation is collapsing," Claire said. "Vega's people are scrambling. The last thing they're going to do right now is pursue either of you when they're trying to avoid federal indictments."
“But the bounty?”
Claire glanced at Mack, back to Alyssa. "I can't tell you it's been officially rescinded—cartels don't issue press releases—but the operational reality is that targeting you now would bring a level of federal attention they can't afford.
The threat level to you has dropped from active to monitored.
" She paused. "SPS will maintain a security detail for a period, if that’s suitable.”
Mack squeezed her shoulder. She understood what Claire was saying and what she wasn't. The danger wasn't gone, but it was diminished. She could live with that, as long as Mack was by her side.
"And Eric Edwards?" Mack asked.
“He’s in federal custody, charged with attempted murder, conspiracy, and weapons violations." Claire's expression shifted—something more complicated than professional satisfaction. "He's talking. Not about the cartel—about Morrison. He wants the truth on record."
Mack’s brows shot up. “He does?”
Alyssa gripped his hand gently. “We all want that.”
Claire turned back to her. "There's one more thing.
Rob Thorne has been thoroughly investigated and cleared.
He cooperated fully—opened his financial records, his communications, everything.
He had no knowledge that VidaCorp was a cartel front or that Blake was using his events as cover for cartel meetings.
He's been in contact with our office, asking about you.
" She paused. "He's devastated, Alyssa. He feels responsible. "
"He's not." The words came out immediately, without calculation. "He tried to help Blake. He gave him a job. Blake used him."
"That's what I told him, but he's still carrying some guilt. Reach out when you’re up to it, okay?”
Rob was a genuinely nice man. He’d served with her father thirty years ago and never stopped looking out for the Bennett kids.
He’d hired her for the party so she'd have work and feel valued. He’d given Blake a job because Colonel Bennett had asked him to help his son get back on his feet after he’d left the Marines.
Another person Blake had used.
"I'll call him," Alyssa said. “First thing tomorrow.”
Claire gathered her things and paused at the door to look at Mack with an expression that Alyssa recognized—the look of a professional acknowledging another professional's work. No words. Just a nod.
Mack returned it.
When Claire was gone, Alyssa let go of a heavy sigh. "It's really over?"
"The active threat is over. The rest—" He paused. "The rest will take some time, but we’ll get through it.”
The legal proceedings. Blake's trial. The cartel investigation winding through federal courts for months, maybe years. The slow, grinding machinery of justice doing what it was designed to do.
But the bullets had stopped. The running was done. And for the first time since she'd walked into Rob Thorne's study and seen her brother sitting with cartel leaders, she could take a breath without calculating whether it might be her last.
She picked up her coffee. Drank it cold. It didn't matter.
She called her parents on Wednesday.
She'd waited two days, not from cowardice—from strategy. She wanted the facts settled, the charges filed, the situation stable enough that her father couldn't dismiss it as confusion or misunderstanding.
Her father had dealt in intelligence, and Alyssa intended to give him intelligence so clear and comprehensive that his usual tactics—deflection, reframing, commanding the narrative—wouldn't work.
Mack offered to be there. She told him she needed to do this alone. He gave her the room, walked out, and closed the door. She heard him settle against the wall in the hallway—close enough to hear if she needed him, far enough to give her space.
She dialed.
Her mother answered. "Alyssa? Sweetheart, we've been trying to reach you. Your phone's been going to voicemail for—"
"Put Dad on speaker, Mom. I need to talk to both of you."
A pause. Her mother was reading the tone and deciding whether to push back. She didn't.
There was a click, a rustle, and then her father's voice—controlled, measured, the command voice that had governed her childhood. "Alyssa. Where are you?"
"I'm safe. I'm at a secure location in Montana. I need to tell you about Blake."
She told them everything. The party. The cartel meeting. Blake's role as security director for VidaCorp. The bounty on her head. Jenna's death. The shooting at the FBI field office. The cabin. The safehouse. Blake's attempt to kidnap her. His confession at the airstrip.
And the truth about David Morrison. About Syria. About what Blake had done and what he’d claimed Mack had done.
Her father was silent through most of it, the rigid silence of a man watching his defenses get breached, one by one.
"Blake has confessed," she said. "On record, to the FBI.
He broke position in Syria. David Morrison died covering Blake's mistake.
Blake blamed Mack. And you—" She steadied her voice.
"You used your influence with the administrative board to ensure Mack took the fall.
You made phone calls. You let your reputation do the work.
And an innocent man lost his career because you believed your son without questioning his story. "
Silence.
Her mother was crying. Alyssa could hear the soft, stifled sounds. She’d always cried quietly, as if volume was a form of insubordination.
"Mom." Alyssa's voice softened. "I'm okay. I need you to hear that. I'm okay, and I'm safe, and Mack is with me.”
"Mack?” her father said. The name came out flat. Unreadable.
"Yes. Mack has been protecting me since this started. He's the reason I'm alive." She paused. "We're together. I'm wearing his ring again."
Another silence. Longer. The kind of silence that filled a room and pressed against the walls.
Her father spoke. "Is Blake—is he safe?"
Not is he guilty? Not that can't be true. Not there must be an explanation.
Is he safe? It was the smallest possible concession. An acknowledgment that his son was in custody, that the situation was real, that the world he'd constructed—in which Blake was the victim and Mack was the villain—had just done a one-eighty.
“He's cooperating,” Alyssa said. “His attorney is negotiating a deal. He'll face charges, but his cooperation will be a factor in sentencing.”
"I see." Two words, the Colonel processing a battlefield report.
"Daniel." Her mother's voice, steadier now. "Daniel, did you know? About Syria. Did you know what Blake—"