3. Chapter 3
Coronado Island
Natalie’s house smelled like roasted chicken, garlic bread, and whatever overpriced soy candle she’d lit in the foyer. Heath barely had time to sit down at the dining table, fork loaded with mashed potatoes, before a small body slammed into his ribs.
“Uncle Heath! You’re on my team!”
He grunted as Jake launched a Nerf gun into his lap and then took off down the hallway, barefoot and shrieking battle cries like a sugar-crazed commando. Bella popped out from behind the couch a second later, plastic ammo belt slung over her tiny shoulders like she was shipping out to Fallujah.
“You’re under attack!” she declared, firing a foam dart that hit Heath square in the chest.
Heath sighed, but a grin cracked through. “Do I get a say in this?”
“Nope!” she cackled, vanishing like a ghost.
He shook his head, stood up, and cocked the Nerf gun with the grim determination of a man resigned to war. “Fine. Bring it.”
Chaos broke loose.
He dove behind the couch. Jake was screaming instructions.
Bella was using the dog as a shield. Darts ricocheted off windows, hit the walls, bounced under the table.
Heath returned fire with surgical precision, nailing Mike—Natalie’s husband—right in the forehead just as he tried to retreat to the kitchen with a beer.
Mike blinked. “You’re supposed to be the adult.”
Heath didn’t break a sweat. “You married into this. Should’ve read the fine print.”
Adam, sprawled across the far couch with a beer and a lazy smirk, lifted his bottle in salute. “Some operator you are. Getting pinned by a six-year-old.”
“Remind me again which one of us got taken out by a Tickle Me Elmo during last year’s Christmas game?” Heath fired back.
Natalie emerged from the kitchen just as dessert hit the table and the battle fizzled into a truce. The kids fought over who got the biggest slice of pie while the adults settled back into chairs, laughing over the wreckage.
Heath rolled the tension from his shoulders, his watch catching the fading sunlight through the window. 6:18 PM. He had maybe another twenty minutes before he needed to leave for base. Midnight op. Deep-water dive off the coast. High-speed, low-visibility, getting the new guys ready for deployment.
Natalie watched him across the table with that sisterly squint—the one that meant she was going to poke at something.
“How’s Maddie today?”
Heath didn’t flinch, but the answer was slow in coming.
“House is a wreck,” he said. “She’s in worse shape.”
Natalie nodded, not surprised. “She’s tough though.”
“Yeah.” He set down his fork. “She is.”
Across the room, Adam let out a scoff.
“Don’t try to fix her,” he said, way too casual for how pointed it was.
Heath didn’t bite right away. Just took a long sip of his beer, jaw tight.
“I’m not.”
Adam leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You’ve got a type. Always have.”
“Drop it,” Heath muttered.
“I’m not saying she’s broken. I’m saying you like being the guy who swoops in.”
Heath’s voice sharpened. “You don’t know shit about it.”
Natalie cut in fast, her tone a warning. “Adam.”
But Adam just shrugged. “He does this thing. He sees someone drowning and thinks if he holds his breath long enough, they’ll survive.”
Heath set the bottle down a little too hard. “Enough.”
The silence stretched. Tense. Tight.
Then Jake climbed into his lap and held out a coin. “Uncle Heath, watch this. I can make it disappear.”
Heath blinked down at the kid’s bright eyes, something in his chest cracking a little. He smirked, shook his head, and said, “Alright, Houdini. Show me.”
Natalie smiled softly, saying nothing.
The moment passed.
But something settled in Heath’s gut while he watched the kids wrestle over Halloween costumes, Bella twirling in a pirate skirt, Jake arguing about who got to be a ninja. The life he kept claiming wasn’t for him… started looking more like something he wanted.
He stood a few minutes later, brushing crumbs from his jeans, heading for the door.
Adam followed him out. “You good for tonight?”
“Always,” Heath said. “Gear’s packed. I’ll be at base in an hour.”
Adam nodded. “You’re taking lead on the new divers. Open water, three-mile swim, nighttime insertion. You know the drill.”
“Copy that.”
Adam gave him a look—one part warning, one part older brother concern.
“You go diving tonight, don’t take the weight of her world with you.”
Heath gave a tight nod. No promises.
But as he walked out into the cool, ocean-stained air, that SEAL switch flipped.
Mission first. Focus locked.
He could think about Maddie later.
Right now, he had a job to
* * * * *
Somewhere off the coast of San Diego – 2:07 AM
The Pacific was black glass, broken only by the occasional whitecap slapping against the hull of the RHIB. The sky was starless. The moon hadn’t risen. Out here, there was no horizon. Just darkness and deeper darkness—and the hum of readiness in every cell of Heath Carrington’s body.
He stood near the bow, boots braced wide, salt spray hitting his face as the boat pitched. His gloved hand rested on the edge of the center console, eyes locked on the dive clock ticking steadily toward minute ten.
Deep water op. Night dive. Mid-fall. Ten klicks off the coast. A full-platoon training scenario meant to simulate open-water infiltration under low visibility. New divers needed to be pushed. The experienced ones—guys like Isaac Rayleigh and Zach Reed—were the anchors. The standard.
They’d gone under twelve minutes ago.
They should be surfacing by now.
Heath exhaled slowly, tracking the second hand. Something felt off.
He couldn’t explain it—he never could—but years of combat medicine, endless deployments, and being the guy responsible for bringing people home alive had taught him to listen to that tightening in his gut. The one that whispered: something’s wrong.
“Come on, Zach,” he muttered. “Pop up.”
A soft burst of static crackled in his comms. Then Isaac’s voice—low, tight, urgent.
“Senior Chief—got a problem.” Isaac’s voice crackled over comms, tight with urgency. Heath’s head snapped up.
“Say again?”
“Zach’s not responding. He’s going limp—his ascent’s off—”
The rest was drowned out as Heath was already moving, yanking open the med case bolted to the deck.
“Get him topside now,” Heath barked into comms, already scanning the water’s surface. “Bring him up slow—do not let him bolt. If it’s a decompression hit, we don’t need an embolism on top of it.”
“He’s drifting—he’s fucking out, man!” Isaac’s breathing was fast now, verging on panic.
“Isaac, get your head right,” Heath snapped. “I need a depth reading—where is he?”
“Twenty meters down.”
Shit. Too deep for a rapid ascent.
“You see any convulsions?”
“No, just dead weight—”
“Then it’s not hypoxia yet. Get a hand on his reg, keep it in place, and bring him up on a controlled rise.”
The coxswain was already steering the RHIB closer, repositioning for retrieval. The red glow of the deck lights cast eerie reflections over the black water. A second later, a body broke the surface—Isaac gripping Zach’s vest, hauling him up, his movements sharp with adrenaline.
“I need hands—now!”
Heath was already there, reaching down, grabbing a fistful of gear, and hauling Zach up over the gunwale with Isaac’s help. Dead weight. No response. Not good.
Heath didn’t hesitate. He yanked Zach’s mask off, tilted his head back, and pressed two fingers against his carotid.
Pulse was erratic. Breathing shallow. Fuck.
“Heath?” Colson’s voice cut through the noise.
“He’s in respiratory distress. Might be a Type II DCS hit.”
No one said a word. Everyone on this boat knew what that meant. A decompression sickness hit bad enough to cause neuro symptoms meant grounding. Weeks, maybe months, out of the water.
And Zach? Zach lived for the water.
“Help me strip his gear,” Heath ordered, already working. “I need a full neuro check.”
Isaac’s hands shook as he unclipped Zach’s vest, but his jaw was locked. He wasn’t letting it slow him down. Good.
The second Heath got the wetsuit rolled back, he checked Zach’s grip strength. Weak. Fuck.
He dragged a penlight from his kit, thumbed it on, and peeled one of Zach’s eyelids open. The pupils weren’t reacting right.
“Zach,” he said sharply. “Come on, wake up, man.”
Nothing.
“Hey. Open your eyes. Now.”
A second. Then a sharp inhale, a rough, dragging breath. Zach coughed, hard, blinking against the light in his face. His muscles jerked, disoriented.
Heath exhaled through his nose, grounding himself, but the relief was short-lived.
“What—” Zach coughed again, voice hoarse. “The fuck happened?”
“You blacked out at depth,” Heath said, already stabilizing his oxygen levels. “I pulled you out.”
And then it hit.
Heath saw it, clear as day—the exact second Zach understood what that meant.
A diver who blacked out in controlled conditions? That was an automatic medical grounding. No exceptions. Not even for the best.
Zach’s hands clenched into fists.
“No,” he rasped.
Heath didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
A sharp muscle tic in Zach’s jaw, his chest rising too fast, like he wanted to sit up, fight it. But his body wasn’t listening to him.
That was what really set in the fear.
Isaac crouched beside him, silent, his face tight. The second-best diver, watching the best one lose everything.
The rest of the team was quiet, waiting. Everyone knew.
Zach wasn’t just good at diving—he was built for it. It was in his blood, his bones, the core of who he was.
And now?
Now Heath had been the one to save him.
And Zach was too fucking angry to see it as anything but career death.