Chapter 4 The Assignment
THE ASSIGNMENT
TORQUE
The keys stop spinning.
Ghost just assigned me honeymoon duty with the ice queen, and I’m not sure whether to laugh or ask if someone slipped something into his coffee.
I glance at Brass. He’s studying the blueprints like they hold the secrets of the universe, but there’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth. He knows exactly what Ghost just did. Fuse isn’t even trying to hide his grin—the bastard’s enjoying this.
“Copy that.” The words come out smooth. Automatic. “Honeymoon in Vegas. Could be worse.”
Could be better too.
Could be the Nevada assault.
The canyon run I’ve been itching to attempt since Halo pulled those topographical maps. Sheer walls, barely a hundred feet apart, radar shadows below the rim. The kind of flying that makes my blood sing and my brain finally, mercifully, shut the hell up.
Instead, I get babysitting detail, standing around while Director Control Freak does her political dance.
Stillness and I don’t get along. Stillness is where the silence lives, and the silence is where I hear things I don’t want to hear.
Torque, we’re pinned. Grid reference Foxtrot-Seven-Niner. Get here. Get here NOW.
I shove Jake’s voice back into the box where I keep it. Not now. Not ever, if I can help it.
Director Sarah Vance stands at the center of the room, bracing for impact.
Spine straight. Shoulders locked. Everything about her screams control—from the severity of that pulled-back hair to the precise way she’s gripping that folder.
Like if she holds it tight enough, she can hold the whole world together through sheer force of will.
I’ve known her for maybe forty-five minutes, and I already know that grip is going to leave marks on her palms.
“This is a tactical decision.” Her voice is sharp. Defensive. “Nothing more.”
“Of course.” I push off the wall, let my legs carry me toward the table. Toward her. “I’m sure our marriage will be purely professional.”
The look she gives me could strip rivets off a fuselage.
But under all that ice, there’s heat. I caught a glimpse of it when she was briefing us—the way her jaw tightened when she mentioned her father, the flash in those brown eyes when Fuse suggested she hand over the codes. She didn’t hesitate. Her “No” came sharp as a blade and twice as cutting.
She’s not cold. She’s controlled.
There’s a difference. I learned that the hard way.
“Brass will brief you on logistics.” Ghost is already turning away, done with us. Moving on to the next problem, the next tactical consideration. That’s Ghost—once he makes a decision, he doesn’t second-guess it. “You leave in four hours.”
Four hours. Find Costa, convince him, extract. Should be simple—in and out, back to the team before the real action starts.
Should be. Never is.
Fuse catches my eye as I pass. “Try not to enjoy the honeymoon too much, Torque.”
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, big man.”
“Just saying.” He crosses those massive arms, the scars on his forearms catching the light. “Some of us are going to be doing actual work while you’re sipping champagne in a penthouse suite.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the wedding ring.”
Whisper makes a sound that might be a laugh. Hard to tell with him—the man communicates primarily in silences and single syllables. But his green eyes are bright with something that looks suspiciously like amusement.
Thorne says nothing. Doesn’t even look up. But as I pass him, the faintest twitch pulls at the corner of his mouth. The bastard’s laughing at me—he’s just too controlled to show it. Less than a day with the team and he’s already picking up bad habits.
Great. I’m never going to live this down.
I fall into step beside Director Vance as she heads for the door. She’s moving fast—not quite running, but close. Trying to put distance between us before we’ve even started.
Can’t have that.
“So, wifey …” I let the word stretch out, savoring the way her shoulders go rigid. The tension climbs up her spine like a living thing. “Any preferences for the honeymoon suite? I’m thinking something with a view.”
“Call me that again, and I’ll show you what the NRO taught me about unarmed combat.”
“Kinky.”
She stops walking. Turns. Those brown eyes lock onto mine, and for a second, I forget to breathe.
Not because she’s beautiful—though she is, in that severe, untouchable way that usually does nothing for me. Sharp features. Cheekbones that could cut glass. A mouth that probably hasn’t smiled in years, pressed into a line so thin it’s almost invisible.
It’s the intensity. The focus. Like I’m the only thing in her universe, and she’s calculating exactly how to dismantle me.
Most people look at me and see chaos. A wildcard. The guy you call when you need someone crazy enough to fly into situations that would make sane pilots turn around.
She looks at me and sees a variable.
Something to be accounted for. Managed. Controlled.
Good luck with that, Director.
“Do you take anything seriously?” The question snaps out like a whip crack.
“Not if I can help it.” The keys find their rhythm again, spinning, catching, spinning. The metal is warm in my palm. Familiar. Grounding. “Serious gets you killed. Serious makes you slow. Serious means you’re thinking when you should be reacting.”
“And chaos gets you what, exactly?”
“Alive.”
The word lands harder than I intended. Something flickers across her face—surprise, maybe. Or recognition.
“Chaos means they can’t predict you,” I continue, keeping my voice light. Easy. The mask I’ve worn so long it feels like skin. “Can’t plan for you. Can’t put a bullet where they know you’ll be.”
“That’s not strategy. That’s luck.”
“Luck’s kept me breathing this long.” I shrug. “How’s strategy working out for you, Director? Standing in a mercenary safehouse, asking outlaws for help because your carefully constructed systems all failed?”
The hit lands. Her breath catches, micro-tension tightening around her eyes. Her fingers tighten on that folder until I’m surprised it doesn’t crumple.
Should probably feel bad about that. Don’t.
She’s been in control her whole life. It’s in every line of her body, every precise movement, every word that comes out of her mouth like it’s been vetted by committee. She’s probably never had anyone push back. Never had anyone refuse to fall in line.
Someone needs to crack that armor before it suffocates her.
Might as well be me.
“Strategy got me to the top of the most powerful intelligence agency in the world.” Her voice is quiet now.
Controlled. Dangerous. The kind of danger that makes smart men back away slowly.
“Strategy let me track an artificial intelligence across six continents. Strategy brought me to this safehouse without leaving a single digital footprint. Strategy is going to save the world.”
“And me?”
She tilts her head. Assessing. Those brown eyes sweep over me like she’s reading a file—cataloging every detail, filing away data for later analysis. What does she see? The scruffy pilot who can’t sit still? The chaos agent who treats everything like a joke? Or something else?
“You’re a variable I haven’t figured out how to account for yet.”
Something warm uncurls in my chest. Something I definitely don’t have time to examine.
“Good.” The grin spreads before I can stop it. “Keep ‘em guessing. That’s my motto.”
“You have a motto?”
“Several. That one’s my favorite.” I lean against the doorframe, letting my body settle into a slouch that drives military types crazy. “Got a few more. ‘Never fly straight when you can fly sideways.’ ‘The only good plan is a flexible plan.’ ‘If you’re not terrified, you’re not paying attention.’”
“Those are terrible mottos.”
“They’ve kept me alive.”
“So you keep saying.” She shifts her weight, positioning herself with a clear line to the exit. Old habits. Training. She’s been in dangerous rooms before. “How many times has luck almost run out?”
“Define ‘almost.’”
“How many crashes?”
The question catches me off guard. Most people don’t ask. Most people don’t want to know how many times the guy flying them has walked away from wreckage.
“Four.” The word comes out before I can decide whether to lie. “Technically.”
“Technically?”
“Heart stopped twice. Doesn’t count as a real crash if they can restart you, right?”
She stares at me. Something shifts behind those calculating eyes—not pity, thank God. Something closer to recalculation. Like I’ve given her a new data point, and she’s not sure where it fits.
“And you’re still flying.”
“Still flying.” I spin the keyring once. “Still breathing. Still useful.”
“Why?”
Nobody asks that. Not even Ghost, who knows more about my history than anyone else on the team. Why do you still fly? Why do you still throw yourself at the sky when it’s tried so hard to kill you?
Because it’s the only place the silence can’t reach me.
“Because the ground is boring,” I say instead. “Because the only thing worse than dying in a cockpit is dying in a bed somewhere, old, useless, and ordinary.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
The silence stretches between us. Different from the silence I’m always running from—this one is full. Charged. Like the air before a storm breaks.
She’s still watching me. Still calculating. But something in her posture has shifted. The rigid line of her shoulders has eased by maybe a millimeter. Her grip on the folder has loosened.
Progress.
“Look, Director.” I push off the doorframe, step closer. Not crowding her—she’d bolt or fight, and I’m not sure which would be worse. Just—closing the distance. “I know you don’t like me. That’s fine. Most people don’t at first. I grow on them. Like fungus.”
“Charming.”
“But here’s the thing.” I hold her gaze.
Let her see something real, just for a second.
Something under the jokes and the chaos and the spinning keys.
“In about four hours, we’re going to be walking into a building full of people who might want to kill you.
Some of them work for Phoenix. Some of them work for your father. Some of them are probably both.”
“I’m aware of the threat matrix.”
“I’m sure you are. Color-coded and cross-referenced.” The corner of her mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost. I file that away for later. “But threat matrices don’t shoot back. And the only thing standing between you and a bullet is me.”
“I don’t need—”
“You need someone who can improvise when your plans fall apart.” I’m not mocking anymore.
The words come out steady. Serious. The version of me I don’t let most people see—the version that exists underneath all the noise.
“That’s what Ghost said. And Ghost is a lot of things, but he’s not wrong about this. ”
She’s quiet. Watching me with those calculating eyes.
The gears are practically audible. “So, here’s the deal.
” I keep my voice low. Just for her. “You do your thing. Convince Costa. Get the codes. Stay in control—I know you need that, and I won’t get in your way.
But when the moment comes—when Phoenix makes a move you didn’t predict, when your protocol fails, when everything goes sideways—you let me handle it.
No arguments. No hesitation. You trust me, just for that moment. ”
“Why should I?”
Fair question. I don’t have a good answer. Not one I’m willing to say out loud.
Because I’ve kept people alive when they shouldn’t have survived. Because chaos is just physics with better reflexes. Because something about you makes me want to prove I’m more than just a wildcard with a death wish.
Because Jake trusted me, and I was ninety seconds too late, and I’ve been trying to outrun that failure ever since.
“Because you don’t have a better option,” I say instead. “Deal?”
The silence stretches. One second. Two. Calculations run behind her eyes—risk assessment, probability matrices, whatever it is that big, beautiful brain does when it’s not busy trying to save the world.
Her throat moves as she swallows. A tiny tell. The only crack in that perfect armor.
“Deal.”
I blink. Didn’t actually expect her to agree.
“Good.” The grin returns, easier now. Safer. The mask sliding back into place. “Then let’s go get married, wifey. We’ve got an AI to trap.”
I turn. Walk away. Before she can respond. Before I do something stupid like ask what that flicker in her eyes meant, or why my chest feels tight, or why the hell I just promised to protect a woman I met an hour ago like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The rhythm fills the silence. Keeps the ghosts at bay. As long as my hands are moving, as long as there’s noise, I don’t have to think about Kandahar. About Jake. About ninety seconds that changed everything.
Behind me, the sound of her gathering her things. Precise movements. Controlled. Every action deliberate.
She’s going to be a nightmare to work with. All that control, all that rigidity, all those rules she clings to like life preservers. We’re going to clash on everything. She’s going to hate my methods, my humor, my inability to sit still for more than thirty seconds.
And I’m going to love every minute of making that ice of hers crack.
Dangerous, a voice whispers in the back of my head. She’s dangerous.
Not because she might get me killed. I’ve made peace with that possibility a long time ago.
Hell, some days I’ve courted it. The team thinks I have a death wish, and they’re not entirely wrong.
What I have is worse—an inability to stop moving, to stop flying, to stop chasing the horizon because the alternative is standing still long enough to hear the silence.
She’s dangerous because for the first time in longer than I want to admit, I’m interested. In her competence. In what’s underneath all that control. In the fire I glimpsed when she talked about burning down her father’s empire.
Sarah Vance is a puzzle I want to solve. A code I want to crack.
And that’s the most dangerous thing of all.
I push through the door toward the hangar, already running calculations for the flight to Vegas. Distance. Fuel. Weather patterns. The mechanical details that keep my brain from wandering into territory it has no business exploring.
Four hours until departure.
Seventy-two hours until Phoenix completes its download.
And somewhere between here and Nevada, I have to keep the ice queen alive long enough to save the world.
Should be interesting.