Chapter 31 #2
My father is dead. Phoenix is wounded but not destroyed. A six-year-old girl is carrying a monster in her bloodstream. Tomorrow will bring impossible choices and desperate races against time.
But right now, in this moment, in this bed, with this man …
“Yeah.” The word surprises me with its truth. “I’m okay.”
He shifts. Pulls me closer. His arm wraps around my waist like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
“Good.” A kiss pressed to my hair. “Get some sleep.”
“We should … There’s so much to—”
“It’ll still be there in a few hours.” His voice is already drowsy. “Phoenix isn’t going anywhere. Neither is the antidote. But you need to rest. We need to rest.”
“Since when do you advocate for rest?”
“Since I found something worth being rested for.”
The words settle into me. Warm. Certain.
I close my eyes.
For the first time in years, the silence doesn’t feel empty.
It feels full.
I wake to gray light filtering through heavy curtains and the unfamiliar sensation of someone else’s heartbeat under my ear.
Torque—Levi—is still asleep. His arm is still around me. His breathing is slow and even, chest rising and falling in a rhythm that feels like safety.
I should move. Should get up. Should check on the team, on the antidote progress, on a thousand things more urgent than lying here watching a man sleep.
I don’t.
Instead, I study him in the dim light. The strong line of his jaw. The dark stubble that’s threatening to become a beard. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes that crinkle when he laughs. He looks younger in sleep. Softer. The perpetual kinetic energy is finally at rest.
His hand twitches against my back. Stills.
“Staring is creepy,” he mumbles without opening his eyes.
“You’re awake.”
“Hard to sleep when someone’s staring at you.” One eye cracks open. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Morning, wife.”
The word doesn’t make me flinch this time.
“Morning, husband.”
His eye opens fully. Something warm flickers in his expression—surprise maybe, or satisfaction. “You didn’t correct me.”
“No.”
“Progress.”
“Shut up.”
He laughs. Pulls me closer. Kisses me slow and sweet, nothing like the desperate urgency of last night.
“We should get up,” I say against his lips. “The team—”
“Will survive another ten minutes.”
“Levi—”
“Sarah.” He pulls back. Meets my eyes. “Last night. Was that … Did you—”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what? I haven’t finished the question.”
“Whatever the question is, yes.” I trace the line of his collarbone. Watch goosebumps rise in the wake of my touch. “Yes, I meant it. Yes, I want this. Yes, I’m terrified. Yes, I’d do it again.”
“Good.” He captures my hand. Presses a kiss to my palm. “Because I’m not letting you go.”
“Even when this is over? When Phoenix is dead, and the world isn’t ending?”
“Especially then.” His eyes are serious now. Steady. “You think I do this for everyone? The whole ‘fly through a canyon, kill a senator, have a life-altering sexual experience’ thing?”
“I would hope not.”
“Just you.” Another kiss, this one to my wrist. “Only you.”
The words should scare me. They’re too big, too absolute, too much like the kind of promises that break when tested.
But I look at this man—this reckless, brilliant, infuriating man who flies like death can’t catch him and kisses like he’s got all the time in the world—and I don’t feel scared.
I feel found.
“The marriage certificate,” I say slowly. “It’s real.”
“Very real. Filed with Clark County and everything.”
“I’m not annulling it.”
He goes still. “Sarah—”
“I was going to. That was the plan. Mission over, annulment filed, pretend it never happened.” I meet his eyes. “But I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want to go back to who I was before. I want—” My voice catches. “I want to see what happens next.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His smile breaks slowly. Like sunrise over the canyon. Like something new being born.
“Then let’s find out together.”
Twenty minutes later, we emerge into the main room of the safe house. Showered. Dressed. Pretending we don’t look like two people who just discovered something life-changing between terrible sheets in a forgettable room.
No one’s fooled.
Ghost looks up from a tactical map spread across the table. His expression doesn’t change, but something knowing flickers in his eyes. “Sleep well?”
“Well enough,” Levi says evenly. “Status?”
“Halo’s coordinating with Guardian HRS. They’ve got a facility in Portland that can handle mass production of the antidote. Skye Summers is on her way there now.” Ghost’s gaze shifts to me. “Director Vance. How are you holding up?”
I consider lying. Decide against it.
“I’m not sure yet. But I’m functional.”
“Good enough.” He nods toward the hallway.
“Stratton’s in the back room. She’s been reconstructing the ASHFALL distribution framework non-stop.
Mapping every transaction, every shell company, every clinic that received funding.
Once she finishes, we can start pulling patient records and building the priority list.” A pause.
“Thorne hasn’t spoken to anyone since we landed. ”
The weight of that settles over the room. The reminder that our victory is incomplete. That while Levi and I were finding something beautiful in the wreckage, a man down the hall was drowning in the knowledge that his daughter might be carrying a monster inside her.
“What’s the timeline?” I ask.
“Months to produce enough antidote for the highest-risk patients. More to full distribution.” Ghost’s jaw tightens. “Phoenix is getting stronger every hour. Halo’s tracking the fragment activity. They’re definitely converging on Ghostwater.”
“And Lily?”
“On the list. It’s confirmed.” Ghost’s voice is flat. Careful. “CHOP compassionate use trial. March of this year.”
Levi’s hand finds the small of my back. Steadying.
“Then she’s priority one,” I say. “We get the antidote to her first.”
“Thorne will want to deliver it himself.”
“I know.” I straighten my shoulders. Remember who I am. Who I’m supposed to be. “Let him. Give him something to do besides stare at the woman who poisoned his daughter.”
Ghost nods. Looks at Torque. Looks at me. Looks at the invisible something that’s shifted between us.
“Anything else I should know?” The question is mild. The subtext is not.
Levi’s hand presses more firmly against my back.
“Yeah,” he says. “We’re not annulling the marriage.”
A beat.
Then Ghost—stoic, unflappable Ghost—almost smiles.
“Looks like I win the pot.”
Levi goes still. “Excuse me?”
“The pot.” Ghost’s expression doesn’t change, but there’s something suspiciously close to satisfaction in his voice.
“Brass had fifty on annulment within seventy-two hours of mission completion. Halo gave it a week. Fuse bet you’d file the paperwork before you landed in Seattle. ” He pauses. “I bet you’d keep it.”
“You—” Levi’s voice is dangerously flat. “You bet on my marriage.”
“On whether you’d stay married,” Ghost corrects. “Important distinction.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred each.”
“You absolute bastards.” Levi takes a step forward. His hand has left my back. His shoulders are tight with the particular tension of a man who’s just discovered his brothers have been running a book on his love life. “You were taking bets while I was flying through a goddamn canyon—”
“To be fair,” Halo says from across the room, not looking up from his tablet, “we started the pool before the canyon. Right after the wedding photos hit.”
“There are wedding photos?”
“Chapel had cameras. Vegas, remember? Phoenix wasn’t the only one watching the show.” Brass appears in a doorway, arms crossed, utterly unrepentant. “That kiss was—comprehensive. Fuse said there was no way it was fake. I said no way it was real. Ghost said—”
“Ghost said you’d figure it out eventually.” Ghost’s almost-smile has become an actual smile. Small, but unmistakable. “Didn’t expect it to take a dead senator and a caged god, but the timeline was always flexible.”
Levi stares at him. Stares at Brass. Stares at Halo.
“I cannot believe—after everything—you were running a betting pool on whether I’d stay married to—”
“To the woman you couldn’t stop looking at from the moment she walked into the briefing room?” Brass raises an eyebrow. “Yeah. We noticed.”
“I was assessing a potential asset.”
“You were staring at her ass.”
“That’s not … I didn’t …” Levi sputters. Actually sputters. I’ve never seen him at a loss for words before. It’s oddly endearing. “Sarah, tell them I wasn’t—”
“You were definitely staring at my ass.”
He turns to me, betrayed. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side. But you were staring, and I noticed.”
“You noticed and you still—”
“Married you? Yes. Under duress. Which apparently everyone was betting on.” I look at Ghost. “What were the odds?”
“On you specifically staying married?” Ghost’s smile widens a fraction. “Three to one against. Brass thought you were too controlled. Halo thought he was too chaotic. Fuse thought you’d kill each other before the ink dried.”
“And you?”
“I’ve seen the way he flies when something matters to him.” Ghost shrugs. “Figured you’d be worth the risk.”
Levi opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
Then he laughs.
It starts low—a huff of disbelief—and builds into something real. Something that shakes his shoulders and crinkles the corners of his eyes and fills the room with a warmth that wasn’t there before.
“You magnificent bastards,” he says, still laughing. “I can’t believe you bet on my marriage. I can’t believe Ghost won. I can’t believe …” He shakes his head, grinning now. “How much is in the pot?”
“Eight hundred. Whisper got in late. Bet you’d elope to a different country to avoid the annulment paperwork.”
“That’s—actually not a terrible idea.”
“Don’t even think about it.” I elbow him. “I’m not running away to avoid lawyers.”
“Who said anything about running? I was thinking more of a—tactical relocation. Somewhere warm. Beaches. No extradition treaties.”
“We’re not fleeing the country.”
“We could flee the country a little.”
“No.”
“Think about it. White sand. Blue water. Absolutely zero digital gods trying to end humanity.”
“Tempting. Still no.”
He sighs dramatically. Turns back to Ghost. “Fine. We’re staying. You win the pot. But I want it on record that this is deeply unprofessional behavior from my commanding officer.”
“Noted.” Ghost’s expression has returned to its usual granite, but there’s a warmth underneath it now. Something almost paternal. “Welcome to the family, Director. Try not to let him crash anything expensive.”
“I make no promises.”
“I’ve never crashed anything expensive,” Levi protests. “The helicopter in Kandahar was definitely mid-range at best.”
“That’s not the reassurance you think it is.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
I look at him—this ridiculous, reckless, impossible man who somehow became my husband in the space of a week—and something settles in my chest. Not the hollow emptiness of my father’s death. Not the anxious weight of four thousand names on a list. Something quieter. Warmer.
Something that feels like home.
“About time,” Ghost says again, softer this time. And underneath the words, the subtext is clear:
Welcome to Cerberus.