“Good. Thanks.” He swept her flyaway hair behind her ear with his free hand, and cupping the back of her neck, he pulled her in for a soft kiss. “Have I mentioned how much I love you?”
“Once or twice,” she teased, not yet ready to go there herself. Didn’t matter. She loved him. Jay knew it with every last fiber of his being. Still adjusting to her new reality, she’d say it when she felt ready, and he had no fucking complaints about waiting. Here with him now, she’d promised him forever, and that was enough for one day.
“Okay, let’s get you up.” She stood with graceful ease, and coming around to his other side, she helped him scramble to his feet with about as much coordination as a newborn foal.
Hand-in-hand, they left the closet together, and Jesus, the mess inside was one thing, the damage to the wall in their bedroom entirely another. The hole too big to repair, he’d have to replace the entire sheet of drywall, then mud, sand, paint. Fucking hell, they didn’t have that kind of time.
“Why don’t you go shower, baby. I’ll clean up this mess, and we’ll worry about the rest later.”
“Are you sure?” She looked from the dust and jagged bits of plaster littering the floor around the site of impact to the lamp with its broken lightbulb that she’d somehow managed to knock off the bedside table. “I can help.”
“Nah, I got this.” He grinned and squeezed her fingers before guiding her past the debris field toward the bathroom door. “You go ahead and get under the hot spray, I’ll find you something clean to wear before I tackle this shit, sound good?”
She nodded, and the sweet smile she aimed his way took any lingering pain away. “Sounds good.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Despite the possibility of a world-ending virus wiping out any chance of a future, Cody was thrilled for Jay and Rebecca. They were together. A couple. Didn’t take an IQ of two-seventy-five to figure that shit out.
They’d entered the boardroom together, sat together, turned red at the teasing together. And now, heads bent close, they conferred with each other in a computer-laden language nobody else around the table understood.
“We can do it,” Jay said.
“I mean, sure…technically, it’s possible.” Becca looked from Jay to the list of things to do and theories to consider spelled out on the whiteboard in Zander’s chicken-scratch handwriting. “But we still need the kill switch.”
“We’ll get it,” Gray said, her confidence unwavering. “Maya wants the two of you, hell, she needs the two of you. She’ll take the bait, and when she does, we’ll be ready and waiting.”
Beside her, Chase shifted in his seat but wisely kept his reservations to himself. He didn’t want Gray anywhere near this op. Understandable, Cody wasn’t even married to her, and he didn’t want her involved. He didn’t want Becca involved either. What if shit went sideways? What if one of them were hurt?
He couldn’t imagine?—
Fucking hell, his insides twisted, and he shook his head. What if they lost one, or God forbid, both of them? The JTT wouldn’t survive it. They were family. All of them. Blood by choice. He couldn’t imagine living here without the women who made this place home—so bottom line—he refused to let anything happen to either one of them, or the men they loved, which in Gray’s case was everyone around the big ass conference table.
And now he fucking understood.
He looked at the face-scraped dickhead sitting opposite him. Grant hadn’t sacrificed himself for Jay or Gray when he’d jumped out of the Black Hawk and taken on the Bering Sea. He’d done it for the family as a whole.
Yeah, fuck. He’d done the right thing. Made the right decision.
And Cody had given him hell for it.
“Okay, let’s recap,” Adam said, his voice low but firm. “Priority one: combine the lock and key codes. This is our primary objective. If we fail at any other stage, Jay and Becca will be in a position to take control of Dominion. Not ideal, but we’ll take what we can get.”
He fixed his steely gaze on the couple. “Use whatever resources you need to get it done fast. But keep it quiet and off government radar. We don’t want to tip Johnson or his backers off too soon.”
“Roger that,” Jay nodded, looking from Adam to Becca and back again. “We’ll get it done. Three days tops.”
“Good. Priority two is locating Maya. As agreed, we’ll go through darknet channels to secure an in-person dead drop using Jay as bait.”
Adam turned to the other couple at the table. “Chase, you’re responsible for mission parameters, tactical planning, and advanced recon. I want a full risk assessment before we commit, plus redundant exfil plans. We assume worst-case scenario from the start and build from there.”
“Understood,” Chase replied, his brow furrowing. “I might pull Mutt in on this for extra manpower, but I’ll confirm.”
Adam nodded sharply. Once. “Whatever you need. Grant and Davis stay behind to secure the base. The rest of us need to be ready to roll. Go-bags packed. Engines hot. We move the second the call comes in and the meeting’s set. Z, you’re on transportation and logistics. Cody, weapons and gear. We run this op clean, quiet, and with surgical precision. We get in. We get Maya and the kill switch. We get out. Got it?”
A round of curt nods signaled acceptance of the plan, and Cody felt the familiar hit of adrenaline at the prospect of their next mission.
“What about Tak?” Gray asked. “He showed up on Big Diomede, so we have to assume he’s connected to Maya in some way. What if he’s with her? What then?”
