“Call signs?”
“Yeah.”
Martinez smirks, fingers still flying across his screen. “Ryan is Brass. Cooper’s Whisper. Jackson’s Fuse.”
I nod slowly, each name painting a clearer picture now that I know the men behind them.
“And you?” I glance at him sidelong. “What’s yours?”
He finally looks up, that signature crooked grin curving his mouth. “Halo.”
I arch a brow. “Like the video game?”
“Nah.” He leans back, checking the distant horizon through the glass. “Like a guardian angel’s always watching over me.”
A soft laugh slips out before I can stop it. Somehow, despitethe gunfire still echoing in my bones and the fear anchoring deep in my gut, I smile.
The moment stretches for a beat, held there in the thrum of the blades, the steady hum of electronics, and the growl of our escape across the Montana wilderness.
My fingers find the flash drive in my pocket—three years of evidence, of suffering, of careful documentation. The key to destroying Steffan and everything he’s built.
It should feel like triumph. Like victory. Instead, it feels like another loss—another price paid in blood that isn’t mine.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask, pulling my gaze from the window.
“Safe house in Idaho,” the medic answers without looking up from Cooper’s wound. “Guardian HRS facility. You’ll be secure there until we can arrange more permanent arrangements.”
“Guardian HRS?”
“Friends of Cerberus. Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists. They’re going to help us make you disappear.”
“What about Mason and Ryan?”
Martinez meets my gaze steadily. “They have extraction protocols. Secondary and tertiary rendezvous points. They’ll make contact when they’re clear.”
If they’re clear, the words hang unspoken between us.
I lean back, exhaustion suddenly crashing over me like a physical weight. Bear shifts, pressing his warm bulk more firmly against my legs, offering silent comfort. My hand rests on his massive head, fingers buried in thick fur.
“He meant what he said,” Cooper manages, his voice thin with pain. When I look over, his eyes are clearer than they have any right to be, given his injury. “Ghost always keeps his promises. Always.”
I want to believe him. Need to believe him. But as the helicopter carries me away from Montana, away from Mason,I find myself adrift between terror and hope. For the first time in three years, I’m not someone’s property. Not a victim. Not a target.
I’m just me.
Willow.
The thought carries me into uneasy sleep, my dreams filled with gunfire and snow, with Mason’s steel-gray eyes and his final promise:I’ll be right behind you.
But as the miles between us grow, I wonder if that’s a promise even he can keep.
FIFTEEN
Mason
The helicopter climbs rapidly,banking east toward Idaho and safety. I watch until it’s nothing but a dark speck against the pale sky. Willow is safely aboard and beyond Reynolds’s immediate reach.
I allow myself exactly three seconds of relief before turning back to the threat at hand.
