Chapter Two

The Night Before

From the time he broke off from Rhys and Dar, with the word “retired” and the offer from Veyr weighing heavy on his mind, Logan’s head was spinning. Despite twenty-two years of worse words—KIA. Incoming. Hold the line.—not one had hit him harder than having ‘retired’ pronounced like a death sentence. Gripping the steering wheel of his Rover, he drove downtown on autopilot; Veyr’s voice still rang in his ears. Smooth, controlled. That faint, dangerous lilt she always had, like she was talking from the edge of a knife. “We’re not done with you yet, Ward.”

Kabul — 2018
The Falcon’s Rest was less a bar than a rumour bolted together from scrap and denial. An old comms bunker on the edge of the Green Zone, walls patched with shipping crates, lightbulb swinging like it wanted out. The kind of place where rank didn’t matter and names were optional.

Logan Ward sat alone at the oil-drum table, nursing a glass that smelled faintly of lighter fluid and Scotland. Forty-eight hours off rotation after Jalalabad went sideways. His rifle was locked up; his nerves weren’t. He saw her the way you notice a change in pressure before a storm—civilian clothes, desert-clean boots, no sweat. She didn’t belong here. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

“Neither are you, Lieutenant Ward.”

That made him look. Calm eyes. British, maybe. Carrying herself like someone who’d already measured the room.
“How d’you know my name?”

“I make it my business to know who’s drinking in my city.” She slid onto the crate opposite him, uninvited. “Mind if I borrow a glass?”

He pushed one across. “Langley?”

A hint of a smile. “Something like that.” They drank in silence until she leaned in. “There’s going to be an ambush north of here in the morning. Supply convoy—three trucks, two gun jeeps. Change their route before sunrise.”

Logan’s hand stilled on the glass. “You psychic now?”

“No.” Her tone stayed level. “Just informed.”

He wanted to laugh, but she didn’t look like someone who joked around. Twelve hours later, he rerouted that convoy under a peach-coloured dawn—and the firefight she’d predicted erupted exactly where she’d said.

When he came back that night, she was waiting. “Told you.” She said.

He poured a drink. “You CIA?”

“No.”

“MI6?”

“Closer.” She extended a hand. “Veyr.”

He hesitated. “Single name? Like Madonna?”

“Like classification.”

He finally shook. Her grip was cool, decisive.

“You saved six men,” she said. “You’ll never read their names, but you’ll know.”

“Why me?”

“Because you already know what happens when the rules don’t work.”

They met twice more that year. She’d arrive from nowhere, sketching patterns on napkins while she talked—lines between people, agencies, entire governments. Once she drew a circle around three numbers: 9 8 3.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A contingency,” she said, tearing the napkin in half. “Something that doesn’t exist yet.”

He didn’t ask again. Some ghosts were better left unnamed.

Willing his breathing to slow, he matched it to the measured rhythm he’d used on hundreds of missions. The rest of the block was asleep—shuttered businesses, empty bus stops, a taxi idling two streets over. Although the two-story red brick building’s front lights were out, the linen shades drawn tight against the night, he could recognize the silhouette anywhere — that confident stance, one hip cocked against the counter, the wild corona of hair catching the kitchen’s overhead lights. Logan deliberately slammed the vehicle’s door as he exited, issuing a warning shot that reverberated in the empty street. Moving to the entrance, he knew he wouldn’t need to knock—the deadbolt was already turning; the hinges sighing open to reveal Pam’s face, half-shadowed, flour still dusting her left cheekbone.

Taking in the sight of him, her heart rate increased until it was thumping a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Untethered. Unravelling. A man in freefall without a chute. Without speaking, she walked straight to the pastry bench, yanked open a drawer, and pulled out a bottle of Laphroaig—the good one, the one she only brought out when something was wrong. She filled the glass generously, placing it in his hand, letting her fingers touch his knuckles. “Drink. Then talk.” Leaning against the opposite counter, with her arms folded beneath her breasts, she observed the subtle curve of his shoulders. This soldier, who had held up Dar and Zoe, then Dar after Zoe, and even herself following Arthur’s death, was caving inward. Part of her wanted to reach for him; another part reminded her to stay still.

The whisky burned clean, the way he liked it—no ice, no water, peat and fire. He savoured the taste on his tongue for a moment, then swallowed, closing his eyes to banish all other sensations. Logan hesitated before speaking, rotating the glass, observing the liquid reflect light, before taking another drink, at a slower pace. His tremor subsided as he divulged everything all at once, words spilling quickly: his retirement, the new task force, Veyr. “My mind already said yes. Didn’t even hesitate. Rhys and I have to decide by the time we meet her tomorrow.” He paused finally and swirled the whisky. “Maybe I should say no, walk away entirely.” He looked up, eyes sharp behind the sunglasses he hadn’t taken off-not yet. “Twenty-two years, Pam. The thought of retirement,” he almost choked on the words then, as though they were cutting him open, “…scared me. Can you believe that? Me? Scared? I’ve bled for every inch of that unit. Watched our own men die.” Then, he took another sip before he let out a small laugh. “Hell, even you don’t scare me.”

Pam let out a breath—sharp, not surprised. She pushed off the counter and came closer, apron brushing his knee. “You think fear’s weakness? Christ on a cracker, Logan, fear’s the only thing that proves you’re still alive.” She plucked the glass from his fingers, threw back what remained in a single burning swallow, and set it down hard enough to ring the steel. “Twenty-two fucking years of letting them carve you up and decide what pieces are worth keeping. They’re handing you a new cage.” Her fingers reached out, clamping around his wrist like a vise, her thumb mining the pulse point beneath his skin. “You want off their ride? Say it. You want to stay, then own it. But don’t you dare climb aboard another blacked-out helicopter just because the word ‘retirement’ spooks you more than taking a bullet to the skull.”

Stepping back to yank open the refrigerator door, she pulled out a large tub and laid it on the counter. Removing the lid exposed her own secret recipe of orange-chocolate mascarpone, its surface gleaming under the soft kitchen light. She dipped a finger into the silky mass, lifted the cream in a bold arc, and offered it to him like a challenge. “Taste it. Then tell me what you want.”

Logan froze. Her eyes—large orbs of green the colour of moss—locked onto his just as surely as they had the very first time they met. The quiet dare in the way she held her hand out to him—not seducing him, not teasing him, but letting him decide whether to step forward or stay behind. He leaned in, letting his fingers skim hers as he took the offering, the mascarpone melting on his tongue like sin. He closed his eyes and let the memory wash over him.

Dar introduced her to their fractured family in secondary school. Fifteen-year-old Pam, with a smirk playing on lips the shade of bruised cherries and smoky kohl circling those green eyes drilled into his, she’d cocked her head while sizing him up- fourteen, awkward, trying to figure out where to put his hands or how to talk to a girl like her—”So. You’re the stepbrother?” Her hair flared like living flame, with a long fringe draping over one eye. Skinny ripped black jeans clung to her slender hips, a faded Mineral tee hugged at the waist, and scuffed Doc Martens stomped out a message of heedless attitude. Her electrifying swagger had cut straight through him—he’d melted right then, just like the mascarpone on his tongue now.

Logan had shipped out a year after Pam ran off with Arthur, convinced she was gone from his world forever. Five years ago, Arthur died—barely months after Zoe—and in the raw, tidal wave of grief that sucked them under, Logan had felt something surge alive in his gut, a tiny pilot light flickering back to life. So, he’d waited—day after day, year after year—longing coiled tight in his chest. He had compartmentalized his entire life. Duty in one box. Loss in another. Pam in a place he didn’t dare open. He’d convinced himself he was protecting her, or maybe protecting himself. That he was too damaged, too chaotic, too tied to a life that stole more than it ever gave.

Fuck, I’m no better than Rhys.

He opened his eyes, pinning his gaze to hers while he finished licking the last of the sweet, creamy cheese from her fingertip—slow, deliberate, achingly intimate—the precise movement he’d fantasized about for years.

“You always did make the best bad decisions,” He slid the sunglasses from his face, folded them with the precision of a scalpel and set them on the counter. Without the tinted lenses, his eyes stared back at her, storm-grey and raw, bloodshot rims battered by sleepless nights.

Closing the scant inches between them, he moved in. The sharp tang of peat-smoke clung to his breath, mingling with her warm vanilla extract scent. “What if I’m tired of choosing between cages? What if I want…” His hand rose, the knuckles feather-light as they brushed against her jaw. “…something that doesn’t come with a mission brief?”

The industrial mixer behind them clicked off; the sudden hush rang in their ears louder than a gunshot. Pam’s heart generated a frantic rhythm against her ribs—raw and overworked—as she met his eyes. In that instant, years of longing, each stolen glance in Dar’s kitchen, every “accidental” brush of fingertips felt laid bare between them.

“Something that doesn’t come with a mission brief?” Her voice dropped to a husky whisper as she repeated it back to him, catching his wrist before he could withdraw and pressing his palm flat against the soft curve of her breasts. “You mean like this? Like us? Because Lieutenant, we’ve been running covert ops on each other for years, and I’m bloody tired of pretending it’s nothing but reconnaissance.”

He let his forehead fall against hers, the absence of his sunglasses leaving his vulnerability bare. “Christ, Pam,” his voice barely audible. “Do you think I don’t know I’ve been trading one cage for another since I was eighteen?” His free hand slid up her forearm, slow and deliberate, as though checking for tripwires, then kept going until his fingers threaded through the hair at her nape—flour and vanilla and the faint sting of orange zest clinging to the copper-gold strands. He tilted her head, searching her eyes, confirming the want darkening them. The dog tags clinked softly as his chest rose, fell. “I’m not asking for a new rotation. I’m asking for a blind spot.” A humourless laugh. “Somewhere the mission doesn’t reach.”  Dipping his head, his mouth brushed the corner of hers, not quite a kiss—his thumb stroked along her jawline. “Problem is, Pam… every time I find one, I end up setting up over-watch anyway.” A shy smile touched the weathered lines around his eyes. “Can’t help it. It’s in the blood. Like you with that bloody scone recipe—always tweaking, always improving.”

He pulled back to meet her eyes. “But maybe… this once, I don’t patrol the perimeter. Maybe I just… stay. See what happens when I stop waiting for the next order.” His voice dropped lower. “Think you could handle a broken soldier who doesn’t…”

“Bloody hell, Ward.” Her words came out coarser than intended, cutting him off mid-sentence. Her carefully constructed defenses had crumbled when she felt his fingers through her hair—now her throat was tight, her pulse drumming wildly against her collarbone. Trembling slightly, she slid her hands up his chest, feeling the dog tags through his shirt. “You think I’m asking you to stand down? I’m asking you to stand with.”

Her lips barely grazed his—tasting the truth of what he’d just said mixing with the orange zest and something darker than the chocolate. Her thumb traced the ridge of the old shrapnel wound to where it disappeared into his hair, aware of the way her touch made his breath hitch. “Christ, Logan, we’re all broken. Difference is, some of us build something with what’s left of the pieces.” She let her fingers drift down to the dog tags again, the metal still warm from his skin, engraved numbers and letters that defined him to a system but revealed nothing of the man. She saw everything—conflict, fear, longing, grief, the jagged edges of his past—and she wasn’t afraid of it.

Her other hand found the small of his back, pulling him closer until there was nothing between them but flour dust and five years of unspoken things hanging in the air like smoke after an explosion.

“You want a blind spot?” A sanctuary, a chance, offered in a barely audible whisper. “My flat’s upstairs. No mission briefs. No extraction orders. Just… us…and some eighteen-year-old Macallan I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”

She felt him tense, a subtle tightening of his muscles whenever someone tried to touch him or when they offered something that hinted at lasting commitment. Instead of letting him pull away, she pressed her forehead to his, steadying the microquake that ran through him. “Logan, you’ve been choosing duty since you were old enough to stand at attention. Just once… choose something else.”

He blinked, eyes closing briefly. “Like what?”

“Like me.” His pulse stuttered under her fingers. “Not asking for forever, soldier. Only… tonight. We don’t even have to tell anyone.” Pam’s lips curved into a playful smile. “Besides, someone’s got to save you from mess rations, and I’ve got a lasagna in my fridge.” 

The kitchen clock ticked on, each second stretching like pulled taffy between them, and she felt him relax. He didn’t flinch, didn’t crack a joke, didn’t retreat into the familiar terrain of sarcasm or stoicism. He just… stilled. Like he’d been holding himself together for too long, and someone finally told him he didn’t have to. Then his hands found her waist, anchoring.

“Lasagna, huh?” He breathed out. A long, ragged, uneven exhale. She could feel his heart pounding against her ribs—or was it her own? “Christ, Pam, you always knew how to weaponize comfort.” 

She laughed, a whip crack through the tension. Her fingers slipped under his shirt, mapping old burns, fresh scars—the topography of a life lived in the shadows. “Better than weaponizing guilt, which is what you’re doing to yourself right now.”

She pressed her lips to his temple, tasting salt and adrenaline. “Upstairs, Logan. Before I decide the countertop’s more appealing than my bed.” 

He swallowed hard, his voice stripped of its usual armour. “Lead the way.”