Page 132 of Mission Shift

I blinked up at him, a little surprised.

“I saw you as someone who shouldn’t have had to fightalone.”

His words made me weak in the knees.

Braxton reached out and took my hands. “You think I don’t know what’s happening to my country?” His voice was hoarse. “You think I don’t see what’s happening with the people in power—the ones who let a man like Putin have his way with them?” His fingers tightened around my hands. “I grew up believing in something better. Believing that America stood for something real. That we were the good guys. That we fought for the ones who couldn’t fight for themselves.” He pressed his lips into a thin line. “But the truth is, I don’t know what the hell we are anymore.”

Something inside me twisted.

Because that was his truth.

“But I do know this,” he continued, his voice growing stronger. “Most people back home? They’re not like the ones in power.They’re not selling their souls for money and influence. Most people are good.”

His eyes locked onto mine.

“When a tornado flattens a neighborhood or a wildfire tears through a town, people don’t wait to be asked. They grab their boots, their trucks, whatever they’ve got, and they show up. No paycheck. No recognition. Just…because someone needs help.”

I stayed quiet, listening.

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes—total strangers loading water and diapers into pickup beds and driving cross-country to hand them out. I’ve watched people rip drywall from a stranger’s house because floodwaters ruined it. And they never have to be asked. It’s just what they do.”

He tapped his chest, right over his heart. “We fight, yeah. Sometimes over stupid shit. But we fight hard because we love harder. We work hard for our families. And when we mess up? We try to fix it.”

He drew close to me, until we were nearly touching.

“My country’s done terrible things, Daria, from the beginning—genocide of the indigenous people, slavery, bigotry. We’ve hurt people who did nothing wrong. But we’ve also grown. Slowly. Painfully. We keep trying to self-correct, even when it’s messy.”

He paused for a moment and placed both hands onto my shoulders, holding me firmly as if he was determined to make me understand his feelings. “That’s why I still believe in the American Dream. Not the version sold by politicians. The real one—the one where people help each other. Where we still have the right to fix what’s broken.”

He swallowed hard. “And yeah, I have the freedom to call out my leaders. I can say they’re corrupt morons. I can yell it in public, put it on a bumper sticker, hell—I can wear it on a damn T-shirt. And no one’s gonna drag me off for it. I don’t need a permit to leave my city or visit someone in another state.That freedom to move, to speak, to protest—tochoose—that’s something not every country has.”

His hands moved to cup my cheeks.

“You think freedom is about power, about who controls the guns and the money. But real freedom?” He shook his head. “It’s about having options. It’s about waking up, deciding what kind of life you want to live, and knowing no one can stop you just because they don’t like your opinions. That you can build something for yourself without waiting for permission from some dictator or king. That’s America. It’s not perfect, but most of us strive to live up to the ideals that our country was founded on. To be decent people.”

Both of us remained silent for a while.

“Maybe that’s why so many want to burn it down,” I finally said quietly.

Braxton nodded once. “Yeah. And that’s why the rest of us have to be the ones to protect it.”

I let out a slow breath, studying his eyes. My stone-cold heart cracked a little, and I was on the verge of tears again. The man before me was unlike any other I’d known. He was unapologetically idealistic and had faith in the goodness of humanity.

And I’d come to know him in a way that had me at a complete loss for words.

Braxton cradled the back of my head in his hand. “I’m not walking away from you. No matter how much you want me to. No matter how much you hate me right now.” He stared into my eyes unrelentingly. “I’m with you, Daria. Whether you believe it or not.”

My throat tightened.

Because if he meant it—if hereallymeant it—then I wasn’t alone anymore.

And I didn’t know how to live with that.

Because I had never not been alone.

Chapter thirty-eight

“Idon’t hate you,” Daria whispered, tears shimmering in her big blue eyes.

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