Page 30 of Damian
“You did good today,” she said, voice low.
“You were the one humming on the porch,” I answered. My words came out ridiculous and earnest at the same time. She smiled—the kind that folded into her eyes—and it made the whole stupid, stubborn world shrink to the width of the kitchen.
I stepped closer. There was no protocol for this: no checklist, no rules that told you how to translate the small mercy of a touch into a bargain. My thumb brushed the back of her hand where the skin was warm from the cup. She didn’t pull away. There was trust in that small stillness. Blo... bloody hell, I realized. I was standing in a house filled with sleeping children and yet the only thing that mattered was the distance between us.
“Damian—” she began, then stopped, as if searching for words that weren’t weapons.
I closed the last inches. My hands settled at her waist without thinking, because they belonged there the way an anchor belongs to a ship. Her breath hitched. The world narrowed to the hum of the fridge and the sharp, ridiculous sound of my own blood in my ears.
When our lips met it was small at first, testing—like someone checking the weather. Then everything changed. Her mouth was warm and steady and more honest than a confession. The kiss was not frantic; it was a deliberate claim, two people who had been holding their breaths finally exhaling together.
She fit against me like she’d been shaped by the same grief and stubbornness I carried. Her fingers splayed at the nape of my neck and tugged me closer, and for one suspended, dangerous second the farmhouse didn’t exist. There were nolists and no ledgers, just the press of palms and the soft, slow permission of two bodies finally agreeing.
I thought of Ruby and of all the children we’d saved, and that thought made the kiss ache with its price. When we broke apart it was with the same inevitability as dawn—necessary and edged with urgency.
Morgan’s forehead rested against my chin. Her breath was quick, warm. “Not until she’s back,” she whispered, the words as much a tether as a demand.
“Not until she’s back,” I echoed, because some promises fold around everything. I wanted to stay. I wanted to push the world aside and live in the small gravity of her hand in mine. But there were names to follow and a truck to tail and a ledger that had Ruby’s initials on it.
She smiled—barely—and kissed the corner of my mouth like a benediction. “Then come back to me,” she said.
“I will,” I said. I meant it like iron. I meant it like a vow that would not break.
We let the simple contact linger—two breaths, two hearts calibrating—and then I stepped back into the map room, the echo of her lips on my skin like a compass I’d follow into any dark.
36
Damian
The road to Del Mar felt smaller than it looked on paper, like the map had lied by rounding off the corners. Up close the warehouses hunched under a thin sky, neat rows of loading bays and the kind of fluorescent light that bleaches things of their humanity. From a distance it’s just commerce. Up close, with a ledger in your hand and a name that could be a child’s on it, it becomes a place that holds secrets.
Cyclone’s laptop hummed in the passenger seat, a steady white noise of numbers and dots. River’s hands never stopped moving — checking the rifle, rolling a round in the chamber, adjusting straps. I kept my eyes on the road and my mind on the small, bright anchor of the kiss. It followed me like a second heartbeat, warm and dangerous. It was ridiculous to carry it into an op, maybe, but there it was: a small private thing that made everything else sharper.
“Remember,” I said, low enough that only the men in the van could hear. “Courier first. Names second. We don’t blow the whole lot unless we have to. We come back clean.”
River gave a quick, tight nod. “We tail if they move. Wegrab manifests if we can. We get warrants if the paperwork lets us. No heroics that don’t buy us evidence.”
Cyclone’s voice threaded over the comms. “Courier’s on your six. Plate matches the manifest. They looped through Del Mar Logistics five minutes ago. I’ve got eyes on the office screen from Raven—there’s a clerk who looks bored, exactly how they like it. I can ping the courier if you want me to.”
“Ping quietly.” I didn’t want a chase at dawn; I wanted names tied to faces. “We grab the manifest and the drive. We follow the trail.”
We moved like a shadow with intent. Cyclone and I dropped over the chain-link and rolled, boots kissing concrete, making as little sound as men can who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. The yard smelled of diesel and old secrets. A courier van idled at a loading bay, driver bored enough to be dangerous.
Inside the office the light hummed and the receptionist typed like she’d been taught to ignore everything. The manager’s door had a keypad with lazy fingers; I felt the familiar click of entry under my palm and the practiced silence that follows. It’s the same intimacy on every job — a breath, a step, a heartbeat measured and matched.
We moved through the office like a hand through smoke. River covered, Cyclone disarmed with the kind of efficiency that comes from doing something hard many times. The courier went down with a soft exhale, metal kissing concrete. I rifled pockets and found a small drive taped to the lining like a secret child tucked into a coat. Cyclone’s fingers were already in it, translating a dozen lies into a string of names.
“Ledger,” he breathed, eyes bright. “Invoices, routing, shell companies. Luthor’s number keeps showing up in 46B. Holloway Trust is the funnel. There’s a forwarding service in Temecula — that’s your handoff.”
The room held its breath for a second. The manifest was paper but it carried the weight of lives. I felt the ache for Morgan’s steady hands and the hush of the kids back at the farmhouse like two prayers stacked together. We’d gotten numbers before; this felt like a hook beneath a jaw.
Someone at the back stumbled toward the stairwell — a handler who’d realized his courier never came back. His boots hit like a drum, and the world snapped into sharp edges. We met him with the kind of speed that’s more muscle than thought. River’s muzzle flashed — a white bloom that painted the room with a perfection that’s always ugly to watch. The man crumpled like a bad memory.
Outside, Raven’s drone sang in like a ghost and trailed the courier’s van as it pulled into traffic. Cyclone fed coordinates into our heads like a lifeline. “They’re moving,” he said. “Northbound. Handoff scheduled at the mailbox company on Route 9 in twenty minutes.”
We moved in silence. A tail is a test of patience — the slow art of not being seen, the quiet geometry of following until someone shows you their hand. River drove like a man who respects the road; I watched the courier vanish into the steady hum of suburbia and felt my shoulders tense, every muscle ready.
The mailbox company was the right kind of small and stupid: plastic boxes, cheap paint, a bored clerk folding envelopes. The courier stepped out and the handlers shuffled like they were trying not to look guilty. I slid from the van and moved like I had the right to the place — because I did. We were after truth, not vengeance.
