Dave wanted to grab a fistful of Stone’s shirt, but he stopped himself. Just barely.
Rip’s grin wavered, then came back. “Been waiting for this.”
They squared off. Bets went wild. The room was a wash of noise and then silence.
Rip lunged for Stone’s shoulder—Stone flowed aside, pivot sharp, sweeping Rip’s legs clean. The bigger man hit the mat before he registered the loss of balance.
For a stunned breath, the room froze—then erupted in cheers and laughter.
Stone smirked, offering a hand down. “Still hit like a mule. But you fall like one too.”
Rip grinned as Stone hauled him to his feet.
Dave’s chest eased. The clench when Stone moved fading—six months out from the shoulder wound, and every spar carried risk.
But watching Stone now, commanding the room without breaking a sweat, pride cut through the nerves.
Stone was still badass.
The noise slowly ebbed, men drifting back to corners, muttering about lost bets. The energy lingered, though, sharp enough to cut the stale weight of waiting.
Later that afternoon, Dave stood at the window, hands braced on the sill, eyes on the gardens.
The study had emptied hours ago, but the echo of voices clung to the air. Rip’s gravelly laugh, Winter’s barbed sarcasm, Law’s too-easy grin. Even Viper’s silence was a weight that hadn’t lifted.
Stone and the others had moved into the conference room down the hall, their voices a muffled noise.
Knowing that Stone was going through Sparrow’s papers with the men.
Stone. Steady and always knowing the right way to handle things should have anchored him.
Instead, it gnawed at him.
He didn’t want to be one of the things that Stone handled.
Law’s arrival had dug an old splinter loose. He’d seen the way Law’s eyes had lingered on Stone, easy familiarity worn like a second skin. Stone hadn’t given anything back, but it didn’t matter.
The memory of it was enough.
Command weighed heavier with every new piece on the board. Sparrow’s intel. Viper’s confession. The bunkers. Titus. Too many voices, too many egos, all under his roof, waiting for orders he didn’t yet have the intel to give.
He pushed away from the window. The air inside was thick, stale with coffee and sweat and the static hum of restless men down the hall. He needed space, needed the ocean.
A few moments later, his boots crunched the gravel down to the sand. The waves crashed in the distance. The Pacific stretched endless, the tide pushing high against the shore.
He walked with his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, head down, eyes fixed on the horizon that never gave answers.
“Mr. Allen.”
The voice slid in as smooth as the tide.
Clinton. Of course.
Dave didn’t break stride. “Shouldn’t you be cataloging Sparrow’s manifests?”
“I’ve finished.” Clinton’s shoes barely whispered against the sand, his posture rigid even here. “I thought you might want company.”
“I didn’t.”
