She scrubbed both hands over her face. “I should be better than this. More in control.”
Wyatt took hold of her hands, his thumbs sweeping over her knuckles. “You did what you had to. And youdidn’tkill him. You stopped him. You saved someone. Max.”
His voice tethered her like a lifeline. “This doesn’t make you less. It makes you real.” He held her gaze for another heartbeat. “After this, maybe we can grab a coffee?”
“Coffee?” A surprised laugh escaped her.
“Yeah. Somewhere that isn’t a missile platform. Where no one’s shooting at us.” A beat. “Just coffee.”
She looked up at him, letting his calm soak into her. “I’d like that.”
“Me too.” His hands dropped, and he stepped back. Professional distance was restored, but the warmth of his touch lingered.
“Safety checks complete,” Caro announced, straightening. “Suit up. And for the record, come back in one piece, or you’ll have me to answer to.”
The corner of Wyatt’s mouth twitched as he removed the charges from the backpack. “Copy that.”
He checked the detonator timers. "Six-minute delay on the charges. Once I arm the last one, we have six minutes to surface." He held his wrist next to hers. "Sync."
Jen matched her watch to his. Six minutes. The number sat cold in her stomach.
"Plenty of time," he said.
"You're a terrible liar." She crossed to the suits, the hiss of hydraulics and hum of machinery filling the dive chamber. She paused with her hand on the collar of hers.
"Only about the easy stuff." A glint touched his eyes as she glanced at him sidelong.
Her cheek still tingled from his touch. He believed in her. Not because she’d proved it—though she had, over and over tonight—but because he’d decided to. The way she trusted him.
You’re not doing this alone.
That was what she needed to carry into the water. Not the fear or the memory of the last time pressure closed around her ribs like a vice.
This time, Wyatt would be on the other side of it.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s do this.”
24
The dive platformjolted beneath Wyatt’s boots and began its descent.
He gripped the rail as greenish darkness swirled around his knees, his waist, and rose over his chest. Pressure built against his eardrums. He worked his jaw to equalize.
The water closed over his faceplate, and the world went quiet. Nothing but the hiss of his air supply and the dull groan of the platform’s hydraulics transmitted through metal and bone. The old stillness settled over him—the one the ocean had taught him years ago. Down here, everything simplified. No noise. Just the mission and the dark.
The last of the surface light disappeared as they lowered further, swallowed whole by the endless pitch black. Cold sank through his neoprene suit despite the thick insulation.
He placed his hand over Jen’s on the safety rail, a quiet check-in she didn’t pull away from.
“Doing okay?”
Her voice crackled through the comm. “So far.”
The platform settled with a metallic groan. Sixteen feet down. The maintenance balcony circled the rig’s substructure ina wide loop of grated metal and handrails. Beyond the reach of their headlamps, support pylons disappeared into deeper black.
Wyatt stepped off the platform. His weighted boots hit the grating with a dull vibration. He swept his headlamp once around the structure. No movement. No divers. No cables drifting loose.
Water pushed back against every movement. His injured thigh burned with the effort of walking. The cold penetrated the neoprene at his joints—wrists, neck, ankles—finding the seams where protection was thinnest. Pressure hugged his rib cage.
