I nodded once. “Eight years. Three deployments.”
He was quiet for a moment, the kind of silence that wasn’t empty but full of things being considered. “Does it get easier?” he asked finally. “Being away from it?”
The question landed with more weight than its four words should have been able to carry. I thought about the answer, the version of myself that existed only in the space between “go” and “stop”—and chose the truth over the comfort.
“No,” I said. “But you get better at carrying it.”
He nodded, accepting what I’d offered without pushing for more. We drove the rest of the way without talking, but the silence between us had changed somehow—no longer the careful distance of the morning, but something that felt almost like companionship.
Dinner was quiet—spaghetti again, with sauce from the same jar but different seasonings added. Jasper had set the table while I cooked, his movements quick and efficient, finding plates and glasses in cabinets he’d never opened before.
He ate with better appetite than he had at breakfast, his attention divided between his food and the conversation—Jojo discussing recipes and the garden, Burke talking about a security system he was installing in the barn, Carter describing a bookshelf Macon was building, Rawley outlining the next day’s work assignments.
No one asked Jasper direct questions about Nebraska or why he was here or how long he was staying. They talked around him rather than at him, creating a space where he could participate without having to explain himself. It was the kind of consideration that came from recognizing someone was carrying a weight they weren’t ready to name.
When the meal was finished, Jasper helped clear the table without being asked, scraping plates and stacking them in the sink with the same careful attention he brought to everything. I left him there, talking with Danny about different pasta shapes and whether the ridges actually held sauce better, and went to find my laptop.
It was still on the kitchen table where I’d left it that morning, closed but not put away. I opened it, entered the password, and pulled up the secure messaging system I used for contacts who needed to stay off official channels.
My source in Nebraska—a former SEAL who’d gone into private security after his discharge—had been quiet for threedays, which wasn’t like him. I’d sent a message that morning, asking for an update on the “situation” I’d mentioned when we’d first arrived.
The response was waiting when I logged in, time stamped two hours earlier:Confirmed activity re: your inquiry. Gerald Hughs, 47, Omaha-based. Family money, real estate development, connections that don’t show up in public records. Has been making inquiries about Jasper Arnold through unofficial channels for the past four days. The inquiries are not casual—he’s building a picture of where your friend went. Multiple sources confirm he’s serious about finding him. No idea why, but the man doesn’t waste time or money. Be careful.
I read it twice, making sure I hadn’t missed anything. Then I sat with the screen for a moment, the blue light washing my face in the darkening room, and thought about Jasper closing the laptop the night before and saying nothing.
He’d known. Or at least suspected. And instead of bringing it to me—the person whose literal job it was to manage threats to the property and its occupants—he’d chosen to carry it alone. To sit with it in the dark while I sat six feet away, unaware.
That bothered me more than the threat itself. Not as an offense—I understood the math of trust, how it had to be earned in increments rather than assumed—but as a signal. That after everything—after the extraction, after the drive, after watching him with the baby and the mother and the O’Reilly kids—Jasper still didn’t fully believe I would stay in front of this when it got complicated.
I closed the laptop and went to find him.
He was where I’d expected—on the east porch, the same spot he’d chosen the night before. He sat with his back to the house, knees pulled up, eyes on the mountain to the west. The light was fading fast, turning the peak from gold to purple to a dark silhouette against the darkening sky.
I pushed open the screen door and stepped out, letting it swing shut behind me with a soft click. Jasper didn’t turn, but I saw his shoulders tense slightly at the sound—the particular awareness of prey animals, always tracking potential threats even when they appeared to be at rest.
I crossed to the steps and sat down—not at the far end where a stranger would have placed themselves, but close enough that conversation wouldn’t require raised voices. Close enough that he’d know I was there.
“Got a message from my contact in Nebraska,” I said, keeping my voice even, no alarm in it. “About the search you found last night.”
He went perfectly still beside me, not breathing, not moving, like he was trying to minimize his presence in the physical world. “What did it say?” he asked finally, the words coming out careful, like he was afraid of what the answer might be.
I told him. Not softening it, not making it sound worse than it was, just the facts as they’d been given to me: Gerald Hughs, 47, Omaha-based, with money and connections and a clear interest in finding Jasper. No elaboration, no theories, just the simple reporting of information that had been gathered.
Jasper’s face moved through a series of expressions I couldn’t fully track—relief first, then dread, then something harder to name underneath both. His hands, resting on his knees, curled into loose fists, then relaxed, then curled again.
“How bad is it?” he asked, voice steadier than it had any right to be.
I gave him the truth. “It’s not nothing,” I said. “But it’s not here yet. We have time to be smart about it. I’m going to make some calls in the morning.”
He nodded once, quick and tight, accepting what I’d said without trying to negotiate it into something easier to carry.Then he went quiet, the kind of silence that had weight and intention behind it.
When he spoke again, his voice was so low I had to lean forward slightly to catch the words. “Gerald Hughs is the reason I lost my job,” he said, not looking at me, eyes fixed on the mountain. “He’s—“ He stopped, started again. “He decided I belonged to him. Started showing up at the hospital, sending gifts, calling the unit to ask when I’d be off shift. When I told him I wasn’t interested, he had me fired. Budget cuts, they said, but everyone knew what it really was.”
The story came out in pieces after that, not everything but enough—Gerald’s pursuit, the job lost, the return to Nebraska to help his grandfather, the escalating pressure from men Gerald sent when phone calls and gifts didn’t work. How it had started with surveillance, then threats, then actual physical contact when it became clear Jasper wouldn’t be intimidated into compliance.
“It wasn’t random,” he said, finally looking at me, something moving behind his eyes that I couldn’t quite name. “The men in the side yard. They weren’t just some guys who didn’t like what I was. They were sent. By him. To bring me back or make sure no one else could have me.”
I listened, really listened, keeping my face neutral, my questions minimal. One about timing. One about whether there’d been police involvement. Nothing that would make him feel like he was being interrogated rather than heard.
