Page 99 of Steel Vengeance
Stitch shrugged, trying to play it cool, but the look in his eyes betrayed him. He was desperate to go home, to finally walk free without the weight of the past few years hanging over him. But the system wasn’t that simple. Sloane knew that hunger, saw it in the way his jaw clenched, and his gaze flickered to the doors leading to the terminal. The place where he should be walking through with her.
They hugged, the kind of tight, bone-crushing embrace only brothers-in-arms understood. Stitch’s voice was low, rough. “Take care of her, Blade.”
Blade gave a sharp nod. “You know I will.”
It was time. The words echoed in Sloane’s head as she took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing herself to let go of his hand. The warmth of his touch slipped away, leaving her cold and empty. She tried to smile, but it trembled at the edges. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the crowd. “Thank you for… everything.”
His eyes locked on hers, piercing through the noise and chaos like a lifeline. “Stay safe, Sloane. I mean it. Matthew’s still out there, and he’s dangerous.”
“I know.” Her throat burned with the words she couldn’t say.I love you. Don’t let this be the end.
“Damn, I wish I could be there to hunt him down,” he muttered, the frustration spilling over now, raw and unfiltered.
“Give it a few days.” Blade’s voice was steady, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “You’ll be back in the fight soon enough. We’ll get him.”
Stitch gave a reluctant nod, but his gaze never left hers.
Her heart screamed at her to stay, to fight against the inevitable, but there was no choice. Not now. She gave him one last, lingering look, hoping somehow he could see everything she wasn’t brave enough to say.
Then she turned, her stomach twisting with every step she took, Blade at her side as they moved through security. Every beep, every scan felt like she was walking away from something she wasn’t ready to let go of. And even as the crowd swallowed them up, she knew she’d left a part of her heart back there, standing with Stitch in the middle of a busy airport in Karachi.
CHAPTER 38
“It’s time to come home,” Pat said over the phone. “I’ve explained the situation, and you will be taken into custody when you get here, but I think we can argue your case.”
Stitch leaned against the wall, glancing out the grimy airport window as planes came and went on the tarmac. Islamabad felt too small, too suffocating, now that home was almost within reach.
He’d just got back from seventy-two hours in Afghanistan. It hadn’t been hard to track down Rahul Ghani, the Afghan drug lord who’d helped destroy his village. His life.
Stitch had snuck into his house in Lashkar Gah in the dead of night, moving like a ghost through the heavily guarded estate. Ghani had only been awake long enough to see Stitch’s face and hear him utter one word before ending his life.
Soraya.
The terror in Ghani’s eyes had been brief but satisfying. Justice had been served—or vengeance, in this case. Now, with Ghani dead, there was only one target left. Matthew Sullivan.
Which was why he needed to get on that plane.
“They’re really going to buy that I wasundercoverfor over a year?” He’d seen how the system worked, how unforgiving it could be.
Pat let out a long breath on the other end. “I know it sounds like a stretch, but we’ve got an angle. Classified operations, black ops missions, it all gets murky, especially when they don’t have the full picture. That’s where we come in. You disappeared because you went deep undercover. We make them believe that. They’ll listen because they have to—especially when it comes to someone with your record.”
Stitch let the silence stretch, mulling over the words. A year. He’d been off the grid for over a year. It wasn’t just about him not going back—it was everything that had happened during that time. Things he couldn’t even put into words, things that wouldn’t fit neatly into a report. The government wouldn’t care about the trauma, the sanctuary he’d found with Soraya, the heartache or the vengeance. They only look at the details, the black and white—and his situation was all kinds of gray.
“And what if they don’t buy it?” Stitch finally said, the question hanging heavy between them. “What if I get back, they slap cuffs on me, and throw me into a black hole somewhere?”
“They won’t,” Pat said firmly, but even through the phone, Stitch could hear the undercurrent of uncertainty in his former commander’s voice. “Listen, man. I’ve been talking to some people in the DoD. High-level people. They’re intrigued, Stitch. They want to know what you know. What you saw. You took down Omari, you rooted out a mole in the CIA. That stands for something. They see you as an asset.”
Stitch snorted. “An asset? I’ve been out of the loop so long I barely remember the last time I was in a clean fight.” He paused, lowering his voice. “You’re telling me they’re not pissed off that I just disappeared?”
Pat’s response was quick. “They’re pissed, but they’re more interested in why you disappeared. That’s where we’ve got leverage. I’ve framed it like this—classified black ops. I told them you went dark as part of an assignment that got compromised. It’s believable enough, after the ambush. You disappeared to track down the people responsible. With me and your former commander backing the story, they’ll accept it.”
“Then what?” He knew his Navy career was over. He’d never be an operator again.
“You’ll debrief, you’ll cooperate, and they’ll keep you under watch, sure, but it won’t be a prison cell. They won’t throw you to the wolves.”
“Debrief,” Stitch repeated. How many of those had he sat through in his life. After every mission, every deployment. “And what happens if they want to pick apart every detail? If they want answers I can’t give?”
“We play it smart.” Pat’s voice was low, serious. “Look, they don’t know everything you’ve been involved in. They don’t know Vale is dead, or that you guys took out Omari—and they don’t need to know. Talk about the CIA agent you rescued, and how you bust open the heroine scam. That’ll satisfy them.”