Probably not. She'd seen worse betrayals than a sister turning in a brother. For her, it was just another day.
For Alyssa, it was the end of everything she'd wanted to believe about her family. And the beginning of something she didn't have a name for yet.
She rubbed her temples. A migraine was threatening—she could feel it building behind her eyes, that familiar tightening like a vise slowly closing. The aura hadn't started yet, but the pressure was there, waiting. Stress, adrenaline crash, not enough food, not enough water. The perfect storm.
“Take your meds,” Mack said from the doorway.
“Bossy,” she said. But she grabbed her bag and took the medication.
Mack finished his sweep and came to set the sat phone on the counter. He pulled two bottles of water from the go-bag and handed her one without being asked. “Drink the whole thing.”
“Again, bossy.”
He just grinned.
Alyssa’s insides warmed. She hadn’t seen that grin in…two years.
"Claire's setting up a rotating watch with Grizzly and the marshal," he told her. "Twelve-hour shifts. We've stuck here tonight. She'll check in at zero-six-hundred."
She opened the water and drank half of it. Her mind flashed to the image Claire had shown them after the official debrief testimonies were over. A man in a ballcap carrying cello case they suspected contained the rifle he’d used at the courthouse. Claire had identified him as Eric Edwards. A member of Vega’s carel. “And Eric Edwards?"
Mack's jaw tightened. "Claire's team is working on it. The FBI has issued an APB, and the airports have been flagged. He won't get away.”
"But he's still out there."
"He's still out there," Mack confirmed.
Eric Edwards was a man in his early thirties, of unremarkable build and no distinguishing features. You'd pass him on the street without a second glance.
That was the point, what made him dangerous. He wasn’t some hulking enforcer with neck tattoos, but an ordinary-looking man with a rifle.
Upon digging, Claire had found that Eric had been David Morrison's childhood friend who’d tried for the Marines and failed. According to Claire’s report, he’d washed out of boot camp while David made it through.
Eric had spent years on the periphery of the military world, watching from the outside. He'd drifted into private security work, then deeper into the gray areas—the pipeline that swallowed men with combat-adjacent skills and no institutional home. Eventually, the cartel had snagged him, and then his best friend had been killed in Syria.
Not long ago, he’d found Blake. Or Blake had found him. Claire's theory was that the meeting had been engineered—Eric deliberately seeking out Blake, cultivating the connection over their shared grief for Morrison. He’d fed Blake's bitterness while Blake fueled Eric's need for someone to blame. Two men orbiting the same dead man, building a mythology of blame that pointed straight at Mack.
The same lie that had destroyed her engagement. The same lie that had governed her life for two years. And now it had a man with a rifle pointed at Mack's head.
"This is insane," she said. She hadn't planned to say it. The words just came out, propelled by a fury that had been building since Claire had laid out Eric's background at the courthouse. "This man wants to kill you because Blake told him the same lie he told me. The same lie he told our father. David Morrison is dead because Blake disobeyed orders, and Blake has spent two years convincing everyone else it was your fault, and now there's a—a contract killer out there who believes it."
She paced, massaging her temples. "Blake didn't just destroy your career. He didn't just destroy us. He created this. Eric Edwards came after you because Blake needed someone to believe his version of events, and he found the one person who had every reason to—David's best friend. Of course he believed it."
Mack was watching her. His expression was unreadable, but something in his eyes—amusement? No, that wasn't the right word. Something warmer than amusement. Something that looked almost like wonder.
"You're angrier about this than I am," he said.
"Yes, I'm angry!" She stopped pacing and faced him, hands fisting at her sides. "Someone is trying to kill you, Mack, based on a lie. And you're standing there like—like?—"
"Like what?"
"Like it's just another Tuesday."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "It's Sunday."
"Don't. Don't do that." She pointed at him. "Don't deflect with humor. A man shot at you today. At you. Not at me. At the person I—" She caught herself. Again. The same stumble from the parking lot, the same word rising before she could stop it. She swallowed it and pushed forward. "At someone I care about."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Come here."