Kael huffed softly.“I’ve got Luca and Marsh pulling threads now.But I wanted to hear it from you.”
Niko snorted.“Good luck with that.He’s never been great at the whole honesty thing.”
The words landed sharper than Niko probably intended.
Ethan felt something close down inside him.
He didn’t look at either of them.“We’ll be touching down in a couple of hours,” he said evenly.“You’ll want to be ready.”
Kael studied him for a long moment, then nodded.“Understood.”
Niko said nothing.
Ethan reached forward and pushed the throttles.
The engines responded immediately, the jet surging ahead, speed climbing with smooth, relentless intent.
Acceleration pressed him back into his seat, a familiar, grounding force.Speed had always been his answer to uncertainty.If he kept moving, kept flying, he didn’t have to sit with what waited once the wheels touched down.Niko left quietly.
Behind him, voices resumed—low, careful, giving him space he hadn’t asked for but needed all the same.
Ethan stared into the dark ahead and let the weight settle where it always did, behind his ribs, tight and contained.
He had come back into a world he’d worked hard to leave.
But some truths—about Pyre, about his father, about the cost of staying invisible—were going to hurt no matter how fast he flew.
And for the first time since he’d pulled that yoke back into the climb over Jakarta, Ethan wasn’t sure there was enough sky left to outrun them.
He fixed his gaze on the dark ahead.
Some things were easier to outrun than explain.And some silences—no matter how carefully chosen—still burned.
****
The day after feltheavier than the rescue.
Not because of the slight aching pain his captivity had left behind—Niko had lived with worse—but because there was nothing left to outrun.No adrenaline.No objective.Just the quiet aftermath where memory got teeth.
Niko woke in the back of his van with the low ache of injury threaded through his side and the sharper ache of regret lodged somewhere behind his sternum.The Hawaii sun filtered in through the tinted windows, too bright, too cheerful for the way his thoughts kept circling back on themselves.
He swore under his breath and pressed a hand to the bruise beneath his shirt, grounding himself in the present.The knowledge settled oddly in his chest—comfort threaded with guilt.He was alive.He was home.Black Tide was intact.
And Ethan was gone.He remembered the moment he had walked toward the man, standing out in the open facing a group of pissed-off mercenaries, and despite the fact he had Victor and Tane at his side, Niko had been filled with fear.He had called Ethan his, but he wasn’t.He hadn’t been his for many years.
The memory replayed whether he wanted it to or not.
The landing strip had been quiet, tucked away, and scrubbed clean of anything that might draw attention.Too clean.Too efficient.The kind of place meant for arrivals that weren’t supposed to matter and departures that weren’t meant to be followed.Ethan had brought the jet in smoothly, efficiently, as if he were setting down any other flight.No flourish.No pause for acknowledgment.Just wheels, tarmac, and motion.
They’d unloaded fast.
Niko remembered the way the humid air had wrapped around them as they stepped off the aircraft, the smell of fuel and salt and heat all at once.Victor and Tane had flanked him instinctively, one steadying hand hovering near his back in case he stumbled.
Once they had all their gear offloaded and ready for transport back home, Kael had turned back toward the stairs that led up to the plane.
“Thank you,” Kael had said.Not loud.Not formal.Just real.“For helping us to bring him home.”
Ethan hadn’t met his eyes.