Page 30 of Shadow of Misty Mountain

I’ve seen what happens when you care too much. When you love something in the field. It becomes leverage. It becomes a weakness. But damn me, if this woman isn’t worth the risk.

I’ll tell her everything. I’ll give her the whole truth, even if it burns what’s left of my life down around my ears.

Because she’s not just a promise to a fallen brother anymore. She’s mine, and I’ll walk through fire before I let anything take her from me.

9

ABBY

Ibolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. The sheets cling to my skin, and my heart’s galloping like I ran ten miles through snow. My eyes scan the room, hunting shadows, trying to separate dream from memory. The lamp on the nightstand flickers dim yellow light. Travis isn’t beside me.

The nightmare’s already dissolving at the edges, but the feeling lingers—Nick’s voice echoing as if someone shouted it through static. A name. Blood. Someone calling for help that never came.

I shove the covers off and sit on the edge of the bed, gripping the sides of the mattress like it’ll hold me together. My body still buzzes from what we shared last night—heat, honesty, surrender—but my mind is on fire. Something’s off. The timeline. The lies. The gaps in what little Travis has told me.

The door creaks open, and there he is, backlit by the hallway. Unzipped hoody, jeans slung low on his hips, jaw shadowed and set. The second he sees my face, he knows.

“Nightmare?” he asks, voice quiet.

“Yeah.” My voice is hoarse. “But not just that.”

He crosses the room in two strides and crouches in front of me, hands bracketing my thighs, steadying me. “Tell me.”

“I remember a name,” I say. “From the dream. Carlton. Nick said it once—just once—but he made me promise I’d never forget it.”

Travis’s jaw tightens.

“Travis,” I whisper, “you have to tell me everything. No more shielding me from the truth.”

He stands and paces to the window, his entire body is filled with tension. I give him ten seconds. Then I get up, wrap the blanket around myself, and go to him. I ease the hoody off his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. I open the blanket and wrap myself and the blanket around him. I think skin-to-skin contact will help… both of us. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t lean in. Just stares out into space like it might give him permission.

“You said you’d tell me in the morning,” I say. “Well, it’s morning.”

He turns slowly. His eyes find mine, and whatever’s in them—it’s not anger. It’s guilt. Deep, carved into his bones guilt.

“All right,” he says. “You want the truth? You get it.”

I nod once. I’m ready. I think.

“Carlton was black ops,” he begins. “Officially, he didn’t exist. CIA-adjacent, but off-the-books. One of those guys who played both sides of every war depending on who wrote the check.”

I swallow hard. “Nick said you guys worked with intel guys. But he never mentioned him.”

“We weren’t supposed to. Carlton embedded with our unit during a mission in Syria. Unofficial op. Our mission was to extract a defector who allegedly had dirt on U.S. officials laundering arms via third-party fronts.”

He disengages from me and walks back to the bed and sits heavily, hands clasped in front of him like he’s praying or breaking.

“We dropped into the outskirts of Al-Hasakah. Night mission. No air support, no backup. It was supposed to be surgical. In and out.”

My breath stutters.

“But it wasn’t; it was a setup,” Travis says, voice flat. “Carlton sold us out. Used our insertion point to tip off a local militia. They killed four of my men within minutes. I managed to pull Nick out. We tried to fall back to the extraction point, but the evac was already compromised. We made it to the ridgeline. Nick stayed behind to cover our retreat.”

“And you…” My voice breaks. “You left him?” I tried to keep the accusation out of my voice.

“Someone mortally wounded him. He wouldn’t have survived. I didn’t have a choice,” he snaps, “not a good one, anyway.” Then he softens. “He ordered me to go—made me promise to make it home. He said someone had to survive. He gave me the detonator for the fallback charges and told me to clear the path and disappear—not just from the op, but from everything.”

“And he died? Alone?”

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