Page 37 of Danger Close
The excitement around him swelled—questions, logistics, movement—but he only half-heard it.His mind was tethered to that voice, that steady rasp in his ear that had been the only thing keeping him grounded.
Most of the conversations he’d had with Ricky since the op started had been private.One-on-one whispers, jokes, nerves.Marsh had rigged something—some brilliant bit of programming black magic—so that when Ezra keyed in on a private channel, the others’ comms dropped to ambient.
“Channel 7-G,” Marsh had said with a shrug.“Private echo stream.Works like a whisper.You talk, only he hears.He talks, only you do.”
Ezra hadn’t asked how.He didn’t want to break the spell.
He just knew that hearing Ricky say what he had for lunch—hearing that he was okay, that he was alive—had made all the difference.
Now, though, Ezra keyed back to the open line.
Bateman’s voice came clear and strong.“All right.We go hard on this.Sophia’s confirmation means we start prepping the extraction window.I want boots ready in under twenty-four hours.”
Hogan nodded.“Pullout route?”
“We’ll run three,” Bateman said, already pointing at terrain features on the digital map.“Primary through the forested west corridor, secondary via drone-lift from the adjacent supply pad, and a fallback through the river route if we have to swim it.”
“Backup?”Marsh asked, not looking up from his screen.
“We’ll call Kai if we need muscle,” Bateman said.“Tell him to pack light and mean.”
Ezra blinked, absorbing it all.The momentum.The planning.The shift.
A few hours ago, they were hoping for a miracle.
Now they had a mission.
He should have been riding that high with the rest of them—should’ve been grinning and jostling shoulders, asking when they rolled out.
But instead, he sat back in his chair, staring at the waveform on the open comms channel that pulsed every time Ricky breathed.
He was in there.Behind enemy lines.Surrounded by men who would bury him in the dirt the moment they caught a whiff of who he really was.
Ezra’s chest tightened.Not with fear exactly—but with something deeper.He hadn’t just fallen for Ricky.He’d trusted him.Given him something Ezra didn’t give anyone—the right to worry.The right to matter.
So, he didn’t cheer like the others.
But when Ricky’s voice came back on the line again, “Confirming patrol pattern.Holding position.She’s not alone.”Ezra smiled.
Because he was still in the fight.
And Ezra would make damn sure he got out of it.
****
Children’s laughterfloated through the compound on the breeze like birdsong.A few of the freight crew passed by with crates, laughing in a low, bored way.A man with a clipboard barked orders near the intake shed.It all looked, on the surface, like a halfway house for displaced kids.Maybe even a foster system staging post.Clean.Structured.Controlled.
Too controlled.
Ricky leaned against a metal support pillar beside the outbuilding they’d been told to stage equipment in, wiping faux sweat from his brow and letting his gaze track the movement beyond the courtyard.
Sophia moved through the garden like she’d been programmed.
She smiled when spoken to.Played when told to.Sat quietly when she was alone.
But every step she took was measured.Every glance was cautious.Every twitch of her lips looked rehearsed, like someone had shown her what happy was supposed to look like and made her practice in front of a mirror until she got it right.
The stick she’d been swinging earlier was now tucked into the crook of her elbow like she was afraid it might be taken from her.
