Page 20

Cyclone

T he sun was high overhead when Jude rolled out the old blueprint map of the ranch onto the kitchen table. Dust motes floated in the air, sparkling like tiny stars as she leaned over it, her brow furrowed in concentration.

I stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her.

Not interfering.

Not stopping her.

But there.

Always there.

“This place,” Jude said, tapping the map, “was never just a getaway. It was a fallback.”

My eyes narrowed slightly.

“A fallback for what?”

“For this,” she said. “For taking him down. This was my husband's plan.”

She glanced up at me, her eyes hard, determined.

“I have files hidden here—documents, coded messages, bank accounts tied back to him. Enough to make him burn if it gets out.”

Cyclone’s respect for her deepened even further. She wasn’t just a survivor.

She was a fighter.

A damn warrior.

“I’m going to leak just enough,” Jude said, tracing a line from the house to an old storage shed marked on the map. “Make it look like I’ve got everything ready to hand over to the authorities.”

“And he’ll come for you,” I finished, my voice like gravel.

She nodded grimly.

“He’ll come himself. He’s too dirty to let it be handled by someone else. He’ll want to shut me up permanently. I hope he comes himself.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw, but I kept my voice even.

“And what’s your plan when he does?”

“I’ll record everything,” she said. “I’ll get him confessing to the bombing. To everything. Then I’ll send it to every news outlet, every government agency, every watchdog group in the country. We have to make sure we get this news out there to everyone before the government tries to cover it up.”

She leaned on the table, breathing hard, her hands shaking slightly.

“I have to end this,” she whispered. “I have to finish it for my daughter. For my husband. For everyone, he’s hurt. I want to be free again. Free to walk where I want to walk. Free to go where I want to go. Without worrying about someone showing up and killing me and whoever is near me.”

I crossed the room silently and rested my hand over hers, steady, grounding.

“We’ll finish it,” I said.

Jude bit her lip, forcing herself not to lean into me, not to crumble.

“I need you to stay clear when it happens,” she said, hating herself for it. “If something goes wrong... I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.”

I smiled, slow and grim.

“You keep forgetting, sunshine.”

I squeezed her hand gently.

“ You don’t get to shut me out. ”

I stepped back, giving her a nod of respect that twisted something sharp and tender inside her chest.

“You plan your sting,” he said. “Do it your way.”

What Jude didn’t see—what she didn’t know—was that as soon as she turned back to the map, I slipped my phone from my pocket.

I stepped outside onto the porch, keeping my voice low as I made the call.

“Yeah,” he said into the phone.

“It’s Cyclone. I’m cashing in a favor.”

A beat of silence.

“You remember that senator we talked about back in Afghanistan?”

Another pause. A low curse from the man on the other end.

“Yeah,” I said, staring out at the horizon where the sky burned gold. “It’s him.”

Another question crackled through the line.

My mouth twisted into a hard, humorless smile.

“No. I’m not asking you to take him down for me.”

I glanced over my shoulder, toward the woman still bent over the map inside.

“I’m asking you to make damn sure she survives when she does it herself. Talk to the Golden Team, it’s about time you joined us anyway. I’ll talk to you soon, Lieutenant.”