Page 92 of Collateral Damage
He’s not just asking to be my husband; he’s asking me to let him stop this from ever happening to my mother or me again.
"But what about your team?" I ask. "Jericho. Everything here that depends on you being here."
"I'll be there whenever I can," he says. He takes a breath, and I see the wince he tries to hide. "I love you, Ava. It’s simple. Either you can love me back, or you can’t.”
The very idea that he thinks I’m capable of not loving him dissolves the last of my doubt.
My throat tightens until it hurts. "Yes," I say, the word catching on a sob I refuse to let out. "Yes, you stubborn mule. I will marry you."
He closes his eyes. For a second, he looks completely spent. His lips move in a silent prayer, and then a faint, genuine smile touches his mouth.
"Since you're listening," he says quietly to the walls, "someone come help me up before I pass out."
I'm still trying to process how fast this is moving when the office door swings open with a bang and Caleb and Delilah tumble inside.
“Everyone!” Delilah shouts into the hallway, her voice booming. “Dr. Barbie said yes!”
Silas
Caleb gets me to my feet with the practiced efficiency of a man who has pulled me out of burning Humvees and muddy trenches and will never see the need to mention this specific extraction again. I lean into him for a split second, long enough to find my center of gravity, and then I straighten.
The doorway is suddenly full.
Every one of them has bled for the name on the door. They have trusted me with their futures, their worst nights, and their best ones. I’ve led them through things I wouldn't wish on my enemies, and they followed because that’s the culture we built. Because—Lord help me—that’s the man I’ve spent my life trying to be.
I turn back to Ava. I pull her close and I kiss her the way a man kisses a woman when he has finally run out of reasons not to. Every careful, logical defense I ever built to keep her at a distance has collapsed. There’s nothing left between me and what I want except the space I’m now crossing.
She doesn't hesitate.
Her hand finds my chest, then slides up to my jaw, and the office—the maps, the contracts, the battles—simply ceases to exist. There’s only her and the bone-deep certainty that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I don’t pull back until the room starts to feel too small.
When I finally do, Ava looks up at me, breathless, her glasses fogged at the edges. She’s wearing an expression that isn't in any manual I’ve ever read, and for the first time in my life, I’m fine with not knowing.
I turn to face my team. My family.
Every one of them is looking back at me with the knowing expression of people who have been waiting a very long time for their commanding officer to figure out what the rest of them already knew.
I clear my throat, trying to regain some semblance of the status quo, even if the air in the room has changed permanently.
Delilah clamps her hands over her eyes, laughing through the tears. “I’m blind! I’m blind! My eyes are burning!”
Zack just chuckles, a low sound in his chest, while Caleb stands there grinning like the absolute meathead he is.
My father catches my eye from the back of the corridor. He nods once—a silent, finished gesture—and then slips out the door. He’s probably on his way to call my mother before I can even get my bearings.
"Back to work," I say. My voice is gravelly, lacking its usual command.
Nobody moves. I didn’t expect them to.
I’ve spent ten years believing that what I built here and what I wanted were inherently incompatible. I believed the work was life, life was work, and there was no room left for anything that mattered the way this woman matters.
I was wrong.
I don't make a habit of being wrong twice.
"Back to work," I say again. This time, the commander is back in the room. Firmer. Final.
