Page 104 of Travis
The word sat in the room. Nobody touched it. Every single one of them had their own personal penance, so they understood.
“You could have died,” Beckett said. “Any of those nights. You could have died alone on some back road, and we would’ve found out when someone discovered your body, and we would’ve spent the rest of our lives trying to figure out what happened because we thought you never left your fucking house.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because I need to hear you say you understand what that would have done to us.”
“I understand what that would have done to you.”
“Goddamnit.” Beck slammed his hand down on the table. “Do not just repeat my words back to me, Travis.”
“I’m not.” I met his eyes. “I know exactly what it would have done to you. I knew every time I went out. And I went anyway because the alternative was leaving kids in the back of a van, and I couldn’t do that either.”
The quiet stretched.
“Eighteen months of solo ops against a trafficking network.” Coop broke the silence. “No backup, no extraction plan, injuries managed solo. And you’re still here.”
“Yeah. Barely, sometimes. But yeah.”
He nodded once. “You know my history, what I went through with Mia. I’ve beenbarely sometimes. I know what that looks like from the inside.” He paused. “It’s an ugly place to live.”
Something shifted in the room. Not forgiveness. Something smaller and more fundamental.
Recognition.
These men had carried their own missions, their own damage, their own versions of the thing that wouldn’t let them sleep. They knew what guilt built when you gave it enough time and enough silence.
I could see it in Coop’s face. In the way Beckett’s anger was cracking along fault lines that ran deeper than betrayal. Even in Hunter’s stillness, which had changed from assessment to something I didn’t have a name for.
“There’s more,” I said.
“Of course there is,” Beckett muttered.
“Naomi’s sister, Sera. She’s at my house. She’s been there for weeks. She’s an FBI contractor and a data analyst. She built a predictive model on Kindt’s pipeline that’s better than anythingI could have done alone. She’s also the reason I’m standing here instead of dead on a highway.”
I let that settle.
“She found something. A gap in Kindt’s route structure. She’s identified the operational center of his entire network.”
Hunter’s fingers pressed into the table surface. The first physical reaction I’d seen from him.
“If she’s right, and I believe she is, taking that location doesn’t just disrupt Kindt. Itendshim. The entire pipeline collapses.”
“How big is the site?” Hunter asked. Tactical. Precise. The question of a man already running operational math in his head.
“We don’t have full confirmation yet. Forty-seven acres, shell company ownership, power consumption consistent with a commercial facility running around the clock.”
“That’s not a two-person job,” Coop said.
“No. It’s not.”
I looked at the three of them. Beckett back in his chair with red eyes and a jaw like concrete. Coop leaning forward with his elbows on the table. Hunter at the head, hands flat, already calculating.
“I can’t do this alone,” I said. “I’ve been trying to do everything alone for three years and it almost killed me, and it would have left Kindt’s operation standing. I need help. I need you guys.”
Nobody spoke right away. I hadn’t expected them to. This wasn’t a movie where the team rallies on cue, and someone delivers a line about having each other’s backs. This was three men processing the fact that their friend and teammate had been living a double life and was now asking them to step into the middle of it.
Hunter looked at Beckett. Beckett looked at the table. Coop looked at me. For a moment I thought they were going to refuse.I couldn’t blame them if they did. They all had women they loved now, and way too much to haphazardly risk.
