The Holy Trio packed their gear yet again, preparing for the final deployment that would close out their Middle Eastern contract. Their route home would take them through Australia, where they would wait for tactical fighter jets to escort their transport flight back to the southern tip of South America. But Merc wouldn't be on board. He and Sampson were being redirected to Jordan on a specialized bodyguard assignment. Prince Mohammed had grown dangerously distracted by his new wife, prompting the King to personally request the mercenary's protection. It was the only compromise the stubborn prince would accept.
The Americans spent their final hours saying goodbye to the friends they'd made. Walking to the dining room, the trio, Merc, and Avril kept bumping into residents staying on the base. Amidst occasional hugs and endless fistbumps, they realized just how many lives they had touched as people emerged from every corner of the base to say goodbye.
"I have to admit," Dave said, shoving a stick of gum into his mouth as he walked up to Jimmy and hugged him without warning. "I enjoyed working as a team. It was worth the dressing down we all received. I'll go out on any operation with you should you ever need me."
"I've been meaning to ask you," said Jimmy. "Where did you get that cannon you have in the back of your pants? That's not military issued."
"My daddy sent me this," he said as he pulled the 357 long barrel pistol from his waist and flashed it for everyone to see. "He says he used it on the police force before he retired. It was my Christmas gift when I first went into the military."
"If you ever make your way over to Denver," Jimmy said as he admired the firearm. "You just drop in. I'm gonna wanna see you and your 'little friend,' again."
"We'll keep in touch," Dave said smiling as he chewed his gum.
As Dave stepped back, Cooper walked up to Jimmy with a grin. "We had some fun," Cooper said as he walked up to Jimmy after Dave stepped back. "I didn't get to know you, but I like you. And there aren't too many dumbasses I call friend. So, good luck, amigo." He stuck out his hand and Jimmy shook it.
"You really need to send me your resume," said Jimmy in all seriousness. "I'd like to talk to my team about taking you on board when you're done with the military."
"I just might take you up on that." The two traded emails and talked further.
"God, Avril," Lynn said, turning to face her. "You've been a sister to me. I'm really going to miss you."
"Not to be long," she smiled. "I see you soon. Maybe soon when you to home."
"Anytime," Lynn interjected. "The sooner the better." The two women hugged tightly and began to cry.
"Jeesh," Jimmy said as he watched them. "Why do women always have to get all weepy."
"You were about to lose your shit when they told you Avril was getting reassigned," Merc laughed.
"That's different," Jimmy huffed. "I want to be with my wife."
"Oh, hey," said Merc. "Congratulations. I forgot to tell you that after your ceremony. I hope you and Avril are very happy."
"Thanks, man," he smiled warmly at his friend and comrade. "Make sure you keep in touch. We'll probably take on a contract right away when we get home."
"I'm sure the prince will be handful enough," Merc said with a nod. "He's a bigger pain in the ass than you are."
"Bring the prince," Jimmy teased, "he'll like the states. It's a bigger mess than the frontline"
"The Jordan prince in the US in this day and age," he said, eyeing Jimmy. "That doesn't sound like anything that's ever going to happen while this war is going on; the king would have all our asses in a sling."
"Well, don't be a stranger," said Jimmy. "I'll be looking forward to working with you again." He pulled Merc into a hug. Merc tried to push away at first, but as he felt Jimmy's grip loosen, the tension bled out of him and he relaxed. Jimmy still didn't trust the bastard, but he liked him. To Jimmy, Merc was a riddle waiting to be solved. And he hated knowing next to nothing about him, yet he knew Merc was someone who always got the job done.
As the small party made their way toward the dining hall, personnel from across the base offered their farewells. Even the generals stepped forward to shake their hands and commend them on a job well done, proud to have worked side-by-side with one of the most elite civilian teams the war effort had ever produced. If a next time should come—and if the team could reel Jimmy in just a bit—they would easily be the top pick for any future contracts.
"What do you suppose Israel meant when he said that we weren't here to protect them, they were here to protect us?" Jimmy asked Avril when they had a chance to be alone again.
"One day," she said as she led him down the hall to where she had returned to the quarters she was assigned before the seclusion, "when children come, they to be special. Special like you."
"You mean they weren't kidding about the chosen one?"
"Is no kidding matter," she said opening the door to her old room.
"How does that work?" he asked and followed her to the bed to sit together. "You don't stay in the warzone if you're pregnant, do you?"
"No. I go home."
"Well, let's get you home," he said playfully as he pushed her down onto the bed and began to kiss her. "I don't want you out there without me."
"I say to you, we together always," she cooed back at him. "Believe."
"Okay, I believe," he fumbled with the buttons on her shirt. "I believe my wife will be pregnant and have to come home with me."
Avril giggled. If he only knew. Deep down, she was certain they would never be parted. Exactly how she would manage that remained a mystery, but the star chart reading had proven their destinies were intertwined. The cosmic wheels were already in motion. The reading had been clear: their paths were joined and sealed for the rest of their earthly days, tethered together by a son. With a joyous heart, she remembered the teacher's voice reading out the stars that mapped their future. Bound together through time.
After packing their gear into wooden crates bound for Denver, the militia team prepared to meet the transport helicopters a few kilometers outside the base. They were traveling with a convoy of medical supplies and personnel heading to the front lines. From a Jordanian base they would take a flight out to southern Africa. Avril secured a spot with them, having been reassigned to a Jordanian facility near the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq. Despite the looming separation and the unpredictable road ahead, she trusted they would find their way back to each other. She left the details to fate, certain that wherever they ended up, they would ultimately face it together.
Merc, Avril, and the rest of the militia team quickly loaded the medical transports, then threw their own gear into a ground vehicle. With the air fleet already deployed to the front lines, only a skeleton crew remained in the underground base. Above ground, heavy anti-aircraft artillery now bristled from the guard shacks, ready to protect the entryway. Technical crews had re-engineered the drive stops; they now accepted direct computer commands or manual password overrides to ensure a forced shutdown if necessary. A guard stood by the manual controls at every stop—their final line of defense against another frontal assault.
Everyone loaded into their vehicles, preparing for the journey up the drive and into the outside world. The trailers pulling the anti-aircraft guns moved out first. Soldiers heading into the Cavalry followed in electric trucks, with the medical units trailing close behind. Next came the transport carrying the Holy Trio, positioned just after the truck of Jordanian soldiers, while a final truck of Israeli troops kept pace behind the Americans. They all stayed low to the ground, keeping a sharp eye out on their way to the waiting helecoptors—taking off after one final sweep for any enemy troops that might have slipped into allied territory.
Avril sat quietly, grateful she hadn't joined her friends in the forward jeep. She didn't know how she was going to say goodbye, or if she could even bear the weight of it; her pregnancy had magnified every emotion to an intense degree. Lately, Jimmy's feelings had grown so overwhelming that she felt utterly engulfed, drowning in his energy whenever he was near. Not telling him about the baby was becoming a heavy burden, but she knew the truth: he would never return to the United States if he knew about their son.
Worse, she had no idea how he would react to the fact that they were required to hand their firstborn over to the teachers. Her belly was noticeably larger now; any more time in seclusion and he would have guessed. But a persistent, dark premonition that something terrible would happen if he didn't return stateside immediately hung over her like a cloud, darkening the final moments with her friends.
The Denver team's final game together was a round of "Never have I ever." Then came the prompt that changed the room: Never have I ever felt like this for anyone else. As everyone raised a beer—even Lynn, surprisingly—Avril sat back with her mocktail, watching the shift in the room. Lynn and Griff were entirely centered on each other, oblivious to the rest of the world. Yet, the moment passed, and nothing came of it. It was a heartbreaking realization that they may have let their absolute last chance slip away.
Somehow, Avril knew their life at home for the two lost lovers wouldn't progress beyond what she saw right now, yet she couldn't stop hoping. She was so consumed by the thought until she snapped back to reality. Blinking away her daydream, she looked down at the card Jimmy had given her—a wordy declaration of his love. When she looked back up, the brake lights of the transport vehicles ahead flared. She slammed her foot down, the tires screeching as she avoided the bumper ahead by mere millimeters. Why were they stopping? The extraction helicopters were waiting just out of sight, and combatant drones would be on them any minute. After what felt like an eternity, Avril shook her head in frustration. Jimmy suddenly jogged just past the front truck into sight, stopping dead when he saw just how close she had come to throwing herself into a multi-vehicle wreck.
"Good thing I'm here to drive you," he said, referring to the near contact between the vehicles. "I'll drive. You're looking a little tired."
"You to be with Griff and Lynn," she protested.
"Nonsense," he chuckled as he scooted her with his hip to leave the driver's seat. He climbed in when she moved to the passenger side and when the convoy started rolling again, he put the vehicle in gear.
Moments later, the sky whistled. Mortars rained down, exploding on impact and scattering jagged shards of metal across the dirt, while digging craters in the sand. The Jordanian soldiers caught the brunt of the barrage; two of their troop transports rolled onto their sides in fiery skids. Through the smoke, survivors scrambled to drag the wounded out of the wreckage and into escaping trucks. Jimmy gunned his engine, pulling alongside one of the moving flatbeds. He yelled for one of the men in the back to pull Avril in with them, shouting over the din as they assisted her, and then he tore farther up the fleeing convoy to reach his team. From the rear of the truck, Avril watched Jimmy weave feverishly past the line of trucks. Ahead, a staging area came into view. Dust billowed as grounded choppers pulled up and out of the kill zone—except for one. The lone helicopter meant to transport Lynn, Griff, and Jimmy to their flight at the Jordanian base. It was trapped on the sand, taking heavy fire.
Avril's heart slammed against her ribs as an antipersonnel mine blasted Jimmy's vehicle into the air, throwing him clear of the wreckage. "Go, go!" she screamed, jumping to the front of the truck, shoving the driver and pointing toward the blast site. Bullets whizzed past, chewing a jagged line across the truck's exterior and forcing her to duck down. Ahead, the lead transports veered behind massive boulders for cover, the rest of the convoy following suit. The moment her truck skidded to a halt, Avril threw herself out, sprinting to the far side of the rocks to find Jimmy.
Dazed but conscious, Jimmy looked up just as Avril broke into the open, screaming his name. "No!" he tried to yell, but the warning caught in his throat. A round caught her in the leg, quickly followed by another to her shoulder. She dropped instantly and lay still. Dread fueled him. Ignoring the sharp, white-hot agony in his foot, Jimmy dragged himself up and limped wildly toward her. Dropping by her side he turned her face up, the sheer volume of blood soaking through her shirt terrified him like nothing else ever had. He couldn't lose her. A bullet tore through his own shoulder—a blinding flare of pain—but he ignored it, throwing his body over hers to shield her. If she died here, he was going with her. As the darkness began to close in, the distant roar of Israeli fighter jets arrived, painting the horizon in strips of retaliatory fire. The world faded to a dim hum, and then black.
"Jimmy! Avril!" Lynn cried out, spotting her two friends crumpled on the ground near the destroyed vehicle. She and Griff ducked behind a car that had stalled in the crossfire. They waited out the final seconds of the shootout, and the moment the gunfire ceased, they rushed on foot toward their motionless friends. Behind them, their own driver followed in the jeep.
"Jimmy," Lynn said when she fell to her knees down beside her friends. "Jimmy, please say something." She pleaded. Griff called for a medic, waving his arms at the hospital trucks.
"Don't worry about me," Jimmy said faintly. He could feel himself slipping out of consciousness again. "Avril is really bad."
"Oh God," Lynn said with a gasp when she rolled Jimmy off Avril to inspect her wounds. She felt for a pulse, it was light and thready. She was losing too much blood. One of the medics pulled her out of his way as he began to care for Avril while another pulled Jimmy over to check him out.
"Never mind me," Jimmy said forcefully. He sat himself up using his good arm. "I'll be fine, please help her. She's really bad."
"Do you think you can let us carry you," Lynn asked Jimmy who was trying to see what was happening with Avril. "Jimmy, can you hear me?"
"Yeah," he said, reeling from the pain in his shoulder. "I have a shoulder wound, nothing to worry about." He pushed the medic away who tried again to look at his wound and motioned for him to help Avril. As he tried to stand, he remembered his foot. "And my foot. It's bad."
Griff pulled Jimmy to his feet as the hospital orderly rolled out a gurney, secured Avril, and hoisted her onto the waiting jeep. Medics piled into the vehicle, rushing her toward the transport chopper. Nearby, Lynn and Griff flanked Jimmy, guiding his limping stride up to the helicopter's open door just as the medics secured Avril inside the cabin. The rotors whined to life, whipping the surrounding dirt into a blinding dust cloud. As the chopper prepped for takeoff, two medics stayed with Avril while the rest of the medical team retreated to rejoin the front-line convoy.
Jimmy made his climb into their rescue unit, pulled himself over to Avril and took her hand, this time he allowed the medic to attend to him. He laid against the gurney, weak and paralyzed by his own helplessness.. There was nothing he could do to help this woman he loved and it was ripping the heart out of him. And just like many firsts since he had met Avril, he began to sob. The cabin echoed with the rhythmic thrum of the rotary blades, mimicking his own heartbeat, until the radio crackled to life with a brief update: they were turning toward Saudi Arabia and abandoning the route to Jordan.
The flight was an agonizing blur. Lynn and Griff sat in helpless silence while the medics worked around Jimmy, who was utterly broken, weeping over Avril. When they finally reached the hospital, the relief was empty. Griff watched Jimmy hold Avril's hand against his face, searching for words of comfort that didn't exist. Next to him, Lynn shared the ache. Her mind slipped back to their last night at the base, when all four of them had laughed together, reminiscing about the deployment before heading stateside. Avril was meant to return to Israel to prepare for her US furlough. So much had changed in a matter of days—and today, the world they knew shattered completely.
Lynn thought about how close Griff had sat with her on the ottoman, deep down in the earth where everything felt like a dream. Those were the best moments she'd known since childhood. God, she thought, why did he have to feel so good? Why didn't I just go with it? She should have kissed him. They had sat so close for so long—she absolutely should have kissed him. And when he stood to take a shower, she should have followed. Shoulda, woulda, coulda... that mantra always bit her in the ass. Frustration mounted as she looked over at the man she wished she could just let go and love. He was watching their two friends, locked in love even on the brink of death. Jimmy wasn't afraid of showing his love for his wife, the love of his life. Griff could be that for Lynn, but her habit of overthinking always brought the same toxic certainty: she wouldn't feel the same. The crushing weight of that thought raised his defenses. He turned to see Lynn sit silent, clutching the rifle across her lap, letting the rhythmic thud of the rotor blades above fill his mind. He didn't want to think about it anymore. He didn't want to think about anything at all.
Returning to the scene in the helicopter, Lynn watched as Jimmy finally stopped crying. He sniffed, rubbing his face with his free hand as he stared blankly at the floor. When they finally landed on the hospital roof, his grip slipped from Avril's. Everyone watched as the triage team prepped Avril, quickly shifting her between gurneys and popping the rollers as they rushed toward the entrance. Jimmy hobbled alongside them, reclaiming Avril's hand and refusing to let go. Keeping pace with the limping man, Griff shouldered Jimmy's weight so they wouldn't fall behind. Lynn ran along behind them, carrying their rifles in a white knuckled clutch.
Avril's life-saving surgery felt endless. Finally, after fourteen grueling hours, she was wheeled into the ICU. The trio gathered around her bed, each privately weighing whether their trip home could wait until they knew she would pull through. Jimmy sat apart from the others, slumped over with his head in his hands. He loathed the life he had left behind when he traveled to the Middle East. Back in Denver, a house full of women and a massive party expected his return—a celebration he knew he could never enjoy without Avril. She had to come back to him. A sudden clarity struck him: he would have to cut ties with his old girlfriends. There was no room for them anymore. If he couldn't have Avril, he didn't want anyone.
Griff watched Jimmy rise and walk to Avril's bedside. Slowly removing his boots, he climbed onto the mattress, gingerly moving the tubes and wire leads tethered to her body. She still hadn't awakened. Because she had barely made it to the hospital alive, the doctors kept her in a medically induced coma. During a brief moment of consciousness earlier, before surgery, Avril had begged the doctors to keep her pregnancy a secret. Now safely out of triage, the nurses allowed the group to stay, though no one could have forced Jimmy to leave anyway—and God knows the staff had tried. A nurse remained posted by the bed, ensuring no one touched the tiny monitor screen sitting at the side of the other larger monitor that was switched off; one glance at the display would give the secret away, as the baby's vitals were being tracked along with Avril's.
Griff, still unable to wrap his head around Jimmy's transformation, thought about their time in the Middle East. Six months into their contract, the man had changed right before his eyes. Once Denver's most eligible, highly sought-after bachelor, he was now the most fiercely lovesick man Griff had ever seen, his usual self-important attitude completely gone. Griff glanced over at Lynn, wondering what was crossing her mind. She was likely thinking of going home to her husband's ashes. He assumed things would return to normal once they were back in the States—at least until Russia invaded—but he wondered if her life had fundamentally shifted as profoundly as his and that of Jimmy's. Things had certainly changed for him. He was done waiting for Lynn to acknowledge his feelings or act on her own professed emotions. Moving forward, he was prioritizing his own well-being, preserving his strict boundaries, and refusing to settle for anything less than what he felt he deserved. He was whole on his own, and if he was going to keep protecting others, he needed to make space for himself first. Lynn would just be his coworker, that's all.
Lynn's thoughts fell onto her homecoming, a well-worn routine. The garage door would rumble open, the airport driver would drop her luggage beside her golf cart, and after a quick tip and thank you, she would drag her weary body inside. Just past the garage door threshold, before the mudroom, stood a beautifully crafted cherry wood display case. Her husband's urn sat on the top shelf, flanked by his photograph. Usually, she paused to touch the smooth surface, letting the tears flow as she asked his spirit the same painful questions: Why did you leave me? Why couldn't you love me the way I loved you? But today, her emotions felt different. Her work with the Denver Militia Recovery Company had been demanding—contract after contract, a never-ending cycle of distraction—and she wondered if the well of her grief had finally run dry.
Surviving years of dangerous contracts and staring down death had strengthened Lynn's resolve to live. Yet, no matter how strong she became, she couldn't shake the bitter grief that took hold whenever she thought of her husband, Jeff. It wasn't until her love for Griff took root—anchored deep within her soul—that the heavy grip on her spouse once had on her heart finally released. Knowing she could truly love someone again gave her the power to let the old anger subside. Bright new desires and a life filled with laughter gradually replaced those painful memories. It was okay to leave the tears behind; she was finally moving forward, and she was deeply grateful.
No, she thought, she would not cry for her husband anymore. She was no longer alone. She loved Griff—a living, breathing man who gave her the strength to experience true, unconditional love, even if time sat like a mountain between them. She knew she would always love him, even if they never became more than friends. Choosing to focus entirely on her own well-being, she wished him the absolute best, knowing he wanted the same for her. Her only wish was that he shared her feelings of love.
End of Book I
WWIII