Slade wasn’t a sentimental man. His life was measured in miles, missions, and kill counts—not in longing. Not in distance.

And yet…

Thousands of miles away, in the middle of a cold motel room with blood on his knuckles and silence pressing in from the walls, he thought of her.

The way she stretched in the morning light.

The sound she made when she was half-asleep and curled into his side.

The way her absence made everything louder—his heartbeat, his hunger, the part of him he never let anyone see.

He hadn’t touched her in weeks. Hadn’t heard her in days. But she was there, in every clenched fist and exhale.

Slade was a soldier. A killer. A ghost.

But when it came to her…

He was just a man starving for something soft.

And he was getting on a plane.