The warehouse is loud with preparation. Radios crackle. Tactical teams move through final checks. Someone rolls out a map table near the command van while Morgan and I stand just outside the perimeter tape reviewing the entry plan.

It should be routine.

Four suspects. Two hostages. Standard barricade structure.

Instead my attention keeps drifting to the opposite side of the staging area.

To her.

The HRT Unit Chief Hale, she stands with the HRT operators near the armored vehicle, vest strapped tight over her shoulders, rifle slung across her back like it weighs nothing. Even from this distance I can recognize the economy of her movement—every step deliberate, efficient, the same way she used to move around my apartment kitchen like she was navigating terrain instead of tile.

My ex-Wife.

The thought still feels strange even after three years.

Technically the divorce had been simple. Clean paperwork. No argument. No long conversation.

She asked.

I signed.

At the time it seemed… logical.

We were different people. Different worlds. Different careers. The marriage had started under extraordinary circumstances—prison visitation loopholes, legal documentation, survival logistics.

It had always felt temporary.

Practical.

And yet now, watching her across the staging area, something about that explanation feels… insufficient.

Morgan suddenly nudges my shoulder.

“Hey.”

I look up.

He nods toward the command table.

“Check it out.”

A new agent has stepped up beside her.

Cyber Division, judging by the jacket and the exhausted posture. The guy looks like he survives entirely on caffeine and fluorescent lighting.

He says something to her.

She leans slightly closer so she can hear him over the helicopter blades chopping the air nearby.

Morgan tilts his head.

“Huh.”

“What?” I ask.

“I heard that guy earlier talking about grabbing coffee with Hale after the op.”

Coffee.

My eyes shift back toward them before I can stop myself.

The Cyber agent is smiling—awkward, enthusiastic. The kind of smile people get when they’re excited about explaining something complicated.

He gestures animatedly while he talks.

Encryption protocols maybe. Network tracing. Something technical.

And Chief Hale—

She is actually listening.

Not dismissing him. Not walking away.

Listening.

Morgan folds his arms, amused.

“Well look at that.”

I say nothing.

Morgan glances sideways at me.

“Seems like she has a thing for nerdy guys.”

For a moment the words don’t register.

Then they do.

And something in my chest tightens in a way I can’t quite categorize.

Because the realization lands all at once.

She married a nerdy guy.

She married me.

All those nights she’d sat across from me at the visitatons between glass while I explained statistical modeling or linguistic drift in criminal communication patterns. The way she used to tilt her head when she was listening, the same way she’s doing now.

She’d always listened, because she liked it.

Because I was her type.

The logic that had once made the divorce feel reasonable suddenly feels… dangerously incomplete.

I hadn’t lost a temporary arrangement.

I’d signed away a woman who had actually chosen me.

Morgan studies my face for a moment.

Then he grins.

“Reid.”

“Yes.”

“You’re staring.”

I look back at the operation map immediately.

“I am not.”

Morgan laughs quietly.

“Oh, you absolutely are.”

Across the staging area the Cyber agent says something else that makes Cynthia’s shoulders shift slightly as she listens.

Morgan nudges me again.

“You really gonna let that guy out-nerd you?”

I stare down at the map.

Very carefully.

Very calmly.

Then I mutter under my breath,

“I’ll be damned if I get out-nerded.”

I stare across the staging area a moment longer before leaning slightly toward Morgan.

“Statistically speaking,” I murmur, “I believe I may have made a critical error.”

Morgan raises an eyebrow.

“What kind of error?”

I adjust my glasses, still watching Hale.

“The kind where you miscalculate the value of something… and realize it several years too late.”