Chapter 23

chapter

twenty-three

Rylan stared out the passenger window of Shane’s truck, his knee bouncing with restless energy. The mountain roads twisted and turned like the knots in his stomach. Valor’s absence at his side felt like an itch he couldn’t scratch, and his head was too noisy without the dog’s quiet, grounding presence. He hadn’t wanted to leave him behind, but Shane had been insistent.

A road trip.

With Shane Trevisano.

The man who lived part-time in an off-grid cabin and generally hated most people.

His former commander.

Echo One.

You did this…

Rylan squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out that goddamn nightmare.

Shane’s gravelly voice broke the silence. “You’re thinking too loud, Cross.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us are stoic bastards like you.”

Shane snorted. “You know, I think I liked you better when you were afraid of me.”

“I was never afraid of you.”

Shane glanced over, eyes narrowed in his scarred face. “Really? I seemed to remember a green tadpole who nearly pissed himself the first time I barked an order at him.”

Rylan rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t afraid. I was intimidated. There’s a difference. You try being the FNG on a team with the great Master Chief Shane Trevisano.”

Shane’s lips twitched in what might have been a smile. “Not so intimidated anymore, are you?”

“No, because now I know you’re just a grumpy old man with more bark than bite.”

“Old? Jesus. I’m barely forty.” Shane sounded genuinely offended, and a real laugh—the first in a long time—burst out of Rylan.

Shane’s eyes crinkled at the corners, a rare smile softening his features. “Good to hear you laugh, Ry.”

The moment of levity faded as quickly as it had come, and Rylan’s gaze drifted back to the winding road ahead. “Where are we going anyway? You still haven’t told me.”

But he didn’t have to say a word as they turned onto a narrow road flanked by a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Suddenly, Rylan knew precisely where they were and what this road trip was about.

He stared over at Shane in disbelief. “We’re going to see Jax.”

“I thought it was about time.”

“Why? I mean, I understand why we spoke for him at the trial. He was sick and needed our help. But he tried to kill you . He almost succeeded in killing your wife. Why the hell would you want to see him now? You already did more for him than anyone expected you to do.”

Shane’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “He’s still our brother. And the only other person on this planet who knows what we lived through.”

Rylan’s jaw clenched, his prosthetic hand flexing involuntarily. “Brother? He stopped being our brother the moment he turned on you.”

Shane’s eyes remained fixed on the road ahead. “See, that’s your problem, Ry. Everything is black and white with you, but the world—especially our world—is full of shades of gray. Like you said, Jax was sick. PTSD. Addiction. It fucks with your head. You know that. You live with it every day.”

“But I didn’t try to murder my teammate.”

“No, just yourself.”

Rylan flinched as if Shane had struck him. The silence in the truck grew heavy, thick with unspoken truths and shared pain.

“Low blow,” Rylan muttered, his voice rough.

Shane released a sigh full of weary resignation. “Maybe. But it needed to be said. We’ve all got our demons, Ry. Jax’s just got the better of him for a while, but he’s fighting his, and, by all accounts, he’s winning. I think you need to see that. We both do.”

They pulled up to a checkpoint, and Shane rolled down his window to hand over their IDs. The guard scrutinized them before waving them through. As they drove deeper into the prison complex, Rylan’s anxiety ratcheted up. The low, gray buildings of the correctional facility squatted under the heavy sky, their stark lines broken only by the occasional guard tower.

Shane pulled into the visitor’s lot and killed the engine. For a moment, the only sound was the faint ticking of the cooling truck. Rylan stared at the building ahead, his chest tight. It felt like the air had thinned, every breath harder to draw.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, shoving open the door before Shane could lob more verbal grenades into his lap.

Inside, the fluorescent lights washed everything in a sterile, almost clinical glow. The guards at the desk barely glanced at them as Shane presented their IDs again. After a series of buzzes and clangs, they were led through a maze of corridors, the walls thick with peeling paint and stale air.

“You look like you’re going to the electric chair,” Shane said quietly as they approached another set of heavy metal doors.

Rylan shot him a glare. “That would almost be preferable.”

“Hey, I’m the one who should be pissed at the guy, not you.”

“And you’re not?”

“I’m trying not to be.”

The guard opened the door, and they stepped into a modest visitor’s room. It was as bleak as the rest of the prison, with scuffed linoleum floors and bolted-down tables. A few inmates sat at scattered tables with their visitors, but Rylan’s attention zeroed in on the man seated at the far corner.

Jax.

He was leaning over a dog, murmuring something to the sleek black-and-tan shepherd mix as he scratched behind its ears. His dark blond hair was shorter than Rylan remembered, but his face was no longer gaunt. His arms and shoulders looked like he made plenty of use of the prison’s exercise facilities.

Jax looked up as they approached, his sharp blue eyes locking on Shane first, then sliding to Rylan. His expression shifted, something flickering across his face too quick to name before he stood.

“Shane. Rylan.” His voice was quieter than Rylan expected, the sharp edges of his usual bravado dulled. He rested a hand on the dog’s head as if grounding himself. “Didn’t expect you two ever to visit.”

Shane offered a curt nod. “It was time.”

Rylan’s arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was to contain his nerves or his simmering resentment. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

Jax huffed a humorless laugh. “He dragged you here, huh?”

Jax’s eyes flickered between them, a hint of his old smirk tugging at his lips. “Some things never change. Echo One’s still calling the shots, and you’re still following orders.”

Rylan bristled, but before he could snap back, Shane cut in. “Let’s sit down.”

They settled around the table, the dog curling up at Jax’s feet. An awkward silence stretched between them.

Rylan crossed his arms over his chest and stayed standing, unsure of what Shane expected from his visit.

“Sit,” Shane said.

The dog obediently sat and Jax grinned down at him, praising him effusively in a high-pitched voice that made the pup’s tail wag like mad. “Good boy, Scout. What a good sit that was! What a good boy!”

And, suddenly, every bitter word he’d ever wanted to hurl at Jax withered on his tongue because this wasn’t the Jax he remembered—the one who’d been all swagger and sharp-edged bravado. It was jarring to see the man who’d once been a deadly sniper with nerves of steel cooing at a dog like a doting parent.

This wasn’t even the Jax he’d seen at trial— the too-skinny, withered husk of a man who was wasting away on drugs and anger, who had barely been able to meet their eyes as he pleaded guilty to a host of crimes—most of which, it turned out, he hadn’t actually committed.

This was an entirely different man.

This Jax seemed… calmer. More grounded.

Rylan reluctantly lowered himself into the chair. “You’re in Puppies Behind Bars?”

Jax nodded, his eyes still on Scout. “Yeah. Been at it for a little over a year now. Scout, here is my third trainee.”

“Third?” Shane raised an eyebrow. “You must be good at it.”

A ghost of Jax’s old cocky grin flashed across his face. “Well, you know me. I excel at everything I do.”

“There’s the Jax we know,” Rylan muttered.

“Some things don’t change,” Shane said with a faint smile. “Like Steady’s ego.”

“Nah, Scout does a good job keeping my ego in check.” Jax smoothed a hand over the dog’s glossy coat. “I work with each pup for about six months, get them ready for service. They say it’s supposed to teach us responsibility, empathy, all that crap.” His lips twitched into a smirk. “But mostly, I think he’s just training me to fetch his toys.”

The dog watched Jax with so much love in his eyes, and Rylan felt a pang of something he couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was the way Jax seemed calmer, more settled, with the dog by his side. Or maybe it was the gnawing ache of Valor’s absence.

“Didn’t think you were a dog guy,” Rylan said.

Jax met his gaze, his expression unreadable. “I didn’t know what I was for a long time, but I’m figuring it out.”

“So,” Jax said after an uncomfortable moment of silence, leaning back in his chair. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this little reunion?”

Shane’s scarred face remained impassive. “Thought it was time we cleared the air.”

Jax’s eyes darted between them, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features. “About what happened with Alexis? I thought we’d settled that at the trial. I can’t change what I did. I wish I could because I go to bed every night regretting that I hurt her. But I wasn’t me back then. I wasn’t… right in the head. I was angry. Lost. Everything was falling apart, and I didn’t know how to stop it. So I lashed out. Hurt the person that meant the most to me—Shane. I probably would’ve come after you, too, Rylan, given time. That’s what happens when you don’t deal with your shit.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Shane said. “It’s time to deal with it. All of us have been carrying that night like a goddamn albatross. Time to put it down.”

Jax’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, then he nodded as if coming to a decision. “All right. Let’s do this.” He rubbed his hands on the pants of his prison uniform like they were suddenly sweaty and exhaled hard. “I fucked up. I was overwatch. I should’ve seen it coming sooner. I didn’t, and you paid the price. All of you.”

Shane leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. “But I was the team leader. I had a bad feeling about that op, but I didn’t cank it even after you all voiced your concerns. I should’ve. I didn’t. So, yeah, I can see why you were pissed at me. Why you wanted to hurt me.”

Jax shook his head. “My anger was misplaced. I should’ve been angry at command for sending us in on faulty intel. At Al-Mansoor. At the fucker who launched a grenade into Alejandro.”

Rylan’s chest tightened at the mention of Alejandro. He could still see the fear in Alejandro’s eyes in the second before the rocket detonated…

“It was my fault.”

The words fell like stones in the quiet room. Shane and Jax both stilled, their gazes locking on him. His hands curled into fists at his sides, his voice raw as he forced the confession out.

“I saw the tango with the RPG. I had a shot. Clean line of sight. But I...” He swallowed hard, shame burning in his gut. “I hesitated. Just for a blink. I had never killed anyone, you know? But it was— by the time I fired, it was too late.”

His chest felt tight, like his lungs wouldn’t expand to draw a full breath. He’d never told anyone about that moment of hesitation, not even during the endless debriefs and psych evals that followed.

Shane’s eyes widened, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before it settled into something softer. Understanding, maybe. Or forgiveness. “Ry, even if you’d taken that shot a split second earlier?—“

“Things would’ve gone down the same way,” Jax finished. “None of us were getting out of that clean.”

Rylan pressed his fingers into his burning eyes, trying to hold back the rush of tears. He wasn’t going to cry in front of his teammates. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Jax said quietly. “Because I saw it all. I was overwatch. From up there, I had the best view of just how fucked we were from the start. We were outgunned and outmaneuvered. One shot wouldn’t have changed the outcome. We were meant to die that night. The only reason we didn’t is because QRF got there in time to save our asses. I thought—“ His voice broke. “When they pulled you both out, I thought I was the only one left.” He nodded toward Shane. “They told me he was going to die, and they couldn’t do any-fucking-thing but give him morphine to make him more comfortable until it happened. And you…” He trailed off, his gaze fixed on Rylan’s prosthetic arm. “You’d lost so much blood, they weren’t sure you’d make it either.”

Rylan felt the phantom ache in his missing limb, remembering the searing pain and confusion in those first moments after the explosion. He flexed his mechanical fingers, staring down at the prosthetic like he’d never seen it before.

“That’s a pretty cool piece of hardware,” Jax said after a long moment.

“Yeah,” Rylan muttered. “State-of-the-art. Better than the original in some ways.” He managed a faint, self-deprecating smirk. “Guess I should be grateful.”

Jax’s expression tightened as his hand smoothed over Scout’s fur. “I’d give anything to undo what happened. To put us all back together the way we were before.”

“Thorne,” a guard called. “Time’s up.”

Shane nodded and stood. “We’re not those guys anymore. Can’t be. But…” He met Jax’s gaze, and something heavy passed between them in that moment. “The guys we are now aren’t so bad.”

Tears flooded Jax’s eyes and spilled over. “I’m trying.”

Shane reached over the table to squeeze his shoulder. “I know. And I forgive you.”