Tighter Than Presidential
“When I say go, you follow me. Every step. Every turn. You don’t let go of my hand. You don’t second-guess a single move. I’m not leaving your side. Not for one fucking second.”
– Rhys
I woke before Jasmine did. I always did. But this wasn’t one of those slow mornings where I let myself pretend we were safe. This time, it was the way her body shifted—too slight for anyone else to notice, but I felt it like a tremor beneath my ribs. A twitch. A tension in her breath. That instinct inside me surged before thought even formed. My palm slid to her spine, steady, claiming, protective. Mine.
And then I heard it too.
The door hissed open—not loud, but loud enough when you’re trained to hear threat in the absence of noise. Jude’s voice followed like a blade through silk. Sharp. Precise. Urgent.
“—confirmed the movement pattern matches. He’s escalating.”
He didn’t need to say who. I was already upright, muscles coiled, every nerve lit. Jasmine stirred beside me, the rustle of her hair against my bicep like static in a storm. She hadn’t spoken yet. But I could feel her awake. Aware. Waiting.
Vincent stepped in behind Jude, stripped of the doctor pleasantries. No clipboard. No calm. Just grim lines etched into his face and a heaviness in his eyes that told me this wasn’t a drill.
I shifted, my arm still bracketing Jasmine as I stared them down, voice flat and low—iron under velvet.
“What happened?”
No room for delay. No appetite for bullshit.
Vincent looked at her before he answered. One second. That’s all. But it was enough to tell me what I needed: this wasn’t a conversation we could have without her. And she knew it. Still half-curled into me, her hair a tangled halo on my chest, she blinked slowly—but her eyes were too clear. That wasn’t sleep. That was calculation. She was already there, just waiting for the facts.
Vincent gave them without sugar.
“We intercepted an internal hospital signal. Flagged by your perimeter team. Someone tried to access her updated discharge files remotely. Encrypted breach. Almost clean.”
Almost.
The word seared down my spine. My jaw clenched hard enough I heard the muscle tick. Cold swept through me in that measured, calculated way I recognized too well. The kind of cold that came just before I dismantled something—or someone.
“Almost,” I repeated, my voice like glass ready to break.
Jude stepped forward, always the blade behind the shield.
“They didn’t get past the firewall. But they got close enough to pull metadata. Timestamps. They know she’s being discharged tomorrow.”
Her breath caught. Subtle. Barely there. But my body knew hers too intimately to miss it. I looked down, hand sliding beneath the blanket until I found hers. Twined our fingers together. Grounded her. Grounded me.
I didn’t need her to be calm. I needed her to know I was already planning to burn the world if it got too close.
“And?” I asked.
Jude’s answer was pure frost.
“They moved someone into the building next door. Third floor. Overlooks this wing. We tagged a thermal anomaly twenty minutes ago. Signature matches Santiago.”
That word detonated between us.
She was upright now, spine straight, mouth a line of quiet fury. I felt the shift in her—not fear. No. It was something far more dangerous. Focus.
I turned fully to Jude, my hand never leaving hers.
“How tight is the route?”
He didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate.
“Tighter than a presidential sweep. We’ve rerouted the transport, locked non-essential staff, and doubled the exit team at maternity. But it has to be tonight. Before sunrise shift rotation.”
Vincent nodded. “I can process her discharge now. She’s medically stable. Vitals are solid. There’s no clinical reason she has to stay. Only a tactical one.”
I turned to her then. Finally. Fully. Her face in shadows, but I could still make out the storm gathering in her eyes. That stubborn steel behind the softness. My voice dropped, quiet now—but honed to a point.
“You up for this, mon amour?”
Not because I doubted her. Because I knew exactly what I’d do the second she nodded.
The plan had changed. And whoever touched her again was going to bleed for it.
I stared at her. Too long. Long enough to feel it crack through my chest like a god damn fault line. Because when those words left her mouth—quiet, steady, inevitable—everything in me stilled.
“I don’t think I have a choice.”
Not a whisper. Not a plea. No dramatics, no collapse. Just fact. Worn and weathered and already grieved.
And Christ, it hurt. It hurt in a place no bullet had ever reached. Deep. Old. Raw.
She didn’t say it like a victim. She didn’t say it with blame. She said it the way soldiers speak when they’ve buried too many names and stopped looking for clean endings. Like someone who’s grown too used to standing in the wreckage without waiting for rescue.
And I hated it. I hated it so much I could taste the bile rising behind my teeth.
Because she wasn’t a statistic or a mission profile. She wasn’t some asset in a black file or a variable in a threat matrix. She was mine. My wife. The woman I married with shaking hands and her name carved into the bone of me like a prayer I’d never stop saying. She should’ve been worrying about baby names and paint samples. Grocery lists and dog beds. Mundane things. Domestic things. Ordinary, beautiful things.
Not this. Not perimeter breaches and decoy photo leaks and surgical fucking exfil strategies.
But she looked at me. Wide eyes. Steady breath. And I knew—knew without needing proof—that her ribs were trembling beneath her skin. That she was holding herself upright with the same silent strength she always had.
And then she said it.
“I trust you.”
That undid me. Not with chaos. With reverence. My throat constricted, my hand tightening around hers like it was the last warm thing left in this freezing world. I leaned in, closing the distance until my forehead touched hers, grounding us both in something older than language. Older than pain.
The room fell away. The tension. The threat. The strategy waiting like a vulture in the wings. All of it faded into the background hum of machines and breath and her.
“You always have a choice, Jasmine,” I murmured, my voice cracked at the edges, worn down to something raw and unfiltered. “But you’re right. This world’s forcing our hand.”
I closed my eyes for half a breath. Just one. Enough to feel the weight of what I couldn’t protect her from.
“You shouldn’t have to be strong every god damn day. You shouldn’t have to prepare for extraction before you’ve even had caffeine. Or flinch every time someone says ‘window’ like it’s a weapon. But you do. And you’re still here. And that—fuck, mon amour—that makes you the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
I kissed her brow. Slow. Solid. Like I could press the whole world into pause if I held her there long enough. Then I pulled back, just enough for her to see the shift in my eyes. The steel behind the devotion. The fury behind the softness.
“Alright,” I said, calm and final. “Then here’s the plan.”
I turned to Jude, not missing the way his posture straightened the second my focus landed on him.
“Ten-minute window. She walks. No chair. No stretcher. No optics of fragility. Zara leaks a fake exit photo to redirect attention toward the main elevator. Nicola’s volume will serve us well if we need a diversion.”
Jude’s nod was clipped. Already in motion.
I turned back to her.
“When I say go, you follow me. Every step. Every turn. You don’t let go of my hand. You don’t second-guess a single move. I’m not leaving your side. Not for one fucking second. We will get out of here. Whole. All four of us.”
My hand moved to her stomach, resting over the quiet heartbeat we’d both bled to protect. Then back to her chest, to the breath she was still holding.
“For now,” I whispered, voice anchoring her to the moment. “Just breathe, mon amour.”
