Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters, dressing them up in MARPAT, and giving them some guns (again).

Unbeta'd, unedited. Anyagal graciously fixed my Russian.

Villain Cheat Sheet (thus far):
Aro = Professor Vladislav Aronović (deceased, leader of Deathstalkers villain faction in OPERATION: Break the Dawn, Serbian)
Jane = Jana (pronounced Yana) / Dr. Jessica "Jane" Stanley (the late Aronović's likely illegitimate daughter, Serbian)
Alec = Aleksey "Lyosha" (Jana's lackey/muscle, Russian)
Demetri = Dmitriy "Dima" Nikolayevich Mirenkov (former military and potentially former FSB, Belorussian)
Felix = Feliks, only mentioned in passing
Ruslan = original character, only mentioned in passing
Said = original character, only mentioned in passing
Tarkhan Ali-Basayev = original character (founder of PMC Borz Group and majority owner of Sunzha Machines, Chechen)
He/him = as yet named leader of the new villain faction (you've seen him talking to Jana on the phone in Chap 1 4, and he was mentioned by Dmitriy in Chap 7)

Jan 22
Undisclosed Location in the Caucasus Mountains
Somewhere along the border of Georgia and Southern Russia

Bitter, ice-cold winter wind sucked inside the Land Rover as the door swung wide.

With a muttered curse, Jana slipped flyaway strands of pale blonde hair beneath her head scarf and tucked the fine crimson silk inside the collar of her long wool coat. She climbed out of the vehicle, and icy gravel crunched beneath her feet. When the door slammed shut behind her, the sound echoed, loud and intrusive in the frigid stillness of the mountains.

For a moment, she didn't move. Instead, her eyes slid shut, and she inhaled a deep, cleansing breath, tasting the familiar fragrance of evergreens, wood smoke, and freshly fallen snow.

When she opened her eyes again, as if in greeting – or maybe warning – high overhead, a goshawk screeched and drew her attention to the cloudless, crisp blue sky above. Jana watched as his pet swept lower, banking left to circle the massive stone compound with its tall, squared Vainakh towers, effortlessly surfing the currents in search of prey. When the raptor shrieked again, her lips parted at the richly streaked plumage and razor-sharp talons.

He'd always had a weakness for beautiful, dangerous things.

"Zdravstvuyte, Jana Vladislavovna." A loaded pause followed, and in her periphery, Said looked over the hood of the Land Rover to Dmitriy, where the older man stood, still shaven and with his hands shoved into his pockets, as patient as ever as he waited with Aleksey. Almost on cue, Dmitriy angled toward them, his expression flat with unspoken command, and at once, Said inclined his head with a slight, carefully polite greeting. "Dobro pozhalovat' domoy."

Not bothering with a reply – at least not for him – Jana turned to the north, and her gaze fell to the empty valley below them. Like the bird above, home was a mottled landscape of pristine white layered atop gray-brown rock and dormant alpine grasses. Further down, below the tree line, stood thick stands of dark green spruces and firs, mingled with the sparse winter skeletons of the beeches and the oaks. On either side, sheer, jagged walls rose into the sky, forming an impenetrable, snow-capped fortress around the compound behind them.

A throat cleared.

Jana tsked at the intrusion, then pivoted back to cooly peruse Said's dry, wind-burned cheeks, now half-hidden by a long, unkempt, wiry beard. There was a dark, yellowing bruise across the bridge of his fleshy nose, and a scar, still pink and healing, bisected his flat forehead. Older, splotchy marks littered his throat and the backs of his hands.

Like usual, the man fidgeted under her scrutiny, uncomfortable with both her and her place in their world. Unsurprisingly, the air turned staticky between them. When he gave in and grimaced, she gifted him a small smile, cut with a hint of menace, and Said's eyes, dark, beady, and deeply set, widened before sliding away from her face.

A soft laugh spilled out, colored with the same undercurrent of promised violence.

"Spasibo, Said… Akhmadovich. Doma khorosho," Jana finally said, because that much was true. It was good to be back. Just because, she stepped toward him, and her long, full skirt swished around her ankles, rasping against the fine Italian leather of her boots. As she drew closer, then closer still, he automatically leaned away. One blonde brow arched, and her voice dropped to a sultry, taunting purr. "Vy skuchali po mne? Razve vy ne rady menya videt'?"

"Jana," Dmitriy snapped, shooting her a pointed glare as he stalked around the vehicle with an all-too-amused Aleksey in tow. As he approached, knowing the guard wouldn't understand, the older man swapped to English, low and gravelly. "Stop fucking with him." His gaze flitted over her shoulder, scanning the topline of the high rampart-like walls. "Do you want to see him executed?"

Pale blue eyes glittered as she studied the guard in his thick winter camo and matching armor. Across his back hung a modern, heavily modified Kalashnikov, along with one of Sunzha Machines' newest short-barrel carbines. A wicked serrated blade sat on his hip, along with a matte black pistol. Yet a traditional black sheepskin papakha covered his unruly chestnut hair, and he wore the beard of his father and his father's father before him.

"Maybe."

Jana's smile widened as Said looked between her and Dmitriy in both irritation and confusion. When Aleksey just snickered and clapped the man on the back in feigned sympathy, she spun on her heel and asked, sweet and singsong. "Lyosha… do you really think I'm joking?"

"Blya," Aleksey cursed, flashing her the same wide, vicious grin he'd worn after he'd mutilated and broken that weak, pathetic scientist, Dr. Yorkie. "Znayu, chto ne shutish'."

After a moment, Said motioned them back toward the vehicles, but Dmitriy just shook his head. "Ona davno ne byla doma. Pust' ona nemnogo pogulyayet'."

Jana's shoulders shook, but Dmitriy wasn't wrong. It had been a long time, and left to her own devices, she'd spend hours out here in the quiet. It was something she'd learned from him after all.

"Konechno, kak pozhelayete." Said nodded respectfully, as though he understood, then shadowed her as she slowly meandered across the wide, open plateau in front of the compound entry. A few minutes later, he asked her, "Kak proshlo vashe… puteshestviye?"

"Puteshestviye bylo… dolgim," she replied, almost to herself. It had been a long, long journey. As she scanned the horizon, Jana's scarf fluttered in the breeze, loosing the same wisps of pale blonde hair that always seemed to escape. She inhaled another deep breath, and her lungs burned from the cold. She glanced over her shoulder. "Tak i gdye zhe on?"

"On vnutri kompleksa." Said's armor creaked as one calloused hand swept back toward the towers. "On zhdet vas."

Jana hummed a non-committal response. Then again, she'd known exactly where he was, just like she'd known he was waiting for her even now, patient and calculating, as always.

Overhead, the goshawk screeched once more. As Jana peered up, squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun, the bird's magnificent wings folded into her body. Graceful and lightning-fast, she shot across the sky toward the lower valley. Jana tracked her as she dove toward a clump of high gray grasses. No more than a second later, stippled wings beat the air, and the bird climbed the sky, clutching a large mass of bloody fur in her talons.

Jana smiled, this time in true delight.

Trained by a harsh yet loving hand, the raptor soared across the valley and back toward the compound. Immediately targeting the upper wall, she dropped the bloodied hare on top of the stone, and Jana's throat caught as she lighted on the outstretched, leather-wrapped arm of her master.

A warm, tanned face appeared over the wall. Even across the distance, his hazel eyes were shrewd, assessing, and as cold as their surroundings. When they landed on her, the air sucked out of her chest. Beneath all the layers of stylish, though deliberately traditional fabric, her skin suddenly felt too tight. Warmth crept up her neck, and anticipation curled low in her abdomen as she remembered his promise of reward.

His lips curved, knowing, and a shiver raced down Jana's spine as he mouthed his greeting. "Zdravstvuy, moye solnyshko."

Jan 22
Undisclosed Temporary Combat Outpost
Somewhere near the Armenian and Georgian Borders, Northeastern Türkiye

Somewhere outside, a pair of heavy-duty truck doors slammed, and Bella's knife froze mid-air.

Alone and perched cross-legged on top of an old, scuffed-up fold-out table, Bella jerked toward the entry on the opposite end of the hollowed-out office. In the distance, a set of hinges whined, muted by the rumble of the diesel generator in the back. Her half-eaten Granny Smith fell to her lap. By the time a third truck door slammed, her left was already sliding down the thick fabric of her utilities, instinctively targeting the .45 strapped to her thigh. Right as her fingertips touched metal, however, Emmett's boisterous bellow came from right outside the building, halting her in her tracks.

"Dude, you look like dog shit!"

Silent and motionless, Bella picked up a brief pause, followed by a fleshy thwack, and then an all-too-familiar, equally loud baritone barked out a laugh. "Yeah, fuck you, Bear-man!"

"You wish!" Emmett snorted. There was another thwack and the sound of boots stomping against concrete. "'Bout time you fuckers showed up!"

Abruptly tired, Bella's shoulders sagged, then shook with silent laughter. She slumped back against the dingy wall, and a wave of disorienting déjà vu swept through her limbs. Wiping off her apple, she inhaled a lungful of the cool winter air that seeped in from the roll-out window, rusted open from years of disuse. Instead of snow and the faint spice of the nearby yellow pines, she tasted scorching heat, ancient, umbrella-shaped acacias, and the dry, low-lying scrub brushes of a landscape thousands of miles away.

A dull, tingling ache spread through her left hand, arrowing into the now-healed joints Aronović himself had ordered broken.

"Damn it," she muttered, giving her hand and herself a hard shake as she retrieved her knife. With expert ease, she carved off another juicy slice and popped it into her mouth, ignoring the sink in her gut that just wouldn't go away.

By the time Bella polished off the remainder of her fruit and chucked the core into the bin by the corner, the door banged open. A wedge of muted, gray afternoon light spread across the grungy floor, bringing with it a blast of frozen air that scattered a stack of nearby papers.

"Jack fucking Frost, it's cold!"

Decked out in full-on winter-white MARPAT, Alice barreled into the room. As soon as she cleared the threshold, she jumped onto the remnants of a faded, thread-bare doormat, lingering just long enough to kick the worst of the mud and snow off her boots before bolting over to the nearest kerosene heater to strip off her gloves and balaclava. Parked there by the heat, she shook out her inky mop, showering the wall and floor with flecks of bone-dry snow.

"You little shit!" Emmett yelled as his palm smacked against the doorframe. He halted at the entry to repeat the same process on the mat – only far, far more thoroughly – and the big man glared down at the fresh set of small, Alice-sized boot tracks, already melting and smearing across the tile. "Were you raised in a fuckin' barn?"

"What? Whatever. This…" She waved a wild hand at the room. "Metal box might as well be one!" With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Alice let out an equally exaggerated burr! "God, I'm starving. I really need a snack."

With a pissy, grumbled curse, Emmett swiped a meaty paw as Alice passed by. Like usual, she ducked, sliding under his outstretched arm like a limbo bar, and lithely skipped out of the way. Palming the back of his head, scratching at the short-cut stubble, he let out a pained sigh. "You people kill me, you know that, right? How did you make it through OCS anyway?"

"Duh, I didn't, remember?" Laughing at the big man's scowl, Alice plucked a granola bar off the stack on the shelf, and with a graceful pirouette, literally danced the length of their temporary base – not a barn, but an old desert-colored prefab with low ceilings and corrugated walls. Bella's fold-out table wobbled as she plopped down, and again when she bumped Bella with her shoulder. "'Sup, B!"

Bella grinned as their pilot peeled back the plain beige wrapper with its darker beige markings. She made a show of checking her wrist, and right as Alice took a too-big bite, Bella asked, "Didn't you just eat?"

"Like that's ever stopped her!"

Mouth full, Alice slowly craned toward the entry. The second she caught the dirty blond head peeking around the door, she huffed, spitting out a spray of crumbs. "Liar!"

"You know it's true. You eat like a horse!" Jasper snickered, and after easing the door shut, he propped his M110 – now wrapped in mingled white and gray – in the corner. "Honestly, it's a freakin' mystery where you put it all."

Collapsing into an old, chewed-up office chair, Emmett spun around and threw his head back. "And I bet you know all about that!" His brows waggled. "Don't ya, Jazzy?"

A faint, dusty pink climbed Jasper's neck. Adam's apple bobbing, the younger man opened his mouth, then closed it, and then instead of responding, he busied himself peeling off his outerwear and grabbing a bottle of lukewarm water off the shelf. And, of course, that just made Emmett laugh even harder.

Bella side-eyed the woman next to her, but Alice simply shrugged. "Don't ask me." She took another too-big bite. "No clue what they're talking about."

"Right," Bella drawled, and she had to school her expression when Alice's cheeks puffed out in a pout. Solemnly, she nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure you don't know anything."

"Whatever." The pilot's dark eyes twinkled. "Like you have any room to talk. Like none. At all. Ever." Her feigned innocence turned sly and calculating, and Bella knew that whatever she was about to say wasn't going to be good. "Speaking of, so, where'd you go the other night? Did you and the Major find some dark–"

A sharp jab to the ribs cut her off.

"Hey!"

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry." Wide-eyed and innocent, now, it was Bella's turn to shrug. "My elbow must have slipped."

A peal of high-pitched laughter answered her, shaking the table hard enough that Bella swore it was going to buckle. "You bitch! I liked you so much better before."

Ten minutes and two chocolate chip granola bars later, the door flung open once again. A chill raced down Bella's spine as another blast of frigid air swept inside, and she watched five grumbling men – all tall, dark, and with varying lengths of facial hair – prowl in like they owned the place. Head tilted in quiet study, she clocked the stern, cut-from-rock expressions, the calloused hands, and the hard, lean muscle that sat beneath the well-worn armor, along with a veritable arsenal of high-powered weaponry.

Even supposedly at ease, these guys moved with purpose, exuding the kind of lethal self-assurance a civilian could never achieve. Yet there was something different there, too, a weariness that stained the hollows of their eyes, and Bella wondered exactly where Black's Deltas had been since she last saw them.

"Scooby!"

Bella winced at Alice's volume.

Black's baby-faced pilot whipped around. Like the rest of the bunch, First Lieutenant Seth Clearwater – call sign Scooby – looked a little worse for wear. His broad, straight shoulders slumped beneath his utilities – ever so slightly – and instead of his usual short and tidy cut, tufts of scraggly, dark brown hair peeked out from his Mariners cap, curling around his ears and nape. The hat itself was ancient, its blue faded to gray and missing half the embroidered compass in its center. Nonetheless, the second he spied Alice, his cheeks creased into a broad, toothy grin. Wordlessly signaling the Deltas' near-twin sniper team, he dropped his gear in the corner, split off, and ambled over to their table.

"Hey, Doc!" he said, tipping his chin at Bella with the same brand of perpetual cheerfulness as the woman beside her. "Long time, yeah?"

They obviously had different ideas of time.

Regardless, Bella grinned back, but when she would have replied, Alice fished her phone out of one of her chest pockets, brandishing it with the flourish of a troubadour.

"Yeah, yeah, we can do the greetings thing later." Waving them off, Alice tapped her screen before chucking it over to Seth. The telltale wop-wop-wop of helo blades blared out from its tiny speaker. "Now… tell me how jealous you are."

"Fucking-A," Seth murmured, drawing it out. His eyes widened in fascination, brightly following what Bella assumed was a video of Alice's test drive over the dark, churning waters of the Mediterranean. "That's a fast bird. What the hell did they do to the power plant? She really that quiet?" He scratched his scruffy chin. "How'd they fit those extra hardpoints? Fuck me, I want one."

"Right?!" Alice giggled like a kid in a candy store. "Margie's such a badass!"

And at that, she bounded off the table, and the two pilots launched into a fast-paced technical exchange, filled with hand gestures, exclamations, and mechanical jargon Bella couldn't hope to follow. It was an entertaining show, for sure, distracting enough that she almost missed the towering shadow sliding into her periphery.

A quiet, even voice came from her right. "Captain."

"Bella," she mumbled, correcting without even thinking. As soon as she realized, Bella's features pinched. Her head jerked up, and her eyes shot to the intricate maze of gray and black ink that wound up a bare, very tan, muscled forearm and bicep. When she hit the olive drab garrison cap spun around backward, she frowned. "Crap."

Expert tracker, marksman, and former Ranger, Sergeant First Class Jared "Trick" Cameron was a no-nonsense operator who'd been there, done that, and seen about everything. Yet as he took in the pissy scowl on Cullen's… whatever the hell she was now, his brows hit his hairline, and one corner of his mouth pulled up into a faint, almost reluctant smile. "Alright… Doc."

Bella's nose crinkled, but then she just sighed. "Fine." Angling away from the increasingly animated discussion between Alice and Seth, she took a moment to study the deep lines of stress and fatigue carved into the Delta's hard, though otherwise handsome, face and softly asked, "Hey, you all right?"

Jared's lips twitched. After a second of hesitation, his shoulders rolled, loose and deceptively lazy, and without warning, he grabbed another one of the banged-up roller chairs left behind by the prior occupants. Flipping the old thing around, he plopped down next to the table and kicked his boot across the opposite knee. The matte-black hilt of a non-issue boot knife peeked out from the hem of his utilities.

"Truth?" he asked, quiet as ever. When the woman signaled a slow affirmative, Jared's mouth flattened, and dark, amber-colored irises scanned the room, automatically tagging each and every point of entry. Leaning his rifle against the wall beside him, he hesitated again, debating. "Tired. Been a rough year," he finally said, giving her a pointed look. "And I'm not just talkin' about that clusterfuck last summer."

Bella startled, as much at the man's unexpected honesty as the nonchalant mention of Aronović's takedown in Somalia. "Were you guys sent here straight from… somewhere else?"

"Somethin' like that." Jared paused just long enough to fish a small, dark, cylindrical tin from his pocket. Ignoring the scientist's wrinkled-up expression, he tucked a thick pinch of fragrant tobacco behind his lower lip. "'Bout to be sent home, but SOCOM diverted us here instead." He let out a derisive snort. "Paul's fuckin' hacked, too."

"Where were you?" Bella asked, although she already had her suspicions.

Glancing over, the operator's expression turned wry. He spat a wad of dark, goopy saliva into an empty water bottle. "We weren't nowhere."

"Nowhere, huh?"

They were silent for a moment. In the background, Bella picked up the change in pitch of the generator outside, along with El'azar's barked-out command in Hebrew to one of his soldiers. She listened, waiting for another familiar voice, but all she heard was muffled yells and the distant metallic screech of brakes. Frowning, she turned back, only to find the Delta, eerily still as he wordlessly assessed her.

What he saw, she didn't know.

"So, let's say… hypothetically," Bella said, balancing her tablet on her knee. She flicked an agitated, haphazard hand. "If you happened to be, I don't know, around a thousand kilometers northeast of here… what would you guys have been doing?"

"Hypothetically?" Jared eyed her askance and shrugged. "Little of this, little of that." He chuffed when she shot him a sour look. "Maybe some trainin', but watchin', mostly. Tryin' to monitor what's goin' on and feed back intel that they could use…" Peeking down at the floor, he traced the Marine pilot's tiny boot prints, and his voice dropped to a hushed rumble. "Helpin'… directly where we could get away with it."

Bella swallowed. The hand resting on her thigh gave an involuntary tremble, and the inside of her cheek sucked in between her teeth. Quieter, matching the operator's cautious, watchful demeanor, she asked, "What's it like on the ground? I've seen footage. It lo–"

"Worse than anything I've ever seen," Jared said, cutting in before she could finish. He spat again, frowning at the ancient tan fleece that seemed to swallow the woman whole. "That's for damned sure."

Bella's forehead crumpled. "How do you mean?"

"Got a bunch of civilians, volunteers who traded 9-to-5 for a rifle and a few weeks of trainin', sloggin' it out in trenches and fields like it's WWII." Jared shook his head. "Tanks. Heavy artillery. Acres and acres of fuckin' mines. Sieges. Air raids on schools and hospitals." Something dark and heavy passed through the man's expression. "Sandbox was bad, don't get me wrong." He shook his head again. "Different landscape, different battlespace, and we were doin' counterinsurgency for most of it. Just a… different animal." He looked over. "Plus, relatively speakin', we had resources out the ass."

Before Bella could ask, Jared mused, almost to himself, "When I was back with the 75th, when shit got too hot, we could bring in more men, more equipment, whatever." With a dry, sardonic snort, he spat another goopy wad into his bottle. "I could paint the target, call in an airstrike, and be fuckin' done." Leaning forward in his chair, Jared propped his elbows on his knees and stared back down at the floor. "They don't have quite the same luxury." He paused, thinking. "But, goddamn, if they don't make up for it. Smart, nimble, resourceful as all get out… not to mention determined."

She heard something in his voice, the vague note of both surprise and admiration. "What do you mean?"

He didn't reply at first. Instead, Jared peered up and watched an irritable, mouthy Paul trade barbs with Cullen's beast of a staff sergeant. In the corner, unsurprisingly, their sniper team had settled in next to the best long gun the Marines had produced in probably a decade. Tweedle Dum was already sprawled out and snoring, along with Dayan's prickly, dark-haired, dark-eyed staff sergeant that Jake was probably going to fall in love with. At the opposite end of the room, Scooby was still bouncing and drooling over whatever new bird Cullen's pilot just got assigned.

"We was a hundred klicks or so inside the occupied zone to the east," Jared slowly said, folding his hands in his lap. "Ran into this… this little bitty old woman in some village I can't even begin to pronounce." Another one of those wry, half-smiles curved his lips. "I figured she was somewhere in her 80's, maybe older than that. Had a crucifix around her neck and one of those little flowery scarfs on her head. She and this other bitty, 'bout the same age, they were by themselves on this old rundown farm. Electric grid was down. Handpump on the well. Nothin' but a few sticks of firewood for heat." The Delta's jaw rolled, and there was a brief pause Bella almost missed. "So, Captain offered to… sneak 'em out."

"I take it they declined."

Jared grunted a curt affirmative. "Cracked the Captain's knuckles with her cane and told him to mind his own damned business. Then she made him feed her chickens and had Paul choppin' wood while she fawned all over Scooby like a long-lost grandson or somethin'. Funniest shit I ever saw." His shoulders vibrated. Still chuckling, he dry-washed his face, shoving his palms into the hollows of his eyes until red and green splotches floated in his vision. "Turned out, she had a sat phone hidden down in her cellar and she was relayin' troop movements. No one suspected a thing."

Bella's face split in two, and something unexpected and warm settled in her chest, enough that it drove off some of the cold. "You're kidding."

"Nah. And that other little babushka took out half a unit, least for a few days." The Delta's broad shoulders shook again, and when he looked up, his eyes sparked with genuine amusement. "Poisoned those fuckers with cherries and cakes. Fuckin' unreal."

Leaning back, the sergeant tipped his head against the wall behind him and eyeballed one of the long, bare fluorescents. Its ballast was out, making it buzz and flicker. Beside him, a light outdoor breeze seeped in from the window, thankfully cutting through the sweltering waves pouring out of the kerosene heaters. How that scientist wore a coat in here, he couldn't fathom. Nonetheless, when he looked over again, she'd buried her pale face inside her collar as she stared a hole into her tablet.

Setting his bottle on the floor, Jared nodded at the thin, glowing device teetering on her knee. On the screen was an array of satellite photos, scrolling lines and graphs, and a series of complex symbols that reminded him of chicken wire. A stack of dog-eared files sat by her side, along with a chewed-up blue pen. "I take it you understand all that?"

"More or less." Bella smiled when he scowled. "Still not a fan of chemistry?"

"No, ma'am, I am not." The operator rolled his eyes, then his features morphed. He grumbled, scratched his face and straightened. "Speakin' of, your commander said you'd give us a briefing on Davos and whatever bullshit we're lookin' at this time around. When you want to start?"

Surprise had Bella's heart thumping inside her ribcage. On cue, a faint sheen of sweat slicked her palms as she glanced around. "Where are they anyway?"

The Delta thumbed toward the door. "Three amigos are on the com updatin' some upper-echelon motherfu–" He caught himself, and his lips mashed together. "Person from Langley. Some dipshits in D.C. are gettin' cold feet, so apparently, there's a debate over takin' out Basayev's weapons factory. Major Cullen is… gaining alignment."

It was a dry, sardonic statement, and Bella shot him a small, knowing smile. "What you mean is he's informing them that they can all go pound sand."

"Somethin' like that." The operator grunted, not at all perturbed, like it was any other day.

Nodding to herself as much as to him, Bella wiped her palms on her utilities and slid off the table without another word. She sucked in a slow, deep breath, scenting dust, metal, and sweat, now overlaid with the sweet, cloying tang of tobacco. Heart still racing, she walked to the middle of the room, aiming for the whiteboard and the bank of portable screens.

Loud enough to top the hum of voices, Bella cleared her throat, and far more confident than she felt, she clapped her hands and said, "Alright! Everyone up! Let's get going."

The room froze, and a dozen pairs of eyes swung toward her. Ignoring Alice's immediate full-faced, Cheshire grin, she motioned to Jasper. "Jazz, could you please pull up the files?"

A faint smile tugged at the sergeant's mouth, but the Marine didn't miss a beat. He popped up off the floor with a firm, "Yes, ma'am," and bounded over to the makeshift desk to man the laptop. After a handful of keystrokes, the screens lit up, casting the room in a subtle violet.

Now wide awake, Black's sniper team leaned forward from their spots on the floor. Same height, same lean build, same dark hair, suntanned skin, beards, and worn, faded utilities, Sergeants Quil "Tweedle Dee" Ateara, and Embry "Tweedle Dum" Call could have been brothers, if not twins. The only way Bella could tell them apart was the intricate, colorful sleeve that decorated Quil's left arm. A spiderweb extended across the back of his hand, ending at the tip of his trigger finger. Trapped in its center, as though being slowly consumed, sat a wicked-looking skull, mouth open, frozen in a blood-curdling scream.

Embry, Quil's eagle-eyed spotter, grimly studied the center screen – a reconstructed three-dimensional rendering of the palm-sized canister and trigger mechanism that'd been used in Davos – and let out a low whistle. "That little thing did all…" He jabbed an index finger at the righthand screen, where Jasper had pulled up the bloody, chaotic scene from inside the auditorium. "That?"

"Yes," Bella said, grimacing. "And frankly, it could have been worse."

Squinting at the images, the younger man bit off a slab of beef jerky before asking, "What does that mean?"

With no more than a slight duck of Bella's chin, a third screen blinked to life, flashing up an older shot. This was one she'd seen first-hand, deep within the natural rock belly of Aronović's compound, and for a split second, the room and its inhabitants spun. Bella's stomach somersaulted as the nightmare of Edward bleeding out and nearly dying on that same stone floor assaulted her brain. Mouth suddenly dry, she swallowed, leaned against Jasper's makeshift desk, and flicked her laser line at the row of 70-foot-long Topol intercontinental missiles mounted on a trio of olive-drab sixteen-wheeled mobile launchers.

"You saw what Aronović intended," Bella said, slowly scanning the room. "You were all there."

A dozen soldiers and Marines nodded. When she peeked over at Emmett, his expression shuttered, and his eyes met hers in shared understanding.

"His daughter…" Bella went on, gesturing to Jasper. Another few keystokes, and Dr. Stanley's DARPA headshot popped up on the screen, along with the woman's pepper-gray handler from Davos. "This guy, one Dmitriy Mirenkov, and whoever they're working with – or for – seem to have different ambitions." She signaled Jasper once more, and this time, an array of weapons – from hand-held atomizing mines like the one they found in the Sahara to grenades to shoulder-mounted rockets to bunker busters and long-range missiles – filled the center screen. "Their aims appear to be wider, more nuanced, and these people recognize the inherent flexibility of XR-5."

Bella's laser line flew back to the bloody auditorium stage. "From what we've pieced together, they forced Dr. Yorkie to reformulate a dilute solution specifically designed for that canister and mechanism. It was just enough to take out the panel and the Secretary, no more, no less. Surgical relative to the explosions in Paris."

"You said that's Aronović's daughter?" Quil asked, nabbing the jerky from his frowning spotter. "And she worked at DARPA? Are you serious?"

"Yes, as a heart attack." Bella took a deep, steadying breath. "So, we should assume she knows as much – if not more – about XR-5 as I do."

Grumbled curses erupted, and before she could blink, a mountain of lean, mean muscle and temper shoved off the wall and stalked to the center of the room. The operator stopped maybe a foot away, crossed his bare, tree-trunk arms over his barrel chest, and glared down with open hostility. "This is some fuckin' bullshit… Captain."

Condescension dripped from the big man's posture and tone, and it took a real concerted effort not to roll her eyes. Instead, a short, impatient huff tumbled out, her lips mashed together, and she made a show of slowly eying the Delta up and down.

"Speaking of, how's your injury?" Bella finally asked, tilting her head in feigned concern. When the man's scruffy jaw ticked in irritation, her brows hit her hairline. "Or are you still having problems, you know, sitting down?"

In the background, someone snickered. "Five points!"

Without breaking eye contact, Staff Sergeant Paul Lahote, aka Howler, extended his left arm and flipped his baby-faced pilot off. A moment of electrified silence followed, where the air in the room turned crackly and warm. The operator's jawline rolled again, then his expression abruptly broke. Dark eyes twinkled, his nostrils flared, and a broad, mischievous grin stretched the big man's face. "You askin' about my ass, Doc?"

At that, Bella did roll her eyes. "No, I'm asking if you'd like to sit your ass down so that we can actually get through all this before midnight."

"Pfft! Where's the fun in that?" Paul's grin widened even more. Far faster than his size would suggest, he whipped around, and before Bella knew what was happening, without a lick of shame, he peeled his fatigues halfway down his backside, revealing a tanned, muscular flank. Smack dab in the center of his left cheek was the puckered, nickel-sized iridescent scar he'd picked up that night in Somalia. When Bella choked out a cough, he looked over his shoulder at her and wagged his bushy brows. "That shit's fuckin' hot, right? 'Cause lemme tell you, bitches love that shit."

A chorus of groans and boos answered him. "You're so full of it!"

"What?" Paul hollered, laughing and still flashing his ass for all to see. "It's true! Bitches fuckin' love scars!" Cheeks sucked in, his lips puckered in a duckface kiss, and he crooned in a high, pouty falsetto, "Oh, you poor baby! Lemme kiss it and make it better!"

Scrubbing her face to keep from laughing, Bella let out a loud, exasperated sigh. "Yeah, that's great and all, but how about we get ba–"

"Pull your pants up, dick."

Bella jumped as the door slammed shut, punctuating the gunnery sergeant's sharp command. Looking every bit the formidable, no-nonsense Marine she was, Rosalie kicked her boots against the wall to knock off the snow, stepped inside the room, and leveled the Delta a hard, flat glare that'd have sent a lesser man running. "Now."

Still over by Scooby, Alice rammed her elbow into the other pilot's ribs and with a decidedly not-subtle giggle, whisper-yelled, "Yesss!"

"What?" Wheeling around, Paul threw his free hand up in mock surrender. But his eyes danced as he sized up the gunny in a blatant challenge, and Bella just knew he was about to say something very, very stupid. "I didn't take you for some kind of pru–"

"Enough." Rosalie's hand sliced the air, and her fists dropped to her hips in a move all-too-reminiscent of their commander. "Sergeant, if I have to look at your ugly, hairy ass for one more goddamned second, I will beat you with your own rifle. Do I make myself clear?"

Slowly, teasingly, Paul dragged his waistband back to where it belonged. He threw her a suggestive wink. "I think someone's uptight today."

"Uptight?" One sculpted brow arched as Rosalie crossed the room. "You think I'm uptight?"

"You heard me," the big man drawled, spitting off to the side. As he continued eying her up and down, that grin morphed into something downright wicked. "You on the rag or somethin'?"

Alice choked, and on the other side of the room, Jared shook his head and dropped his forehead into his palm, grumbling under his breath. "You dumb fuck. Sit your ass down and shut up before she kicks your teeth in."

"Pfft!" Paul scoffed. His beefy shoulders rose and fell in an arrogant, lazy shrug. "Barbie knows I'm just fuckin' with her." He winked at her once more. "Right, sweetheart?"

There was a blur of blonde and MARPAT, followed by a wheezy yelp of pain. A split-second later, two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle slammed onto the floor, rattling the whole building.

Stunned silence filled the room, broken only by harsh punches of air coming from the floor. With a sudden whoop of approval, Emmett's palm slapped his thigh, and the room instantly erupted in wild laughter.

"Told you," Jared grumbled, even as his lips curved. He shot Bella a quick, knowing look.

Rubbing the back of his head, Paul rolled to his side, squinted up at the blonde towering over him, and whined. "What was that for?"

Bright blue eyes sparkled. "You know I'm just fucking with you. Right, dick?" She grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him up, and as he climbed to his feet, Rosalie gifted the operator a too-sweet smile. "We done? Or do we need to go another round?"

The big man rumbled something resembling assent, then hung his head as he started back toward the ancient wooden bench positioned against the wall opposite Emmett. Midstride, he stilled, however, and as he spun back around, his cheeks abruptly stretched like crazy. "Goddamn, you're mean."

That too-sweet smile widened into a beatific, megawatt grin. "About time you figured that out."

With a show of massaging his left hip, Paul made a low, growly noise in the back of his throat. "Fuck, that's so hot." He stepped toward her, wagging his brows for all he was worth. "How 'bout I take you out and show you a good time? We could have some fun, you and me."

Across the room, Emmett's chair creaked as he straightened. The Marine's lips clamped together, but he shot the operator a straight-up death glare, right as Rosalie burst into a fit of loud laughter.

As she wiped her eyes, Paul purred, "Hey, that's not a no."

Rosalie froze mid-chuckle, and without a second of hesitation, she and Emmett barked in unison. "No!"

As the room erupted into another round of laughter and teasing, a faint tickle of awareness danced across Bella's skin and raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. Before she had time to react, five distinct points of pressure and warmth touched her lower back. Instead of startling at the surreptitious touch she felt down to the bone, her muscles instinctively uncoiled, and as the faint, familiar scent of aftershave washed over her senses, she leaned toward him ever-so-slightly.

"You need to stop that," Bella murmured, careful to keep her eyes on the ridiculous scene still playing out in front of them. Her nose wrinkled. "How'd you get in here anyway?"

Thumbing toward the rear of the building, Edward simultaneously watched his staff sergeant just resist the urge to take out Black's large, exceedingly temperamental operator. His gunny wasn't much better. No, Rosalie looked happy enough to spit nails. "Something I need to know about?"

"No." Bella shook her head. "I think we have everything covered." When Edward glanced down, she grinned up at him, and regardless of where they were or why, he wanted to kiss that too-pretty smile right off of her. Before he could do something foolish, she asked, "So, did you make friends and influence people?"

Edward's whole body shook. "That's one way to put it."

"Well?" Bella asked, steeling herself as a round of nerves fluttered her stomach. "What's the verdict?"

The laughter ceased, replaced instantly with the severe, cut-from-granite expression she knew so well. Edward's posture shifted and straightened, and as his hand fell away from the small of her back, his irises gleamed, dark and eager. "Got the greenlight – finally. We'll take Basayev's compound – and him – while Black takes out that fucking weapons factory."

Bella sucked in a tight, shaky breath, but this time around, it was laced with a tiny bit of that same eagerness. "When?"

"We leave tomorrow night."

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Notes:

I know this chapter took a while. Work has been an absolute mess over the last few weeks and, frankly, just sucked away any time or creativity I had. Thank you for your patience. I would really love to hear from you.

Also, Jared's anecdote about the two old ladies is based on a couple of real situations in Ukraine. There are numerous stories about regular people – villagers, farmers, elderly, kids – doing whatever they can and with whatever resources they have to fend off Putin's invasion. Personally, I find that kind of will and determination to be inspiring.

Russian [transliterated:

Zdravstvuyte, Jana Vladislavovna: Hello, Jana Vladislavovna (this is her patronymic, which Russians, Ukrainians, etc have instead of a middle name. It's formed from her father's first name, Vladislav, and used in formal address)

Dobro pozhalovat' domoy: Welcome home

Spasibo, Said… Akhmadovich. Doma khorosho: Thank you, Said Akhmadovich (this is Said's patronymic, formed from his father's first name, Akhmad). It's good to be home

Vy skuchali po mne? Razve vy ne rady menya videt': Did you miss me? Aren't you glad to see me?

Blya… Znayu, chto ne shutish': Fuck… I know you're not joking

Ona davno ne byla doma. Pust' ona nemnogo pogulyayet': It's been a long time since she's been home. Let her walk around a little

Konechno, kak pozhelayete: Of course, as you wish

Kak proshlo vashe… puteshestviye: How was your journey?

Puteshestviye bylo… dolgim: It was long

Tak i gdye zhe on: So, where is he?

On vnutri kompleksa: He's inside the compound

On zhdet vas: He's waiting for you

Zdravstvuy, moye solnyshko: Hello, my little sun/sunshine

Babushka: Grandmother

Glossary:

75th: or the 75th Ranger Regiment, aka Army Rangers, is the premier light infantry unit and special operations force within the US Army. SFC Cameron was a Ranger prior to joining SFOD-D (aka Delta Force)

Goshawk: a medium-large bird of prey, in the same family of raptors as eagles, other hawks, harriers, etc. In the practice of falconry (hunting with the use of a trained bird of prey), goshawks and peregrine falcons are the two traditional choices in bird

OCS: the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates School (OCS) is a training regiment designed to screen and evaluate potential Marine Corps Officers. Whereas enlisted Marines go through Recruit Training (aka boot camp), officers go through OCS. It's located at USMC Base Quantico. You might recall that Alice started her military career flying F-16s with the Air Force, then moved over to the Marines. She was already commissioned as an officer.

Papakha: a high wool hat traditionally worn by men throughout the Caucasus and also in uniformed regiments in the region and beyond

Sandbox: this was military slang for Iraq and sometimes Afghanistan

Topol: the RT-2PM2 "Topol-M" is one of the most recent intercontinental ballistic missiles to be deployed by Russia. The Topol-M is a single-stage warhead weapon, with an 800 kT yield. It may be deployed either inside a reinforced missile silo or from an APU launcher mounted on the MZKT-79221 "Universal" 16-wheeled transporter-erector-launcher.

Vainakh towers: are a characteristic feature of ancient and medieval architecture of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Typical Vainakh towers were built on a square base, ranging from 6 to 12 m wide and 10 to 25 m high, depending on the function. They were used historically for both military and residential purposes. Vainakh or Nakh peoples are a group of North Caucasian peoples identified by their use of the Nakh languages and other cultural similarities. These are chiefly the ethnic Chechen (including the Chechen sub-ethnos, the Kists, in Georgia), Ingush and Bats peoples of the North Caucasus.