Chapter 10 - The Weight of the Return
The descent into Jacksonville was smooth, the evening sun casting long, golden shadows across the flat coastal pines and winding salt marshes of the North Carolina border.
When the aircraft touched down and taxied toward the gate, the cabin filled with the usual rustle of passengers unbuckling seatbelts and reaching overhead for their luggage. But for the three of us in row fourteen, the atmosphere was entirely different.
We walked off the plane and through the terminal into the cool evening air. Master Gunny Vance was waiting for us by the arrivals curb, leaning against the side of his truck with a lit cigarette between his fingers. When he saw Barrett, Nico, and me walking side by side through the sliding glass doors, he tossed the cigarette into a nearby sand urn and straightened up.
"Status?" Vance asked, his eyes darting to the data drive I held tucked inside my leather portfolio.
"We have the complete module," Barrett said, tossing his duffel bag into the truck bed. "Sterling tried to play chess with a stacked deck, but he didn't realize we had the original pieces."
Vance let out a short, grim breath of relief. "Good. Because base command just tried to pull Sergeant Romano’s platoon records twenty minutes ago. I intercepted the request at the staff duty desk before it hit the colonel's desk. Told them it was logged under an active counter-intelligence review."
Nico stared at Vance, a mixture of shock and profound gratitude crossing his face. "You put your own career on the line for that, Master Gunny?"
"Your sister kept my brother-in-law alive in Sangin, Romano," Vance said, clapping a heavy hand onto Nico's shoulder. "Paying that back isn't a career risk. It's just doing the math."
I stood apart from them for a moment, looking out across the crowded airport parking lot. The neon signs of Jacksonville were flickering to life against the deepening twilight.
My past life—the classified briefings, the burning helicopters, the call sign Sticky Six, and the institutional shadows that had chased me across a decade—had finally collided with my present life. I hadn't been able to keep them separate, and for the first time, I realized I didn't need to. The illusion that I could protect my family by hiding who I was had shattered completely, replaced by something much stronger: the reality that we could stand together against whatever came next.
Nico walked over to me, hands in his pockets, looking down at the pavement before raising his eyes to meet mine.
"So," Nico said, a faint, familiar grin breaking through his exhaustion. "Does this mean you're moving back to North Carolina for good?"
"Don't push it, Sergeant," I replied, though I couldn't help smiling back. "I still have to figure out what I'm going to do with a retired colonel in Atlanta who thinks he can run my life."
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"Let him try," Nico said, glancing at Barrett and Vance, who were already climbing into the truck. "He's got a whole platoon of Marines to get through first."
I slipped the data drive into my bag, took one last breath of the coastal air, and walked toward the truck, knowing that while the questions of the past had finally been answered, the story of who we were together was only just beginning.
