The Plan for Vengeance

​POV: Jarrah

​The tactical floor at Calaby headquarters smelled of gun oil and fresh thermal prints. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the room was bathed in the harsh red glow of the war map projected across the main wall.

​Malia stood at the head of the steel conference table. She hadn't slept a second. The tear stains on her cheeks had dried into pale ribbons, and her eyes were rimmed with bloodshot exhaustion, but the wild grief from three hours ago had hardened into a sharp, terrifying focus.

​"We strike tonight," she declared, slamming a satellite photograph down onto the stainless steel surface. Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion, and totally uncompromising. "Alastair is at Kilsyth Estate. He has been there since Tuesday. We take two tactical units, breach the southern gate, cut the power grid, and put a bullet in his head before his private security even knows the perimeter has been compromised."

​I sat in the swivel chair at the head of the table, leaning back with my arms crossed over my chest, watching her. Every instinct in my body screamed at the sight of her like this, a wounded creature trying to sprint into an open bear trap.

​"No," I said quietly.

​Malia snapped her head toward me, her eyes flaring with instant aggression. "What did you say?"

​"I said no, Malia." I stood up slowly, letting my full height dominate the space between us. "We are not striking Kilsyth tonight. We aren't striking it tomorrow night either."

​"He murdered Callan!" She slammed both palms down on the metal table, the sound echoing through the empty hall like a gunshot. "The evidence is sitting in that broken terminal! He is sitting in his mansion drinking thirty-year-old scotch while my brother is six feet under! You promised me we’d kill him!"

​"And we will." I stepped around the table, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating from her face. "But I won't let you throw your life away to satisfy a suicide fantasy. Have you actually looked at the tactical schematics for Kilsyth Holdings, or are you just staring at your father's house?"

​I reached out, tapped the holoprojector, and brought up the thermal layout of the Kilsyth Estate.

​"Look at it, Malia!" I demanded, my tone sharp, cutting through her blind fury. "He has a twenty-man mercenary unit on a twenty-four-hour rotation. Ex-SAS contractors. The perimeter is lined with seismic sensors, infrared motion detectors, and autonomous turret emplacements along the perimeter wall. The moment a non-cleared vehicle breaches that gate, the entire compound goes into lockdown, the safe room seals with six inches of reinforced titanium, and a secondary security force flushes the grounds with CS gas. You wouldn't make it thirty feet past the driveway before a sniper puts a round through your chest."

​"Then I'll die trying!" she yelled, her chest heaving as she stepped right into my personal space, poking a trembling forefinger into my chest. "I don't care about the turrets! I don't care about his mercenaries! I care about justice!"

​"That isn't justice, Malia! That's slaughter!" I grabbed her hand, wrapping my fingers around her wrist to stop her from poking me, my voice rising to match her fury. "You think you're the only one who wants him dead? You think I don't want to tear Alastair Vane apart with my bare hands for what he's done to you, for what he did to your family?"

​"Then help me!" she sobbed, anger and sorrow warring wildly in her tone. "Stop hiding behind logistics and maps and help me crush him!"

​"I am trying to keep you alive!" I roared, losing my composure for a brief, dangerous second. I stepped closer, pinning her against the edge of the heavy table, towering over her. "You want vengeance? Vengeance requires patience. It requires cold, calculating precision. The moment you let your temper control your trigger finger, you lose."

​She glared up at me, her teeth gritted, her jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched beneath her pale skin. "You're afraid."

​The insult hung in the cold air between us like poison.

​I leaned down until my lips were barely an inch from hers, my eyes narrowing into slit slits of dark fire. "I am terrified," I admitted, my voice dropping into a harsh, intimate whisper that vibrated through her frame. "I am terrified of losing you, Malia. I have faced down cartel bosses, corrupt politicians, and death squads without my pulse spiking above sixty. But the thought of carrying your body out of Kilsyth Estate drives me out of my fucking mind."

​Malia froze, her heavy breathing faltering as the raw honesty of my words struck her.

​"I love you," I told her, my grip on her wrist softening, my hand moving up to cup her neck, feeling the rapid, frantic beat of her carotid artery beneath my thumb. "I love you too much to let you commit suicide just to make him suffer for an hour. We pull him out of Kilsyth. We strip him of his defenses. We pick the battlefield, not him."

​She looked up at me, her eyes searching mine, searching for weakness, for hesitation. But all she found was an iron wall of devotion.

​"Promise me," she whispered, her voice cracking as a single tear escaped her lash line. "Promise me he won't walk away from this."

​"He dies," I promised, pressing my forehead against hers, breathing in the scent of her skin. "I give you my word. But we do it my way."

​She lowered her head, leaning her weight against me for a lingering moment. I thought I had broken through the wall of her rage.

​I was wrong.