Library

Search

Home / Romance Short Story / His Wife, His Wingman, His Regret / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of His Wife, His Wingman, His Regret: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

11 Chapters

Chapter 1

Before flight school, I had passed polar survival training, open-water ejection recovery, and high-altitude decompression drills. Later, I graduated first in my class and entered North Ridge Air Base as the youngest lead pilot under Ethan Hale's command.One more round of final evaluations, and I would qualify as an ace pilot.All three missions went wrong.The first was a nighttime low-altitude recovery through a storm front. I was ordered to retrieve an encrypted navigation core from a prototype drone that had gone off course. I brought the core back intact, but the aircraft took heavy damage in the thunderstorm, and the mission was marked as a failure.The second was air support for a border hostage rescue. I had the target zone locked and the ground team was seconds from closing in when the enemy suddenly changed position. I dropped altitude to buy the team time to evacuate. The hostages survived, but the planned capture failed, and I lost the evaluation again.The third was an esc

Chapter 2

The alarm ripped through the operations floor before I could close the DARPA email.I shot to my feet and ran for the classified maintenance bay.I had been grounded for review for the past year, and that section had been under my supervision the entire time. I knew the condition of every aircraft inside better than anyone.When I reached the hangar, red warning lights swept across the concrete floor. At the far bay, Chloe Bennett stood beside my jet, clutching a restricted maintenance terminal.My stomach dropped.That terminal was linked to the aircraft's emergency purge system. Once activated, it would burn through the classified avionics bay and destroy every protected system on board. A junior flight candidate had no business touching it."Put it down," I said.Chloe turned as if startled, her eyes already red. "Ava, I was only checking the diagnostic panel. I thought Ethan wanted me to learn the system.""Put the terminal on the floor and step away from the aircraft."She looked

Chapter 3

The escort mission was worse than expected.The wind had already picked up outside the remote test site, and turbulence pressed through the valley in stacked layers. When I took off with Dr. Hayes on board, the aircraft bucked hard enough to trigger a short warning tone. I held the stick steady, cut along the edge of the cloud wall, and fought through several crosswinds that nearly pushed us back toward the storm.Dr. Hayes did not speak the entire flight.After landing, he unfastened his harness and took a black credential folder from his briefcase."Headquarters has already arranged your new identity, Major Ava Morgan," he said. "Arlington wants you on site as soon as possible."I opened the folder and saw the DARPA clearance mark."Tomorrow."He studied me for a moment, then nodded. "That can be done."Before I flew back, I entered the confirmation code printed inside the folder.On the return flight, I kept my eyes on the route. Twenty minutes from North Ridge Air Base, the radar d

Chapter 4

After Ethan finished the runway incident report and handed Chloe's file to the duty physician, he returned to his base apartment before dark.He assumed Ava was still angry.She had always been proud. After being ordered to apologize to Chloe, of course she would not come back quietly. But she would return. Her flight record, rank, home, and Ethan were all at North Ridge.Tomorrow was their anniversary.Ethan had taken the day off and booked the lakeside restaurant outside the base. Ava had once said the runway lights looked like a river of stars from there at night.He opened the desk drawer and took out a dark-blue velvet box.Inside was a custom flight-wing pin with Ava's name and the coordinates of their first joint mission engraved on the back. He planned to pin it to her uniform at dinner and tell her he would personally recommend her to the review board.She would be happy.Ethan picked up his phone and sent a message.[Tomorrow morning at nine. I'll pick you up for our annivers

Chapter 5

Ethan stayed with Chloe until the sky outside went completely dark.She kept clutching his sleeve, saying that every time she closed her eyes, she was back in that warehouse. In the past, he would have softened because of it. Tonight, all he could see was Ava walking out of the hospital room without looking back.For the first time, he thought this was wrong."Chloe." He pulled his sleeve from her hand. "I'll arrange a therapist for you, and I'll request a transfer out of North Ridge. But I can't keep staying with you like this."Chloe froze, tears spilling instantly. "You don't want me anymore?""That's not what I said." Ethan's voice lowered. "But you can't keep treating me like the only person who can save you."Her face went pale."Tomorrow matters to me." Ethan picked up his jacket. "I need to see Ava."Chloe stared at him. "Because she's your wife?""Yes."This time, he did not hesitate.Chloe's hand slowly dropped, and something cold flashed through her eyes too quickly for him

Chapter 6

Chloe's face went pale."I don't know what you mean." She clutched the jacket in her arms, tears still on her cheeks. "Ethan, Blue is missing, and you care more about some phone call?"Ethan did not move."I asked why you answered the flight medicine center's call last night and didn't tell me. Or Ava."Chloe's breathing faltered, but she quickly began crying again. "I was scared. The doctor used all these medical terms, and I didn't understand. I didn't mean to hide anything."I didn't mean to.He had heard that too many times.The purge system had been an accident. The runway incident had been panic. The ruined evaluations had all been mistakes. Yet every time, Ava was the one left paying for them.Ethan's voice cooled. "Security can handle Blue. Move."Chloe froze, then blocked the door. "You're going to her?""Yes.""She already left you." Her voice rose. "What's the point of chasing her now?"The words hit him wrong.Ethan looked at her. "How do you know she left?"Chloe seemed to

Chapter 7

The DARPA helicopter did not land at headquarters. It touched down at a closed airfield outside Arlington.Dawn had just broken, and a thin layer of fog covered the tarmac. I shifted my flight bag to my left shoulder, my right hand still numb, and had barely reached the security lane when an unmarked black SUV stopped outside the exit.The window lowered.Julian Hayes sat in the back seat with a file open on his lap and a cup of black coffee beside him.His gaze dropped to my right hand."You can still carry your own bag. That's better than the report suggested."I stopped. "Is this how you usually comfort injured people?""I usually don't." He closed the file. "Get in. The doctors are waiting."That sounded like the Julian I remembered.I first met him at a military flight simulation assessment. He was there on behalf of an aerospace engineering lab to record system-limit data, while I had to land a simulator with its failure rate set absurdly high.After the assessment, everyone else

Chapter 8

Ethan stood in the empty hospital room, the St. Christopher medal clenched in his hand until his knuckles turned white.The resignation and divorce agreement lay on the nightstand. Ava's signature was clean, steady, and without hesitation.Fragments he had ignored began rising in his mind.Years ago, when he had been invited to give a lecture at flight school, a young woman had stayed behind after class. Her eyes had been bright when she asked whether rescue pilots could always bring people out of the dark.He had thought the question naive and answered casually, "Not every time. But we try."Later, at a celebration dinner, someone teased Ava about having liked him for years. She denied it with flushed cheeks, but when he looked at her, her fingers moved instinctively toward the side of her neck, as if something had once hung there.Then there was their first winter after marriage.Ava had leaned against his shoulder and asked softly, "Ethan, do you remember the girl from your first fi

Chapter 9

On the way to the base conference room, Ethan read the rest of the file.By the time they reached the door, the rescue identity was no longer a question. The old extraction footage, medical transfer record, and St. Christopher registration all confirmed what the medal had already told him.When the heavy conference room door opened, the room was already full. JAG inspectors, base security, flight medicine, and the accident investigation team sat around the table. The air felt pressed flat.Chloe sat on the other side, pale and rigid.The moment she saw Ethan, her eyes lit up. She stood as if she had found her last chance."Ethan," she said, voice shaking, "tell them this is fake. Ava hates me. She made this up to ruin me."Countless times before, he had stepped in front of her when she cried.This time, Ethan did not look at her.He walked to the head of the table and nodded to the lead inspector.The inspector pushed a file toward him. "Commander Hale, the preliminary evidence against

Chapter 10

The favor Julian needed was for me to attend a closed reception hosted by a defense technology foundation.The event was held after hours inside an aviation museum. Retired aircraft hung above the hall, the glass ceiling reflected the deep blue night, and most of the guests wore dark formalwear with security badges pinned discreetly near their lapels.I wore a silver-gray satin suit. The brace on my right hand had finally come off, leaving only a pale support band at my wrist. When I saw myself in the mirror, I paused for a moment.For too many years, I had known myself only in flight suits, pressure gear, combat boots, and helmet-flattened hair. Standing there without waiting for a command, I almost looked like someone with a life outside the cockpit.Julian handed me a glass of sparkling water. "Nervous?""A little." I looked toward the old reconnaissance aircraft in the center of the hall. "This is harder than a runway."He smiled. "Then think of them as moving ground targets."That

PREV

NEXT

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP

DMCA.com Protection Status