Chapter 3

Isaac's POV

“Then you’ll knock your head on the ground one hundred times. Not a single one less. I want to hear every impact. If you can do that,” she continued lightly, “I’ll be generous enough to let you retreat. How does that sound?”

“This is murder!” Lauren shouted beside me, her voice breaking. “She’s using us as tools to kill you! Captain, she never intended to let us live. She’s forcing you—”

But I raised my hand, cutting her off.

Of course, I understood.

No one knew me better than Diana Crossfield.

She knew exactly what the honor of this unit, the dignity of its captain, and a man’s unbending spine meant to me.

That was her goal. To crush me completely. To grind into the dirt everything I had spent my life protecting in front of my team, in front of the people I had sworn to protect, and in front of any records that might survive this battlefield.

Five years ago, under the eyes of everyone, I had thrown away her dignity and her hopes at our wedding.

Now, standing on the edge of life and death, she wanted it all back with interest.

“Isaac,” Diana’s voice cut into the channel again. “Have you made your decision? Let me guess how long your ammunition will last. Three minutes? Or maybe not even the next second?”

Pure rage shattered the last wall of restraint. “Diana! Do you even understand what you’re doing?! This is a crime! I will report you! I will have you charged!”

But what answered me was a soft, contemptuous laugh. “True. But that’s only if someone survives long enough to accuse me.”

In that instant, a bone-deep chill seized my heart.

I froze, finally understanding what she meant.

She was absolutely certain that this isolated unit would never make it out alive.

“Captain, don’t listen to her!” Lauren said urgently. “We can contact headquarters and bypass her command!”

I shook my head slowly, exhaustion washing over me like a tide. “It won’t work. This mission is classified at the highest level. She has direct command authority. Without top-tier override orders, our distress calls won’t go through.”

“Along the withdrawal route, this is the only terrain we can use to delay them. If we pull out without support, we’ll be nothing but moving targets in open ground. She calculated everything,” I explained.

Lauren’s voice cracked with despair. “So… there’s really no other way? We can only…”

I reached into my inner pocket and pulled out my last crumpled cigarette, lighting it with the fading embers of gun smoke around us.

The weak flame flickered in the cold night, eerily similar to that rushed night outside the airport five years ago.

Back then, I’d lit a cigarette the same way as I carried my unconscious, gravely ill mother on my back, turning to face Diana's tear-streaked eyes.

“Isaac, if you walk away today, I’ll never forgive you for the rest of my life!” Her cries still echoed in my ears.

I had thought that burning those three years of love to ash was the full price fate demanded of me.

I never imagined that the hatred she carried for five years would come to collect in this way—by wagering the lives of more than a hundred strangers who had nothing to do with us.

“Captain! A civilian’s been hit by a stray round, his arm is wounded, and he's bleeding! He needs immediate evacuation!” The medic’s tearful voice ripped through the tense silence.

That voice was the final straw.

I took a long drag from the cigarette, and the last light in my eyes went out.

“Lauren, take command. Hold the position for three minutes, and I’ll bring you home.”