CHAPTER ONE

==1.5 YEARS AFTER THE BREAKUP==

The base pulsed with heat and noise. That dry, metallic kind of heat that gets into your teeth and makes everything look like a mirage.

The flight line shimmered as heat waves rose off the concrete, watering the eyes. Somewhere beyond the hangars, a Black Hawk kicked up a storm on liftoff and jets tore across the sky with sonic howls. Radios cracked, tools clanked, and ground crew barked strained call-outs, trying to be heard over the roar. Sweat, sun, and grit, this was the rhythm of a United States Air Force base.

And in the middle of it all, Major Matilda Hollis stood still. A pocket of calm in the chaos. A fixed point—boots planted, mouth set, and shades on. Her gold-rimmed Caravans caught the desert glare and reflected it back like hellfire. Her flight suit was stripped to her waist, and her sleeves were knotted at her hips. A black tank clung tight to the lean length of her back, and her dog tags glinted against her chest. Her blonde hair was twisted into a messy knot that said: Try me. Ah’ fuckin’ dare you.

And behind her a beat-up old boombox sat perched on a refueling cart, too close to her bird, way outside protocol, but nobody was gonna say a damn thing.

The song tore through the speaker like a wild animal in heat, screeching, and relentless, and smeared in leather and smoke. The snarl of guitars cut through the din like a blade, and Axl Rose’s voice hit, unhinged, and ecstatic.

“Do you know where you are?” There was a pause as tension flexed its muscles. “You’re in the jungle, baby.” And then, the words seemed to grin. “You’re gonna die.”

It didn’t feel like a lyric. It felt like judgment from on high. And, as the rock continued to roll, Matilda lifted her hands and rolled her hips once. And, then again. She moved them slow and smooth, fighter-pilot arrogant and honky-tonk wicked. The kind of movement that said she could outfly you at 1,500 miles an hour and still two-step you into trouble before last call.

It was barely a dance that she offered. Just a subtle, devastating shift of weight. But, her arms stayed raised, framing the long line of her torso, and the unhurried sway of her hips was the sort of thing that could bring any man to his knees. And any woman, and that's really all that pinged on Matilda’s radar.

The ground crew didn’t flinch, though some pants were growing tighter. They’d seen this before, it was Matilda's ritual. It wasn’t just a song anymore. It was a fierce woman's finger on the trigger, a war cry in ripped denim. The kind of blasphemy that the gods had no answer for.

For a lot of the crews, this was their favorite part of the day. Most of them were men, and all of them knew she was gay, but you couldn’t not look at Matilda. She was worse than a Michael Bay film. She finished her move and stood backlit by the sun, with her hips tipped just so, one knee soft, and the other one locked. Her jaw moved slow to the bass-line, and sweat trickled down the curve of her neck and glistened at her collarbone. Every part of her body spoke of something sharp, sensual, and indifferent to being watched.

This was her last breath of freedom before war buckled her in, so every part of her pulsed with don’t-fuck-with-me energy. She was coiled, slick, and hotter than sex.

She and her sister had been raised by their uncle in Fort Worth on hard rock and high altitudes. The kind of music that came with cigarette smoke in the solos and a dangerous swagger in the bassline. There were cowboy hats on the dash, and Cessnas in the sky. Church, for Matilda, was the golden age of guitar gods, all snarled lyrics and god-tier riffs. It wasn’t just music, it was flight with a backbeat. Fast, loud, and more than wild. AC/DC. Guns. A little Zeppelin if the mood was right. 

Once her helmet went on, it would be comms, kill zones, and cold-blooded math. But until then? Attitude, pure and undiluted. Maverick was a choirboy with a learner’s permit by comparison.

Reyes, her longtime crew chief, didn’t even try to stop it anymore. He just leaned against the ladder, large arms crossed, shades on, watching her slip into the zone. “Let the major finish her gospel,” he’d call to the junior techs. “The Gunners are still preachin’.”

A few of them chuckled, but everyone knew better than to interrupt her. Once upon a time, Reyes might’ve written her up and called her reckless. Now? He just grinned and enjoyed the show.

When the track finally cut, he tipped his chin toward her. “You ready now, Major?” he drawled. “You actually plannin’ to fly the damn thing?”

Matilda looked at him over the rim of her frames. “Hell yes,” she purred. “Shes fast, unreasonable, and beautiful.”

She popped her gum, slow and smug. “That’s the jet, Reyes. Not your wife.”

She jerked her thumb toward her Raptor, “This girl actually knows where my G-spot is.”

The crew lost it. Laughter ricocheted off the tarmac, bright and sharp, threaded with something else. She was fun, but that tone meant don’t fuckin’ test her.

Matilda turned and began packing away the boombox herself, and one of the junior techs let his gaze drift toward her hips. It was a mistake and she caught it. She paused, and tilted her head, slow as a knife turning. “You wanna touch somethin’, sweetheart?” Her voice was velvet and threat. “Try consequences. They’ve got your name on ’em.”

The kid blanched like he’d aged five years, and Reyes wheezed behind his sunglasses.

Matilda didn’t spare them another look, she undid her sleeves, put her arms through them and pulled the flight suit up in one fluid motion. She zipped it to the collar, snapped on her gloves, then climbed the ladder without flair. This wasn’t a joyride. This was a Red Flag intercept sim, full throttle, full contact, no room for tourists. And Major Matilda “Viper Belle” Hollis? Well, fuck, she liked to keep score.

=====

Inside the cockpit, the heat vanished as the canopy hissed shut behind her, sealing her in. Everything narrowed, and everything locked in.

MFDs came alive in shades of green and amber. HUD flickered, then stabilized. Systems booted in quiet sync, each tone and flicker familiar, like fingers tapping morse code on her chest: You alive, darlin’?

Matilda exhaled slowly through her nose. Switches flicked, hands moved, and her eyes scanned. The flow was practiced and seamless. The Raptor thrummed under her, not metal, not anymore. A living thing, coiled and waiting to be released.

“Control, this is Viper Belle. F-22 systems green. Requesting clearance for Red Flag sim, track Alpha.”

“Affirmative, Viper Belle. Solo flight confirmed. Track Alpha is active. Cleared runway two-eight. Sim conditions hot.”

“Copy that. Wheels up in sixty.” Her grin reflected her call-sign, and toggled her mic one last time. “Tell the boys I’m comin’, n’ I wanna dance.”

Throttle forward, brakes off, the jet surged down the runway like it had somewhere to be and didn’t care who it ran over to get there. Wind screamed past the canopy. She didn’t flinch.

And then it came, that split-second moment, impossible to fake, when the wheels lifted… and the world let her go. Matilda’s stomach dipped, her eyes smiled, and she climbed, rising smooth and sure into the sky that had been waiting for her. Welcome to the jungle, baby.

=====

Once she cleared restricted airspace, it was all hers. Sim combat initiated: she pulled high-G turns, fast and clean. Banked into blind zones and broke locks. She dove low and came up hard. She flared, disappeared, reappeared, shadowed bandits, and nailed the merge. One by one, the HUD flashed green, simulated kills stacking like poker chips.

1… 2… 3…

Her jaw locked, her breathing steady. Every movement tuned to instinct and math. No past. No pain… No Alice. Just the G-force whispering through her ribs, the silence between heartbeats, and the sky splitting open for her like it knew her by name. God, this made her wet.

The world below unfurled in ochre and bone, jagged ridgelines carved by wind and war, ancient wadis snaking like veins through the plateau. There were rusted rooftops glinting in the sun, and villages huddled beneath the hills. Smoke blurred the horizon in thin, curling strands. And a convoy kicked up dust in the distance, too far to track, but noted all the same.

And the sky, God, the sky was raw and immense. The kind of sky that didn’t care what bled beneath it. It was a blue so pale it looked sunburned.

She banked left, hard, and the horizon spun. Her body compressed into the seat, and the harness bit deep, but still she smiled.

Mach 1.3, the Raptor coiled around her. She dipped low, scraping just above the dust line, then pulled into a corkscrew climb that tore through a layer of haze and punched into clean altitude. Ground radar blinked and lost her, and somewhere behind her, simulated missiles missed by a breath. Yee-haw, ladies. This was what she was made for. No radio chatter, no ghosts, just the hungry growl of the jet, the ripple of heat off the wings, and the smooth, sensual clarity of a world she could finally control.

Up here, she wasn’t someone who’d left. She was someone who could never be caught.

She veered west, sun at her back, and watched the shadows stretch across the desert floor with long, reaching hands. She exhaled slowly, letting the pressure release, and felt the flight settle into her ribs. She pulled into a final arc, a high loop that left vapor in her wake, and laughed, soft and wild. Women could lock her out, but the sky never did.

=====

The Raptor finally rolled to a halt, its twin engines winding down in a long, metallic exhale.

Matilda ran a gloved thumb along the curve of her jaw, then she moved, unclipping, and rising from the cockpit, swinging a leg over the seat. The ladder clanged once under her boots, and Reyes was waiting on the ground, towel over one shoulder, grinning. “How’s she flyin’, Major?”

Matilda glanced back at the jet, gave its nose a firm, affectionate pat. “This girl listens when I talk dirty.”

Reyes let out a hoarse laugh. She smirked, tugging her gloves off one finger at a time. “Ah’ knew there was a reason ah’ kept you ‘round, Reyes. Thank you.”

He held up both hands. “What can I say? I like my girls mean and aerodynamic. You just make her sing.”

Matilda cocked a brow, “Guess that makes us a hell of a duet.”

Reyes offered a fist. “Shit, yes.”

She bumped it without looking and grinned, showing her teeth in the lazy heat, slipping her Caravans back on. She pulled a hair tie from a pocket and twisted her blonde hair back into a knot.

From across the tarmac, someone yelled: “Viper..! Debrief at sixteen hundred.”

She lifted two fingers in acknowledgment, never breaking stride. “Copy that,” she called back. 

=====

The base showers weren’t built for comfort, but for Matilda, they were pretty damn close to a sanctuary. She stood beneath the torrent, bare and unmoving, the heat hammering down on her scalp in pulsing waves. Water streamed down the nape of her neck and traced the deep line between her shoulder blades, before flowing down the long muscled valley of her spine. Eventually it spilled over the firm curve of her backside, before sluicing over the long, lithe sweep of her legs. 

It moved reverently, charting familiar territory, muscle and and damage. It caressed her like it knew her better than anyone still alive did. 

Steam wrapped around her like smoke and clung to the carved lines of her torso, the inner arc of her arms, and the coiled strength of her thighs. It kissed the underswell of her breasts and shimmered faintly in the low amber light, like candlelight on bronze. One droplet slipped slowly down the slope of her breast, gliding across the soft swell of her areola before catching on the shadowed tip of her half-hardened nipple, clinging there for a breath as though reluctant to let go before finally falling away.

Her hands hung at her sides, fingers twitching, the ghost of a joystick still lived there, curled into her grip. Here, she surrendered the sky. Here, flight fell away, piece by piece, and left only her.

Her freckles, scattered across her shoulders, arms, and nose, bloomed back to life. She turned to reach for the soap with a slow twist at the waist, and that’s when it showed: there was ink beneath her left breast. Small, scripted coordinates, etched in a blue so dark it nearly looked black across the curve of her ribcage, a secret she’d made permanent. A brand only she understood, and one no shower would wash away.

It marked the place she’d first met her, where Alice Thorne had walked into that hangar all flint and shadow and silence, looked straight at her, and claimed her heart and soul in an instant.

Alice had spoken with clipped precision and no time for charm. And, Matilda, still slick with jet fuel and half a protein bar deep—and wanting to show off—had leaned back in her chair, boots crossed on the table, and said: “You always this fun at parties, ma’am, or just when you’re ruinin’ my coffee break?”

The temperature in the room had dropped five degrees. Alice hadn’t blinked when she replied with ice in her voice and her crisp English accent taking no prisoners, “I don’t attend parties, Captain Hollis. I end wars.” 

Then, she’d stepped forward, a whisper of a sway in her hips that made the movement feel more like a hunt than a walk. Her eyes locked onto Matilda’s, unblinking, and she spoke again, her voice softened to something low and intimate, but still loud enough for all to hear. “And if I’m in the room, it’s because someone has been difficult… and I’m here to make sure they never are again.”

The briefing had proceeded—barely. But something sharp and electric had passed between them, and they’d both recognized it. Matilda never forgot the way Alice looked at her before walking out of the briefing, like she couldn’t decide whether to have her court-martialed or summoned to her bed.

Matilda sighed and turned off the shower and grabbed her towel, dragging it slowly over each flushed curve, before wrapping it low around her hips, leaving her chest bare.

=====

A few minutes later, Matilda stepped out of the locker bay, grey tee clinging clean to sun-warmed skin, regulation fatigues slung low on her hips. Boots scuffed and double-laced. Face bare, and unapologetically so. No makeup, no jewelry, no scent. Just soap and skin.

Her hair, still damp from the shower, curled in dark gold strands, and fell loose down her back, haloing her neck. She moved with her signature, bone-deep calm. The kind of swagger that comes from knowing every inch of air belongs to you until proven otherwise. And so far? She was untouchable.

She strolled into the pilot’s lounge, a humming box of recycled air and cracked vinyl chairs that had seen better wars. A vending machine stuttered in the corner near where two couches sagged. Everything smelled like sweat, caffeine, and sarcasm.

She’d barely cleared the doorway when the commentary caught up to her:

“I swear to God, she flew inverted over the ridge, clipped a treetop, and still got the lock before the bogey knew what hit him.”

A pause. Then another voice, equal parts admiration and awe: “That’s why they call her Viper Belle. She’ll charm the hell outta you, then sink her teeth in.”

Laughter followed. Loose and indulgent. “I heard it was ‘cause she kissed the crew chief after her first kill. Damn near stopped his heart.” A low whistle. A young feminine voice cut in, “She’d stop my heart with a kiss.”

Matilda didn’t break stride when she rounded the corner, shoulders loose, and eyes sweeping the room in one glance. Half her squadron was there, plus a few glassy-eyed rookies who still thought myths wore dog tags. Reyes was by the vending machine, pretending he stood apart.

“Y’all really oughta start chargin’ admission,” she drawled, voice slow and slick with Texas sun. “If you’re fixin’ to keep tellin’ bedtime stories ‘bout me.”

Silence hit like a sonic boom. Then chaos: “Major Hollis—“

“We were just—”

“Ma’am…”

She lifted one hand, there was no need to raise her voice. She smiled, slow and sassy, “Although,” she said, letting the pause sharpen, “I did like the one about kissing the crew chief.” She glanced toward him. “He looks a little pale, don’t he?”

She paused for effect. “Alas, no man could handle my lips. Last one tried, he texts me twice a year from a meditation retreat.”

Reyes snorted into his coffee, someone aspirated a protein bar, and the youngest, the female rookie, flinched like she’d just been kissed by god herself, and was somehow to blame for it. Matilda dropped into a chair and crossed one long leg over the other, lean, relaxed, and dangerous in a way you couldn’t get a vaccine for.

“Y’know,” she said around a bite, “Taylor Tomlinson once said: ‘Confidence is walking into a room and assumin’ everyone’s already obsessed with you.’”

She paused. Swallowed. Then deadpanned: “I think she stole that from me, ‘cause I’ve been walkin’ into rooms like that since preschool.”

Laughter broke out. She caught the female rookie’s stare, cheeks red, jaw slack. She was cute.

“Aw, sugar.” She grinned, slow and lethal. “You’d blush just sayin’ Viper Belle. You sure you’re cleared for live ammo?” 

Then she winked at her, the kind of lazy wink that came with a warning label and a two-week recovery time.

=====

1600 Tactical Operations Center - Forward Base 332

The TOC always smelled like burnt coffee and overclocked circuits, and air that had been filtered one too many times.

Matilda sat low in her chair near the center of the steel conference table, elbows braced to her knees, forearms tanned and dusted from the desert, hands hanging’ loose. Eyes forward, brows low, n’ ears open.

Colonel Sayers stood at the front, posture sharp, tapping through a slideshow with a battered remote. His voice was clipped, all business.

“You’re looking at grid Echo-Seven-Five. Ten clicks east of the border. Temporary outpost, rough terrain, limited comms. Extraction priority is HVT, call sign Pale Fire. You’ll receive the dossier post-brief.”

The projector flicked through terrain scans. It was all jagged ridgelines, and a narrow valley threaded with sand-choked switchbacks.

“Asset is civilian intel,” Sayers continued. “Eyes-only placement. Hostile territory, limited window. Convoy scheduled to move before dawn. We pull them before they cross, or we don’t pull them at all.”

Matilda exhaled through her nose, slow. “Flight plan?” she asked, low but clear.

Sayers nodded to the screen. A narrow flight corridor lit up in red, winding between peaks like a thread through a needle.

“You’ll take Raptor lead, Hollis. Lt. Mori on your wing. AWACS support above Ankara, but we’re blind once you dip low. Weapons tight, rules of engagement are clear: no ordnance unless fired upon. We’re dancing close to airspace protocols.”

Matilda’s jaw ticked. “Copy that.”

One of the men standing behind Sayers, a mid-level suit, with an awkward haircut, who had probably never seen a cockpit up close, shifted on his feet. He carried a locked briefcase and a clipboard he hadn’t looked at once. Not unusual, just annoying as fuck.

Mori, callsign, Rook, leaned in slightly from the seat beside her. “No pressure,” he murmured under his breath. “Just a deep dive through enemy airspace with our hands tied behind our backs.”

Matilda didn’t turn her head, she liked Mori. He was one of the good guys. She tapped her thigh again. “If it’s not dangerous,” she muttered, “they wouldn’t have called us.”

Sayers glanced at them. “Any questions?”

Matilda raised two fingers without looking up. “Yeah. You got a backup plan in case our birds get haircuts on those ridgelines?”

Sayers gave a dry, mirthless smile. “Don’t hit the ridgelines.”

She nodded once. “Solid strategy.”

There were a few low chuckles. The tension didn’t break, but it loosened enough to breathe.

“Wheels up at oh-three-hundred,” Sayers finished. “Final package is uploading to your briefs. Walkout in one hour. Dismissed.”

=====

Evening was falling sharp and dry over the flightline. The last of the sun scattered gold across the tarmac as Matilda walked alongside Mori toward the hangars, their boots crunching gravel. Her hands were in her pockets. His weren’t, he was pulling up the terrain scan on his tablet like it might give him answers.

“You good with this profile?” he asked.

She nodded once, not breaking stride. “I’ve flown tighter airspace.”

“You ever flown it with a political leash and no margin for error?”

She side-eyed him. “Define error.”

He smirked and Matilda cracked a grin, short and crooked. “Could be worse,” she said. “Could be one of those navy boys in a flying brick.”

Mori shook his head, lips twitching. “You’re gonna make me feel nostalgic when you die dramatically.”

Matilda stopped walking, and looked up toward the low horizon. The heat was still bleeding off the earth, but the wind was cooling. She didn’t say anything for a moment, then: “I’m not dying dramatically.”

“No?”

“If I go out,” she said, dryly, “I want it to be stupid. Mid-bite of a sandwich. Slipped on a wet floor. Something that makes it hard for them to put my name on a plaque.”

Mori laughed. “You’re a damn menace.” Then, “So what’s the play?”

Matilda turned to look at him, eyes glinting cool blue in the amber wash of dusk. “We fly clean. We fly sharp. We come back alive.”

Mori gave a slow nod. “And if someone shoots first?”

Matilda’s mouth curved, not quite a smile, but something hungrier. “Then I reckon they best pray their aim’s holier n’mine, or I’ll show ‘em why you don’t pull on the girl wearin’ snakeskin boots.”

Mori looked at her sideways. “You always talk like a Sergio Leone villain before a mission?”

She shrugged. “Only when the lighting’s good.”

He grinned and Matilda turned back toward the horizon. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Let’s hope that’s enough to get us back.”

They stood in silence for a beat longer. The sun slipped away like it had somewhere better to be. Somewhere safer.

=====

==ALICE THORNE==

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Time: 01:07 a.m.

Alias: Lucía Moreno

The villa crouched just above the Palermo skyline, a colonial ghost refitted with modern vanity. Whitewashed stone, rusted ironwork, and pale marble floors gone slick with humidity. Its windows spilled warm light into the courtyard below, where soft jazz curled like smoke through the vines.

Alice stood on the terrace, untouched wine glass in hand, her hips angled against the balustrade. From here, she could see the entire sweep of night-soaked rooftops, the distant flicker of neon, and, somewhere in the distance, a street violin playing tango to no one at all.

The air hung heavy with ripe summer things: wet stone, jacaranda, grilled meat, and over-ripe oranges. She hadn’t moved in ten minutes. She wore a silk blouse the color of dusk, and it was unbuttoned just enough to ease her collarbone into the heat. Her high-waisted trousers were tailored within a whisper of impropriety. A single gold pin held her hair in a precise coil. Not a strand out of place.

The earrings were real, the name, of course, was not. Lucía Moreno smiled with practiced elegance. But Alice, the woman beneath, didn’t. Her target was somewhere inside, laughing, and drunk on his own reputation. He thought she was a financial attaché from Porto, here to purr seduction into a state-owned privatization deal. He had no idea she was the one circling him. That she’d already counted every security loop, mapped the mirror angles, and memorized his driver’s gait from fifty meters.

And yet, even as Alice tracked his shadow in the terrace glass, her mind slipped to somewhere hotter, louder and closer to the sky. A bunk that reeked of jet fuel and adrenaline, and then, unmistakably, of sex. Of her—Matilda—flat on her back, shirt halfway open, dog tags glinting against her flushed skin, and those long legs sprawled wide open and inviting for her. Matilda had always been all ease and sin.

In Alice’s memory, she was grinning, always grinning. Like she knew the end of a joke no one else had heard. And then, with Alice straddling her, calm and poised and trying to maintain control, Matilda had tugged Alice’s undershirt between her teeth and mumbled up at her: “This shirt is tragic. You look like a war-crime librarian.”

Alice didn’t miss a beat. “I am. Of state secrets.”

Matilda’s laugh had burst out, gravel-bright and unguarded, rawer than gunfire. The memory was a strike to the gut, unexpected and unforgettable. The sound of Matilida’s laugh lived in her still. Somewhere between her ribs and her pulse.

She should’ve burned all the memories. She should’ve swallowed Matilda Hollis down with all the other used classified intel. She should’ve seduced and then vanished like she always did. Because that was all it had been. That was the version she had been trying to live with for nearly two years.

All it had been was a brief collision. A moment of heat and altitude between two women whose lives had crossed at the wrong angle. It had happened before. It would probably happen again. Lovers came and went in her world the way cities did, temporary geography. Faces, voices, bodies. All of them folded neatly into memory and sealed away when the work required it.

Alice had always been very good at that part. Professional detachment was not something she practiced. It was something she inhabited. So the story should have held.

Matilda Hollis had been reckless, intoxicating, loud in all the ways Alice herself was quiet. A fighter pilot with sunburnt freckles and a grin that belonged in places far warmer than the shadows Alice moved through. The sort of woman who lived fast, burned bright, and eventually disappeared into the long blur of the world.

Matilda was a beautiful mistake.

That was the word she had settled on. Mistake. Alice had repeated it often enough that the logic of it had become almost elegant. And yet, the truth refused to stay buried beneath it. Because Matilda had never felt like a mistake. She lingered in the mind the way certain pieces of music did, surfacing unexpectedly in the quiet hours. The memory of her laugh. The reckless warmth of her hands. The maddening ease with which she had moved through the world, as if gravity itself were a partner in crime.

Alice had known how to handle lovers who wanted something from her. Desire was predictable. Attachment was manageable. Even devotion could be redirected or quietly severed when the time came.

But Matilda had never wanted to possess her. That was the problem. Matilda had wanted to take her somewhere. Not away from the life she had built, not exactly. She had never asked Alice to change, or soften, or confess anything she wasn’t ready to give. Instead she had looked at Alice with that dangerous, sunlit certainty and spoken about the future as though it were an open road. As though Alice might step onto it with her. As though there were still places in the world where she could be more than the weapon she had trained herself to become.

And that… that had been the truly impossible thing.

Because Matilda Hollis had not threatened to destroy her. She had threatened to set her free.

And Alice Thorne, who had spent her entire life mastering the art of escape, had never been more afraid of anything in her life.

For a few moments she lingered here, in these reflections. They came quietly, the way dangerous things often did.

A different life. A wider life. A world where the map of her days was not drawn in coded briefings and vanishing points, but in open horizons and unplanned departures. Matilda had spoken about the future that way, sometimes half joking, sometimes with that strange, stubborn sincerity that made Alice uncomfortable.

“C’mon, Dream,” she had once murmured against her shoulder, voice warm with sleep and mischief. “Haven’t cha’ ever breathed in the gorgeous things of the world?”

Alice had deflected, as she always did. But the question had stayed with her. In the quiet of the Buenos Aires night, it returned again. She saw flashes of it now, like fragments of film caught in the light.

Matilda leaning against the wing of her small yellow Piper Cub in the Texas sun, sleeves rolled up, freckles blazing across her shoulders while she tried to explain, with wild enthusiasm and absolutely no technical patience, why the sky looked different over the world at sunset.

Matilda sprawled across a cheap motel bed after a long flight, dog tags resting against bare skin, her grin slow and devastating as she hooked two fingers into Alice’s belt and tugged her closer while biting her lower lip.

The memory shifted again.

Night air rushing in through an open window. Matilda’s breath warm at the hollow of her throat. The slow, teasing brush of lips along her jaw while that familiar Southern drawl murmured something reckless and soft about the stars.

Alice had always lived like a woman who understood that the world was fragile. Matilda lived like someone who believed it was vast.

That had been her true offense.

Not the heat between them. Not the laughter. Not even the quiet tenderness that had sometimes slipped into their nights towards the end.

It was the way Matilda had spoken about tomorrow as if it were something worth reaching for. As if Alice might stand beside her in it.

Alice closed her eyes briefly on the terrace, the warm Argentine wind stirring the loose edge of her blouse. For nearly two years she had tried to convince herself that Matilda Hollis had been nothing more than a beautiful miscalculation. But even now, standing half a world away beneath an unfamiliar sky, the truth remained stubborn and bright.

Matilda had not simply loved her. She had tried to teach her how to dream.

And Alice Thorne, who had spent a lifetime mastering reality, had never quite forgiven herself for wanting to learn.

There was still a little notebook locked in a drawer in Prague. The kind no one finds by accident. Under a false bottom. Inside it: one torn page from a battered Air Force field manual. And on the back of it was a list,  scrawled in sharp, blocky handwriting:

• Texas. Freckles. Stubborn mouth. But, mmm.

• Smells like citrus and heat and trouble.

• Wants more than I know how to give.

Alice hadn’t opened it in six months, but she thought about it every day.

=====

A voice from behind interrupted her reverie, low, masculine, and amused.

“Lucía… ¿te escondés de mí?” Lucía… are you hiding from me?

She didn’t flinch, or turn right away. “Un respiro,” she said smoothly. “Hace calor adentro.” Just catching my breath. It’s warm inside.

“¿No fumás, no?” You don’t smoke?

“No,” she answered, “Pero me gusta el gesto.” But I like the gesture.

That earned a smile. He was older than the photo. Looser at the collar, and he didn’t know she’d already traced the burner in his pocket, clocked the rhythm of his ring tapping the stem of his wine glass, and noted the subtle limp in his left step.

She leaned in, just enough to imply interest, but not enough to promise it.

“Te buscan,” he said. “Dicen que quieren brindar por la nueva inversión.” They’re looking for you. They want to toast the new investment.

“Entonces no voy a hacerlos esperar.” Then I won’t keep them waiting. 

Her face had become a mask of warm diplomacy, her smile easy, and her shoulders low. She said all the right things, made all the right promises, moved with the precise sway of a woman long used to letting men believe they were the ones doing the seducing.

But her jaw was tight, and her throat was dry. She stayed twenty-two minutes. Logged the intel, tagged the couriers and inhaled the perfume and hubris. And when the final toast had been raised she slipped through the service hallway and vanished into the night.

She was still walking the streets a long while later. The city changed after midnight. The heat receded, stray dogs shifted in their sleep, and lanterns moved above shuttered cafés.

Alice slipped off her heels and walked the old cobblestones barefoot, the silk of her blouse open to the breeze. She didn’t go back to the safehouse. She wanted to keep moving, block after block, until everything softened. Until the rhythm broke apart and the city emptied, and all that remained was the memory of jet engines, the rise of altitude, and the sound of a Southern voice trembling against her skin. The woman with the freckles, and a grin that dared her for more. And flashing blue eyes that had seen war and still stayed kind. Alice kept walking, chased and haunted, bending all her will to caging and commanding the tsunami of ache that was her constant companion.

=====

==AIRSPACE: OVER ENEMY TERRITORY==

Major Matilda Hollis. Call Sign: Viper Belle

Time: 04:23 a.m.

The sky was dark as spilled ink, it stretched thin over scorched ridgelines, and whispered of old heat and worse things waiting. Matilda could feel it in her ribs. That kind of silence wasn’t peace, it was a warning. She flexed her gloved hand once on the throttle.

“Strike Control, this is Nomad One. Convoy confirmed. Three-vehicle formation, eastbound, running dark. Northeast of Echo-Four. Looks like Pale Fire.”

“Copy, Nomad. Engage and observe. Do not lose the target.” A pause. “Belle… keep it clean.”

Matilda smirked. “Clean’s for weddings and war crimes hearings. I’m here to keep ‘em separate.”

She banked left, the two Raptors sliced the dark like knives, sleek, silent, and brutally deadly. Below, the desert unfurled in bone-pale ridges and dry, black veins. The convoy slithered across it, no support trucks, no heat bloom outside the lead three. Too easy.

“Nomad Two, you got visual?”

Mori’s voice cracked in. “Affirmative. Formation’s tight. Could be moving tech. Could be moving a decoy.”

“Or someone wants us to think they are.” Her voice dipped. “Either way, no such thing as a casual sunrise run out here, Rook.”

She dropped altitude. The first truck came into view. Target locked. Finger steady. Missile fired, precise and clean. Impact.

“Nomad One, confirm splash.”

“Splash confirmed. One down. Tracking number two.”

She surged lower, and sand kicked up in plumes. Tire tracks peeled away toward a wash of rock and ravine.

“Rook, you lagging or just lettin’ me win?”

“You always gotta hog the glory, Belle.”

“I’m just here to make sure you get home in one piece.”

Second vehicle flinched, and swerved. Matilda adjusted, her cannon bursts rattling off with brutal grace. Another burst of fire. Another metal corpse. “Splash two.”

Then her spine lit up. Something was wrong. “Strike, I’ve got irregular IR spikes to the west. Seven signatures. Moving in tandem.”

“Negative, Nomad. Terrain’s noisy. Probably echoes.”

“Echoes don’t dance in formation.”

The third truck gunned for a canyon pass. Matilda followed. “Rook, stack right. Stay wide. This is gonna get messy.”

“You thinking they’re hiding something?”

Her HUD blinked. Lock alert. “Shit! Breaking left. Deploy flares!”

The first missile screamed past. The second found her.

“Strike, be advised: multiple launch signatures from the southwest ridge. Not civvies. Heat’s too clean.”

“Possible insurgent tech—“

“No. Paint’s fresh. This is mil-grade hardware. Coordinated. Whoever’s firing knew we’d be here.”

The canyon closed. She rolled. Dived. But it was already too late. “Control, op’s compromised. Targets were bait. Ridge is hot. Full ground-to-air battery, camo nets—”

Then hell woke up. Welcome to the jungle, sexy girl. Six missiles. All at once. “Rook, break! High and west! Go! Now!”

“Wait—”

“I said GO!”

He vanished into cloud. She didn’t. Matilda dove, inverted, brakes full, gravity reaching for her and snarling. The first missile missed. The second clipped her wing. The third hit. Hard.

The Raptor screamed, metal bucking, cockpit lurching, HUD splitting in half. Flames coiled under the console. Her seat vibrated with fury and failure. There was too much smoke. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe.

“Mayday—” Smoke choked her voice.

Flash: Alice’s eyes, dark, and unreadable, and somehow still soft whenever they landed on her.

“Nomad One down.” The world flipped.

Flash: Cairo. Alice’s voice at her throat. “You are the worst idea I ever loved. Don’t you dare die on me before I say that out loud again.”

The heat surged. The console burned. Her hand clawed toward the ejection.

Flash: Alice’s surprise visit to Texas. Her mouth hot at Matilda’s ear. “You think the sky owns you, Viper Belle? Bullshit. I do. You are mine.”

She pulled. Nothing. “Ejection, nonresponsive!”

Flash: The breakup. Matilda leaving Alice standing alone. And Matilda hadn’t even turned to look back. Why hadn’t she looked back? 

A panel exploded and sparks lashed her arm. She slammed the override.

Flash: Alice, shirtless and laughing. Matilda’s voice rasping against the dark: “Don’t matter what you say, baby… I’ll remember the way you looked when you loved me. I’ll remember how I could make you beg. That’s the part I’m keepin’.”

Mori’s voice broke though, cracked with panic, “Nomad One, do you copy? Nom—Belle—fuck…”

Then nothing. Just fire. And the Raptor fell into the dark.