Angus didn't leave Zurich right away.
He spent the rest of the day drifting through the base quiet, observant, unreadable. Petra offered him coffee. He barely acknowledged it. Kosta tried small talk. Angus shut it down with a single glance.
He wasn't hostile.
He was processing.
By the time night fell, I found him alone on the roof of the operations wing, elbows on the railing, looking out over the sleeping city.
"You gonna stand there," he said without turning, "or actually say something?"
I stepped beside him. "Didn't want to interrupt."
"You didn't." His jaw tightened. "I just needed air."
We stood there in silence for a moment. The wind carried the faint hum of Zurich nightlife muted, distant, a world away from ours.
Finally, he said, "All this time all those years and nobody told me I wasn't an only child."
"That wasn't my choice," I said.
He exhaled through his nose. "I know. Doesn't make it easier."
"It wasn't easy for me either."
He looked at me then fully, eyes sharp and searching.
"You said you wouldn't let me get in your way. Does that mean you think I will?"
"No," I replied. "It means I know how this world works. People use weaknesses. Family is leverage. I can't afford to let anyone touch the people I care about."
Angus's voice lowered. "You think being my brother makes me a weakness?"
"No," I said. "It makes you a target."
He didn't answer right away. But he didn't argue. And that told me he understood exactly what I meant.
Not accepted.
Not forgiven.
But understood.
A start.
Riley was already awake, sitting at the small kitchen table with a cup of tea and a folded piece of paper in front of her.
"You look like you didn't sleep," I said.
"I didn't." She pushed the paper toward me. "Jack called me last night. Three times. Said it was urgent."
I raised an eyebrow. "What'd he find out?"
"Nothing about us." She swallowed. "But he knows something big is moving out there. Something no one can trace. And you know Jack he connects dots even before there are dots."
I nodded slowly. "We tell him soon. Before he walks straight into the wrong conclusion."
Riley hesitated, chewing her lip. "He's going to freak out when he learns you're Angus's brother."
"He can freak out," I said softly. "He just needs to listen after."
She gave a weak smile. "I'm holding you to that."
I kissed her forehead. "I know."
Washington, D.C. – The next morning
Matty strode into her office with a tablet in hand, expression sharp enough to cut glass.
James MacGyver was already waiting.
"No coffee?" he asked.
"No time," she said, dropping the tablet onto the table. "We got our first trace."
James leaned forward.
A surveillance still played on the screen a blurry grid of satellite capture showing three armored trucks parked at a border crossing near the Balkans.
Unmarked. High-grade. Too expensive for normal contractors.
But the important part wasn't the trucks.
It was the man standing beside them.
Face turned away. Shadowed. Hood up. But posture unmistakable to anyone who had ever worked in black ops.
"Who is he?" James asked.
"Unknown," Matty said. "But his behavior matches a ghost liaison moving with three separate units while staying completely off record. No communications. No insignia."
James's eyes narrowed. "Looks military."
"Not any military we know," Matty replied. "And he's coordinating like someone who's done it before. Someone with authority."
She tapped the screen again.
The image zoomed in.
A gloved hand passed a sealed drive to one of the operatives.
Fast. Smooth. Controlled.
"Whoever this is," Matty said quietly, "they're building something. And I want to know what."
James stared at the figure on screen.
Something in his face shifted instinct, suspicion, father's intuition and he leaned back slowly.
"Find me a clearer shot," he said.
"We're working on it."
James nodded, though his expression remained troubled.
Because even without a face.
he recognized the walk.
Not fully. Not consciously. But somewhere deep in his mind, something clicked.
Something familiar.
Something connected to a past he thought he buried.
Angus approached me in the command room, jaw set, eyes steady.
"I'll stay for a few days," he said. "Watch. Learn. I don't trust this operation yet."
"I'm not asking you to trust it," I replied. "Only to understand it."
He held my gaze.
"And after that," he added, "we tell Jack. Together."
I nodded.
"Together."
Riley exhaled in relief in the doorway, hand over her stomach.
Angus looked at her, softer than before. "We're family," he said. "And family shouldn't hide."
He walked out after that. Didn't wait for a response.
Riley turned to me. "He's trying."
"Yes," I said quietly. "And that's more than I expected."
But even as I said it, an alert pinged on the main console.
Kosta rushed in.
"Sir Matty Webber just requested satellite re-tasking on the Balkan corridor."
Riley's eyes widened.
"They're getting close," she whispered.
I stared at the screen.
"They're not close," I said.
"They're looking in the right direction."