Jackson's POV
The cold air was sharp in my lungs, a clean counterpoint to the smoke and lies of the afternoon. But the kiss… the kiss was the only thing that mattered. It was a slow burn, a deliberate, patient claim. I felt her…Belinda…finally relax against me, her hands rising to grip the front of my jacket, not as a desperate anchor, but as an intimate tether. The woman who measured every breath, every word, was gone. In her place was the unguarded, terrified, magnificent creature I was fighting a private war to protect.
When I finally broke the kiss, it wasn't a retreat…it was just a need to breathe. The Carina Nebula, glowing an angry, glorious red on the monitor behind her, felt less intense than the gaze from of her eyes.
"You're shaking," I noted, my thumb tracing the sharp line of her jaw.
"It's the altitude," she murmured, a faint smile playing on her lips, a lie as small and necessary as the one she'd given my mother hours ago.
"No," I countered, resting my forehead against hers, the movement a silent promise. "It's because you let go."
I didn't need a response. I turned her gently back toward the vast, silent machinery. The steel and glass dome, a perfect sphere framing an infinity of black space, was my confession.
I'd spent the last forty-eight hours with my brain running at maximum capacity. First, navigating the General's thinly veiled suspicion…then, the immediate, tactical nightmare of the Thorne crest on that cigar box—a direct, undeniable link between my father, a former spymaster, and the head of the organization I was trying to dismantle. It was a twist so sickeningly efficient it could only have been engineered by fate.
She doesn't know I saw her stare at the cigar. I'm always watching her, so naturally I'll always follow where her eyes wander off to.
But that was the secondary problem.
The primary one was her.
When she started talking about her childhood, the performance was flawless. The "idyllic ambition," the "sense of duty," the "foundation" of her father…it was all pitch-perfect camouflage. But I saw the glass in her mouth. I saw the split-second of internal revulsion. And I knew, with a chilling certainty, that the true story was a landscape of abuse and conditioning so severe that even a lie felt like self-harm.
I did my research on her before I introduced myself so I know enough about her past to know life wasn't always so kind to her…but still I keep learning more as I peel new layers from her.
My father's politics, the Dolomites, even Chester's escalating threat—it all paled. The only thing that mattered in that moment was diverting the heat. I shifted the conversation to the golf tournament, a subject so mind-numbingly dull it was the conversational equivalent of a smoke grenade. She hadn't even registered my gesture. She didn't have to. The slackening of her shoulders was all the confirmation I needed. She knew I had her back.
The observatory wasn't just a date. It was a tactical deployment.
I drove her here because I needed to fundamentally alter her perspective. Belinda lives by the numbers, by the ledger of risk and reward. Her entire life has been spent managing the granular details of control, survival, and vengeance. She sees the world as a complex machine where one wrong move means death.
I needed to make her feel the scale of the universe, not for poetry, but for practicality. Look at the Pillars of Creation, I wanted to scream. Look at seven thousand light-years. Your problem, my problem, this whole poisonous empire—it's an invisible speck.
I pulled her away from the monitor, from the grand, terrifying view, and handed her the sleek, metallic bottle of her favorite wine, a sweet red Cape bottle.
"I didn't just buy you the universe," I told her, my voice dropping back to the low, steady register she always responded to. "I bought you the perspective. The perspective that what we're doing is important, yes, but it doesn't define the value of you."
I took a sip of the wine, letting the sharp, cold fruit clear my palate. Then I took her hand and led her to the massive, leather-bound notebook lying on the console. It was the observatory's logbook.
"You gave me a report to write," I said, my thumb brushing over the fine paper. "I delivered it. Now, you're going to write yours."
She looked at me, her confusion genuine. "My report?"
"Yes. A strategic assessment. Not of the General, not of Chester. Of us." I pointed to the swirling, distant light of the Andromeda Galaxy on the monitor. "You always calculate the exit strategy. You always plan the betrayal. Tonight, I want you to calculate the future where we actually win."
I pulled a pen from my jacket pocket, a heavy, silver instrument, and placed it in her hand.
"Start with this," I commanded. "List your assets. Don't think about the company. Think about what you truly own."
I watched her hesitate. Then, her eyes narrowing with a focus that was both familiar and exhilarating, she uncapped the pen. I knew what she was going to write first, even if she didn't.
I left her at the console, a woman staring into the face of infinity, now armed with a pen and a single, frightening question: What if the war is over?
Something tells me she doesn't really want all this power she claims to. I have a feeling she wants out of this life and just wants to be a woman an ease. I see it in her eyes how much she dreams of a traditional life. A husband…a baby…a beautiful home with no security guards at every corner. I want to give that to her but first…I need her to keep her guard up until then.
We have so much work to do. And I still need to tell her I killed her dad and that he's not just missing. How do I do that after falling so deeply in love with her all in one day. Well I've been falling since I first saw her…but today confirms it.
I'm in love with her.
I walked back to the massive, slowly revolving dome, feeling the cold, constant air of the universe on my skin. I pulled out my secure phone—the one she thought I'd forgotten—and pressed the single, encrypted speed-dial for my chief of operations, Liam.
"It's Jackson," I said into the darkness, my voice a low, hard vibration. "Accelerate Phase Two. I have a new priority. The General's connections to Chester Knight are confirmed. I want every asset focused on a full extraction strategy. Everything, everyone, out of the blast radius. We're not just dismantling the network anymore. We're leaving the country. And we're doing it in three weeks."
I looked back at her, bathed in the faint, red light of cosmic dust, her pen finally moving across the page.
"Get the jet ready," I concluded. "And start drawing up plans for a compound in the Southern Hemisphere. Somewhere remote. Somewhere with a clear view of the night sky."
The strategic core I thought was impervious had been breached. And now, I was burning the earth behind me.
Realising my father isn't who I thought he was all along, changed things. He's the man who's going to be after Belinda once he finds out Chester is gone. It won't take him long if it took Belinda less than a day. Something tells me he already knows who Bel is and that he has already tried contacting her father to let him know.
We need to leave first thing in the morning. I can protect her better from her place.
I looked back at her and I saw her hesitation to use the pen.
Oh Bel…you're crumbling today. My strong girl's cracks are showing.
I then hung up the phone and walked up to her, to help guide her through her list. I need her to allow herself to be vulnerable and honest. This list isn't just for her… it's for me, so I know what to give her.