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MacGyver had been carrying the ring for seventy-three days.
Not all the time. That would have been insane, even for him.
He did not carry it into active demolitions. He did not carry it into underwater extractions. He did not carry it anywhere near corrosive chemicals, pressure-sensitive explosives, roof chases, power substations, snake handlers, collapsing mine shafts, or that one cursed weekend in Guatemala where he had used a coconut, a shoelace, and a hotel sewing kit to reroute the ignition system on a stolen truck while Riley shouted coordinates at him and Bozer screamed in the back because the chickens would not stop flapping.
He had rules.
They were not good rules. They did not solve the main problem, which was that he had a ring in a little box and no actual plan.
But they were still rules, and rules helped. Rules made impossible things feel like problems that could be worked through. Mac liked problems. Problems had parts. Problems had limits. Problems had answers, even when the answers were ugly.
Loving Riley Davis did not feel like that.
Loving Riley Davis felt too large to hold in one hand.
So he made parameters.
Parameter one: do not propose after a near-death experience.
Too much adrenaline. Too much fear. Too much chance Riley would think he had been scared into it. Mac knew what fear did to people. Fear made them say true things at the wrong time, or incomplete things with too much force behind them. Riley deserved better than that. She deserved a moment that did not smell like smoke, coolant, blood, or the inside of a cargo elevator after the brakes failed.
Parameter two: do not propose during a mission.
That one was obvious.
It was also hard to follow, because their lives had become mission after mission, with dinners and cancelled weekends trapped somewhere between.
Parameter three: do not propose in front of Matty unless emotionally prepared to have the moment reviewed, assessed, and maybe assigned a follow-up action item.
Parameter four: do not let Bozer anywhere near the plan until it has reached at least ninety percent stability.
That was not because Mac did not love Bozer. He did. Deeply. Like a brother.
But Bozer had opinions.
Too many opinions.
He had opinions about lighting. About music. About camera angles. About ring-box placement. About whether dry ice counted as romantic or legally questionable.
The night Mac bought the ring, he came home and put the box in the bottom drawer of his workbench beneath a folded blueprint and two dead circuit boards.
Bozer found it in under four minutes.
Technically, Bozer had been looking for a 3/16-inch Allen wrench. That did not explain why he had opened a drawer labeled DEAD BATTERIES / DO NOT TRUST. But Bozer had his own map of Mac’s house. It was not based on rooms. It was based on snacks, chargers, emergency supplies, embarrassing childhood photos, and places Mac pretended he did not hide important things.
Bozer had gone very still.
Mac was in the kitchen, holding a mug of coffee, when he noticed the silence.
Silence from Bozer was never good.
A second later, Bozer appeared in the doorway holding the ring box like he had just found a sacred object buried under tax receipts.
“Bro,” he whispered.
Mac closed his eyes.
And then, because the universe enjoyed timing, Riley walked in through the back door with her laptop bag over one shoulder.
“Why are you whispering like you found a body?” she asked.
Bozer made a sound so high it probably bothered dogs three blocks away. The ring box vanished behind his back. Mac spilled coffee on his own hand. Riley stopped and looked at both of them.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Whatever this is, I’m too tired to decode it right now. But I want it on record that you’re both terrible at being normal.”
The ring survived.
Barely.
After that, Bozer was sworn to secrecy with the seriousness usually reserved for nuclear codes. He took the responsibility badly, which for Bozer meant enthusiastically. Within two days, he had created three possible proposal ideas in a Google doc titled DEFINITELY NOT ABOUT THE RING.
Riley found it because Bozer accidentally shared it with her while trying to send her a dumpling recipe.
Luckily, the document only had headings.
Unluckily, the headings included:
Rooftop Stars???
Museum Heist But Make It Love???
What If Robot Dog Carries It In
Riley read them out loud at breakfast while Mac stared into his cereal and considered leaving the country.
“What’s ‘Robot Dog Carries It In’?” she asked.
“Bozer,” Mac said, at the exact same time Bozer said, “Nothing.”
Riley looked at them over her coffee mug, amused in a way that made Mac deeply nervous.
“You guys are so weird.”
So the ring went back into hiding.
It moved from place to place. First the workbench drawer. Then an old tackle box. Then the false bottom of a parts case. Then the inner pocket of his brown jacket for two disastrous hours on a day he thought maybe, possibly, if the weather held and the reservation didn’t fall through and nobody got kidnapped, shot at, blackmailed, poisoned, or pulled into an off-books operation, it might be the day.
The weather did not hold.
The reservation fell through.
A deputy minister was kidnapped in Geneva.
Riley ended up hacking a bank from a laundry room while wearing one of Mac’s shirts and eating fries from a paper bag. Mac sat on the floor beside her, building a signal booster out of a coat hanger and a hotel hair dryer, with the ring box in his jacket pocket.
Not now, he thought.
There had been a lot of not nows.
Not now when Riley fell asleep at the kitchen table with her cheek on her folded arms and blue light from three monitors across her face.
Not now when she laughed so hard at one of his terrible puns that she had to brace a hand on his chest.
Not now when she stood barefoot in his living room wearing his hoodie and arguing with Matty over comms like command structures were more of a suggestion.
Not now when she handed him coffee without looking, because she knew exactly when his blood sugar dropped and exactly how stubborn he would be about admitting it.
Not now.
Not now.
Not now.
The words became familiar.
Then, because apparently the universe had opinions too, the ring fell out of his pocket during an argument in a collapsing municipal records building in downtown Los Angeles while a criminal syndicate’s server farm shorted behind them and Riley Davis stood ten feet away, furious, bleeding, and very much alive.
According to every rule, it was the worst possible moment.
Which meant, of course, it was the one that happened.
The day started with coffee.
That felt important later, because beginnings always looked more meaningful after everything had already gone wrong.
At the time, it was just coffee.
Bad coffee.
Burnt because the Phoenix break room machine had once again decided that brewing was an act of aggression. Too hot because Mac had forgotten it, then microwaved it. Slightly gritty because someone had used the bottom of the pot and left sediment behind.
Riley drank it anyway.
She sat sideways in a conference room chair with one foot tucked beneath her, laptop open, hair pulled into a messy bun that was already losing pieces. She had a pencil between her teeth, even though she had not written anything by hand in at least twenty minutes. The pencil was mostly decorative. A warning sign that Riley was thinking hard and should not be interrupted.
Mac stood near the glass wall, one hip against the table, pretending to read the mission packet on his tablet.
He was actually watching the morning light catch the edges of Riley’s curls.
Phoenix headquarters moved around them in its usual way: footsteps outside, doors opening and closing, printers coughing up paperwork, low voices discussing problems that would ruin a normal person’s week.
Mac had slept four hours.
Riley had slept five, but only because he had physically taken her laptop out of her hands at one in the morning and replaced it with chamomile tea.
She had called it lawn water.
She had drunk it anyway.
Then she had leaned against him on the couch and fallen asleep halfway through threatening him.
They had been together for seven months.
Officially together. No more pretending. No more hiding behind bad timing and team dynamics and whatever expression Matty had made when she finally figured it out.
Seven months since Riley had said I love you like it had been pulled out of her by fear and exhaustion.
Seven months since Mac had taken her hand and told her he had stopped pretending months before.
Seven months of learning how to exist in the same rooms differently.
At first, it had been awkward in small, funny ways, because nothing had changed and everything had changed. Riley still stole his fries. Mac still left tools in places where tools did not belong. They still argued about plans, driving, and whether something counted as a controlled explosion if Jack would have called it a very enthusiastic mistake.
But now her hand found his under tables.
Now he knew the exact smile she made when she wanted to kiss him in front of Matty and knew she should not.
Now she had a toothbrush at his place. A drawer. A side of the bed. Several strong opinions about his shower pressure.
Now, after bad missions, they found each other without needing to ask.
And the ring existed.
At the moment, it was in the inside zip pocket of his field jacket, which hung over the back of the chair beside him.
This was not because he planned to propose today.
Today was a mission day.
Rule two.
Absolutely not.
The ring was only there because he had moved it out of the house after Bozer almost found it again while searching for batteries for a label maker. Mac had meant to lock it in a drawer in his lab. Then Matty had walked in with a briefing and said the words municipal records compromise, and somehow the jacket came with him, and the ring came with the jacket.
Now here they all were.
Pretending that was normal.
“Mac,” Riley said without looking up.
He looked down at the tablet.
“Yeah?”
“You’ve been on the same page for six minutes.”
“I’m a slow reader.”
“You once read a satellite assembly manual in Russian while bleeding from the shoulder.”
“I had motivation.”
She finally looked up, pencil still between her teeth. Her eyes narrowed with familiar suspicion.
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where your face tries to look casual and ends up looking like you’re defusing an emotional landmine.”
Bozer, sitting across the table with a breakfast burrito halfway to his mouth, froze.
Mac saw it.
Riley saw it too.
Very slowly, she turned her head toward Bozer.
Bozer lowered the burrito.
“Why did you freeze?” she asked.
“I didn’t freeze.”
“You became furniture.”
“I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“Fiber.”
Riley stared at him.
Bozer lifted the burrito slightly.
“Breakfast fiber. Gut health. Very important. Under-discussed in tactical environments.”
Mac closed his eyes.
Riley looked back at him.
She said nothing.
That was worse.
Riley with questions was dangerous. Riley silent with questions was terrifying. It meant she had noticed something and saved it for later.
Matty walked in before Riley could start the investigation, which probably saved all of them.
She carried a folder, a tablet, and the expression of a woman who was already tired of everyone, even though it was only 8:17 a.m.
“Good,” she said. “You’re all here.”
“Morning to you too,” Bozer muttered.
Matty gave him a look that suggested mornings were a personal insult. Then she touched her tablet, and the wall screen lit up with security footage of a squat concrete building downtown.
It was ugly in the special way some government buildings were ugly. Beige concrete. Narrow windows. No joy anywhere.
“The Central Municipal Records Annex,” Matty said. “Officially, it stores overflow property records, permit archives, legal filings, and decades of bureaucratic sediment. Unofficially, someone built a ghost server farm in the sub-basement and used the building’s old electrical system to hide the heat signatures and power use.”
Riley’s pencil dropped from her mouth.
“That’s almost elegant.”
“Almost?” Mac asked.
“Elegant if you’re the kind of person who commits federal crimes next to asbestos.”
Matty clicked again.
Blueprints appeared. Old layouts. New overlays. Red zones. Yellow zones. A basement system that looked far too complicated for a records building.
“The server farm belongs to a group calling themselves Meridian,” Matty said. “They’ve been using stolen municipal data to build identity packages for foreign buyers. Addresses, property liens, utility records, legal disputes, old tax documents. Boring on their own. Very useful when combined.”
Riley leaned forward. All the sleep left her face.
“Synthetic identities.”
“Thousands,” Matty said. “Possibly more. We have a warrant window and local law enforcement clearing the perimeter, but Meridian triggered a failsafe when they realized we were coming. Building security went dark twenty minutes ago. Fire suppression is offline. Elevators are unresponsive. Emergency exits may be wired.”
Mac studied the blueprint.
His brain started building paths.
Stairwell A might be clear, but it was old. Mechanical access from the alley. Sub-basement electrical room beside the server core. Too many blind corners. Too much concrete. Old buildings were always full of surprises. Pipes where pipes should not be. Voids where there should have been support. Old repairs hidden behind new paint.
“What’s the objective?” he asked.
“Get Riley to the server core,” Matty said. “She pulls the data and locks Meridian out. You keep the building from killing her.”
Riley glanced at him.
“No pressure.”
Mac gave her a small smile.
“I’ve kept you alive in worse places.”
“That is statistically true and emotionally annoying.”
Bozer pointed his burrito at them.
“Cute, but I’m in the room.”
“You’re on comms,” Matty said. “Coordinate with local PD and keep the perimeter clean. Desi’s on her way from another op and will meet you there if she can. Until then, you two move carefully. Meridian is not known for restraint.”
Mac picked up his jacket.
The ring shifted in the inner pocket. A small square pressure against his ribs.
Riley was still watching him.
“You okay?” she asked softly.
Soft enough that Matty and Bozer would not hear.
Mac put on the jacket. The box settled against him.
“Yeah,” he said.
Then, because lying directly to Riley felt like trying to sneak past a security system that cared about his feelings, he added, “Just thinking.”
Her expression softened.
“Dangerous.”
“Extremely.”
She stood, shouldered her go-bag, and stepped close enough that her knuckles brushed his.
It was not dramatic.
That was what made it matter.
A small touch. The kind no one else would notice unless they knew how to read them.
“Come on, Blondie,” she said. “Let’s go ruin someone’s cybercrime empire.”
The records annex looked worse in person.
Some buildings were ugly because nobody cared. Others were ugly because someone cared in the wrong direction. This one belonged to the second group.
It stood between a bail bonds office and a closed copy shop, six floors of stained beige concrete and narrow windows. Rain from the previous night still darkened the base of the building. The downtown sky had that flat white brightness Los Angeles got in the morning, before the day decided whether it wanted to clear or turn into smog.
Police cruisers blocked the side street. Yellow tape moved in the wind. A fire truck idled half a block away. Officers stood in clusters, radios crackling, hands near holsters.
Everyone looked tense in the same way.
They knew there was danger.
They just could not see it yet.
Mac parked behind the perimeter van and turned off the engine.
Riley had been quiet during the drive. Her fingers moved over her tablet, pulling data and scanning city infrastructure feeds. Every now and then, she muttered under her breath when a firewall annoyed her.
Mac had watched the road.
Mostly.
He had also watched her reflection in the window. Her jaw set. Her eyes sharp. That faint line between her brows appearing when she was building a map in her head.
Now she looked at the building and exhaled.
“Well,” she said. “It has serial killer tax office energy.”
Mac nodded.
“Very specific architectural critique.”
“I contain multitudes.”
They stepped out.
The air smelled like wet concrete, diesel, and old paper. Like the building had been breathing in archives for years and finally started breathing them back out.
Mac adjusted the strap of his bag.
The ring box shifted again.
He resisted the urge to check the pocket.
Riley would notice.
Riley noticed everything, especially things he did not want noticed.
A local lieutenant met them near the tape and gave a fast briefing. Two entrances compromised. One guard with a concussion, alive. No confirmed hostiles inside, but thermal was useless because the building’s heating system had turned unreliable. An electrical surge had locked several fire doors. The building had not been properly renovated since 1989.
He said the last part with the bitterness of a man who had filed many requests.
Riley’s mouth twitched.
Mac knew what she was thinking.
In computer terms, 1989 was prehistory. In bureaucracy terms, it was yesterday.
They entered through a side loading bay after Mac opened the mechanical override with a bent strip of metal and a stripped coaxial connector because, of course, the key the lieutenant gave him was the wrong key.
The door groaned open.
The smell inside hit them all at once.
Dust.
Mildew.
Old carpet glue.
Overheated wiring.
Paper.
So much paper.
The building smelled like paper had been stored in it until even the walls started feeling forgotten.
Their footsteps echoed through the loading area. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Most were dead. A few still buzzed weakly. Cardboard boxes lined the walls in uneven towers, each labeled in black marker.
ZONING 2004.
WATER DAMAGE CLAIMS.
VARIOUS.
DO NOT DESTROY.
DESTROY AFTER REVIEW.
REVIEW PENDING.
Some boxes had sagged with age and damp. Tape peeled from the corners.
“Bureaucratic sediment,” Riley murmured. “Matty wasn’t kidding.”
Mac swept his flashlight over the ceiling.
Exposed conduits. Old sprinkler lines. Newer data cable badly hidden in a cable tray that had never been meant to hold it. Some of the work was sloppy. Some of it was careful.
That bothered him.
Sloppy criminals were easier to predict. Careful criminals with sloppy sections meant either a rushed job or too many people involved.
“See that?” he said, aiming the light toward the cable.
Riley followed the beam.
“Fiber?”
“Yeah. New. Not city-installed.”
“You can tell that from here?”
“The clamps are wrong.” He stepped closer and held his light steady. “And someone cut through the old paint to mount them. They didn’t even try to match the wear around it.”
She looked at him for half a second too long.
“You know, sometimes when you talk like that, it’s both very hot and very concerning.”
His hand slipped on the flashlight.
Riley smiled to herself and kept walking.
He loved her so much it made him stupid for two whole seconds.
Then his brain remembered they were in a compromised building with possible hostiles and a ring in his pocket that felt heavier every minute.
They found the stairs behind a steel fire door propped open with an old dictionary swollen from damp.
Riley pointed at it.
“That is a crime against language.”
“It’s also a sign someone uses this path regularly.”
She crouched beside the door while Mac checked the hinge and frame. No tripwire. No pressure plate. No obvious tampering beyond the dictionary’s sad new job.
Bozer’s voice crackled in their ears.
“How we doing, lovebirds?”
Riley closed her eyes for patience.
“On an op, Bozer.”
“What? It’s radio accurate. You are both birds. Of love. Anyway, local PD says no movement on exterior cams.”
“Exterior cams are on a municipal network that Meridian already compromised,” Riley said, starting down the stairs. “So tell local PD their cams are decorative.”
There was a pause.
Bozer said, “Local PD did not enjoy that.”
“Truth hurts.”
The stairwell swallowed them.
The air grew cooler and thicker as they went down. Their flashlights moved over peeling paint, rusted railings, and cigarette burns on the landings from decades of city employees taking breaks they were not supposed to take.
Mac counted steps without meaning to.
Riley’s breathing stayed even behind him, but he heard the slight scrape when she favored her left knee. She had hurt it two weeks earlier in Prague.
Not the old Prague surveillance op where she had once fallen asleep on his shoulder.
A newer Prague.
A worse Prague.
Snowmelt. A man with a knife. A hotel elevator that smelled like cabbage.
Mac slowed half a step.
“I’m fine,” Riley said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You slowed down in Concerned Boyfriend.”
“That’s not a gait.”
“It absolutely is.”
Mac almost smiled.
Then he smelled it.
Not mildew.
Not dust.
Hot plastic.
He stopped on the landing between the basement and sub-basement. Riley stopped behind him immediately.
“What?” she whispered.
He raised a hand and listened.
The building hummed. Old pipes ticked. Somewhere below them, fans ran in layers. Too many fans for a records archive.
Underneath that was a faint crackle.
Electricity where it should not be.
“Something’s overheating,” he said.
“Server farm?”
“Maybe. Or the wiring feeding it.”
“Awesome,” Riley muttered. “Cybercrime and electrical fire. Very on brand for us.”
They continued down.
The sub-basement door was newer than the rest of the building. Heavy steel. Digital lock. Dark screen.
Riley stepped forward, pulled a tool from her bag, and pried the faceplate open with practiced force.
“Give me thirty seconds,” she said.
Mac checked the frame.
“You always say thirty seconds.”
“And I’m often right.”
“You’re occasionally right.”
“You’re alive because I’m frequently right.”
“Fair.”
Her fingers moved inside the lock.
Mac watched the hallway instead of watching her hands, because watching Riley work was distracting in a way that was not tactically useful.
The ring pressed against his ribs.
He shifted.
“Stop fidgeting,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m scanning.”
“You’re fidget-scanning.”
Bozer coughed over comms.
“For the record, I’m enjoying this.”
“Bozer,” they said together.
“Muting myself emotionally.”
The lock clicked.
Riley smiled at the door.
“Thirty-two seconds. Still counts.”
Mac pulled the door open.
Heat moved out into the stairwell.
Not fire heat. Not yet. But too warm.
The room beyond was a long, low corridor lit by emergency strips along the floor. Red light pulsed against the concrete. Cables ran overhead in thick bundles. The hum of servers was louder now, deep and steady beneath the building.
They moved forward.
The corridor opened into what had once been a storage room.
Now it was a server farm.
Server racks stood in rows, black and blinking, fans screaming behind mesh doors. Portable cooling units had been pushed into corners. Hoses ran into vents cut badly through the wall. Thick cables crossed the floor under rubber mats. A folding table held monitors, energy drinks, a half-eaten protein bar, and three chairs pushed back in a hurry.
No people.
Riley went straight to the central terminal.
“I’m in love,” she said.
Mac stopped beside a power distribution box. The casing was warm enough that he could feel it through his glove.
“With the crime cave?”
“With how stupid this admin password might be.” She typed. The monitor lit her face from below. “Oh my God. It’s Meridian2026 exclamation point. I’m offended.”
“Can you pull the data?”
“I can do better.” Her fingers moved faster. “I can lock them out, clone everything, route ownership logs to Matty, and leave a note in their system that says stop building felony basements.”
“Please don’t sign it.”
“I’m signing it.”
A popping sound cracked from the power box.
Mac turned toward it.
The smell sharpened. Melting insulation. Ozone. A bitter electrical bite.
“Riley,” he said.
“I know.” Her voice changed. No more teasing. “I need two minutes.”
“You may not have two minutes.”
“Then make me two minutes.”
That, he could do.
Mac dropped to one knee and opened his bag.
He did not have the parts he wanted. He almost never had the parts he wanted. Wanting perfect parts was how people died annoyed.
He had wire. Electrical tape. A multi-tool. Two heat sinks. A portable fan battery. Ceramic fuses. A packet of gum at the bottom of the bag stuck to an old receipt.
He took the fan battery, stripped two leads, and rigged it to pull enough load off the overheated relay to slow the cascade.
It was not a fix.
It was a temporary argument with physics.
The first spark jumped before he finished wrapping the contact. Blue-white in the red emergency light. He jerked back, knuckles hitting concrete.
“Mac?” Riley called.
“Fine,” he said automatically.
“Liar.”
“Accurate liar.”
The relay steadied. The hum lowered slightly.
Mac breathed through his teeth.
“One minute,” he said.
Riley’s terminal chimed.
“Clone at forty percent.”
“Make it faster.”
“Oh wow, never thought of that.”
He smiled despite himself.
Then he looked up at the ceiling and stopped smiling.
A support bracket above one cable tray had pulled loose. Maybe from vibration. Maybe from heat. Maybe from bad installation. The tray sagged under too much cable. If it fell, it would rip half the room apart and maybe trap Riley between live wires and server racks.
He stood.
“Riley, step back from the terminal.”
“No.”
“Riles—”
“Seventy-two percent.”
The bracket shrieked.
It was not loud, but some sounds did not need to be loud. Metal under stress was a language the body understood before the brain translated it.
Riley looked up.
Mac saw her eyes track the sagging tray. He saw calculation move across her face.
“Almost done,” she said.
“Move.”
“Mac—”
The bracket gave.
Mac crossed the space in three strides. He hit Riley from the side, wrapped an arm around her waist, and drove her away from the terminal as the cable tray tore loose from the ceiling.
It came down in a sparking fall of black cables, whipping through the air where her head had been. One rack toppled into another with a metallic scream. The room flashed. Something blew behind them. Heat hit Mac’s back.
They hit the floor together and slid into the base of a storage shelf.
Pain burst through his shoulder.
Riley grunted beneath him.
For a second, there was only noise.
Servers screaming. Electricity snapping. Bozer yelling in their ears. The building groaning around them.
Mac pushed up on one arm.
“Riley?”
She stared up at him, eyes wide, furious, and alive.
“You tackled me.”
“The ceiling tackled first.”
“I was at ninety-six percent.”
“You were under a falling cable tray.”
“I had it.”
“You did not have gravity.”
She shoved at his chest. Not hard enough to move him, but hard enough to make the point.
“Get off.”
He rolled aside and helped her sit up.
Her hair had come loose from its bun. Curls fell around her face, dusty and static-filled. A thin red line marked her cheek where something had grazed her.
Tiny.
Almost nothing.
Enough to make his blood go cold.
The terminal sparked behind them and went dark.
Riley stared at it.
The silence afterward was not really silence. Alarms started somewhere above them. The server fans died row by row. Smoke gathered near the ceiling. Emergency lights pulsed red over Riley’s face.
“You ended the pull,” she said.
“I saved your life.”
“You compromised the mission.”
“You were about to get electrocuted.”
“I was almost done.”
“You were almost dead.”
His voice hit the concrete harder than he meant it to.
Riley went still.
Mac heard himself breathing. Heard the alarms. Heard Bozer in his ear saying their names, then Matty cutting in, sharp and urgent, telling them to evacuate.
Mac did not answer.
He was looking at Riley. At the blood on her cheek. At the fact that his hands were shaking badly enough that he curled them into fists.
Riley stood slowly, brushing dust from the hoodie she had stolen from his house that morning because the Phoenix field jacket was “itchy in a government way.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Don’t yell at me because you’re scared.”
“I’m yelling because you didn’t move when I told you to.”
“I didn’t move because we needed the data.”
“No,” he snapped. “We needed you alive.”
“And I needed you not to act like the entire world ends if I take a calculated risk.”
Mac let out a sharp laugh.
“Calculated? That was not calculated. That was you gambling with an unstable electrical system while a support bracket failed above your head.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I borrow that from your playbook?” she shot back. “Because I have watched you do exactly that with bombs, fires, acid leaks, collapsing elevators, and at least one submarine I am still not emotionally over.”
“This is different.”
“Because it was me?”
“Yes.”
The word came out too raw.
Riley’s expression changed.
Mac looked away first. If he kept looking at her, he would either say too much or nothing at all. Both had caused problems before.
He bent and grabbed his bag from where it had slid near the fallen shelf. His shoulder protested. The ring box in his jacket knocked against his ribs.
Riley crossed her arms.
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like my life matters more than yours.”
“It does to me.”
“That is not romantic, Mac. That is deeply annoying.”
He turned back to her. Smoke moved between them in thin gray lines. The emergency lights made the room look worse than it already was.
“I’m not trying to be romantic,” he said. “I am trying to not watch you die in front of me.”
“And you think I don’t feel that every time you stay behind with some homemade bomb puzzle?” Her voice cracked on the last word, barely, but he heard it. “You think I don’t know exactly what your face looks like when you decide your body is an acceptable cost?”
His mouth closed.
The building groaned again.
Dust drifted from the ceiling.
Bozer said in their ears, “Guys, I love healthy communication, but maybe not in the crime basement that is actively becoming barbecue?”
Riley tore out her earpiece and shoved it into her pocket.
Mac stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
“I need one minute without commentary.”
“We need to evacuate.”
“Then stop arguing with me.”
“You started—”
“I confessed to loving you seven months ago after almost dying, and apparently that did not cure your martyr complex. So yes, I am starting this again, because maybe repetition is the only language you respect.”
He stepped toward her.
“That is not fair.”
“No, what’s not fair is watching the person I love throw himself at death and then act confused when I get upset.” She pointed at the fallen cable tray. “What’s not fair is you deciding my risks are unacceptable while yours are noble.”
“I don’t think they’re noble.”
“Then stop taking them like they only belong to you.”
The words hit something deep.
Mac felt the ring against his ribs.
The whole secret suddenly seemed ridiculous.
All those rules. All that waiting. All the plans he had made and abandoned. He had wanted the moment to be safe. Clean. Free of fear.
As if that was ever going to happen for them.
As if love could wait for perfect lighting and no alarms.
Riley stood in front of him with wild hair, blood on her cheek, and furious, wet eyes. The server room smoked around her. Somewhere upstairs, alarms begged them to leave. The air tasted like ash and melted plastic. His shoulder hurt. His hands shook.
There would never be a perfect moment.
That realization did not feel like panic.
It felt like release.
Mac reached into his jacket pocket for his earpiece. Maybe to call Bozer. Maybe to tell Matty they were moving. Maybe because his body wanted a task before the truth got too big.
His fingers hit the ring box.
The small velvet square slipped.
It tumbled out of his pocket, hit his bag, bounced once, and landed on the concrete between them with a soft little sound.
Not dramatic.
Not loud.
Almost polite.
Both of them looked down.
The box sat there, dark blue velvet dusted with gray ash, looking completely out of place in the ruined room.
Mac’s heart stopped for one clean second.
Riley did not move.
Mac forgot how to speak.
“That’s—” he began.
His voice cracked.
Excellent.
Great.
Perfect.
Riley lifted her eyes from the box to his face.
Her expression had gone unreadable. Not blank. Never blank. Just full of too many things arriving at once. Shock. Hope. Suspicion. Fear. Recognition. A tiny flash of humor trying to survive.
“Mac,” she said slowly.
He bent too fast, grabbed the box, and nearly dropped it again because his fingers had apparently resigned.
“It wasn’t supposed to—”
He stopped.
That was the worst possible beginning.
“I mean, it was supposed to. Just not this. Not here. Obviously. This is—there’s smoke. And alarms. And a felony basement.”
Riley stared.
He kept talking, because panic had taken control.
“I had a plan. Several plans. Not Bozer’s plans. Those were—there was a robot dog at one point, and I want to be clear that I vetoed that immediately. Mostly immediately. The engineering would’ve been interesting, but emotionally wrong.”
A tiny sound escaped Riley.
Not quite a laugh.
Not quite a sob.
Mac looked at the box in his hand as if it might help him.
It did not.
“I’ve been carrying it,” he said.
His voice became quieter, even with the alarms still going.
“Not always. Sometimes. More than I should have. Less than I wanted to. I kept waiting for the right moment. Which is stupid, because our right moments usually involve someone yelling in comms and at least one federal agency being disappointed in us.”
Riley’s lips parted.
She was breathing too shallowly.
The building groaned again.
Mac stepped closer anyway.
“Mac,” she whispered.
There was warning in it, but also something else.
Something fragile enough that he nearly lost his nerve.
“I know,” he said. “We should evacuate. I know. And we will. In probably thirty seconds, because I can smell the insulation in that wall going bad, and I’m not proposing in an electrical fire if I can help it.”
“You’re not—”
She stopped.
Her eyes dropped to the box again.
He laughed once, breathless and terrified.
“I think I am.”
She looked back up.
The danger around them did not disappear, but it moved to the edges. All he could really see was Riley looking at him, fear and anger stripped back to something bare and stunned.
Mac opened the box.
The ring was not huge. Riley would have hated huge. It was practical enough for her to wear without catching on every keyboard, but still beautiful. A thin band. Clean lines. A small stone set low. In the emergency light, it caught red and white at the same time.
“I love you,” he said.
Riley made a small broken sound.
He held onto that sound and kept going.
“I love you when you’re saving the world from behind a laptop and threatening billionaires with municipal tax forms. I love you when you steal my hoodies and pretend they became community property. I love you when you tell me I’m being an idiot, which is often, and you’re usually right, which is unfair.”
His hands shook harder.
He lowered them slightly.
She saw anyway.
Of course she did.
“I love you when you’re furious with me because you think I don’t value my own life enough. And I need you to understand that I do. I do, Riley. More now than I ever did before, because it’s a life with you in it.”
Her eyes filled.
The alarms kept screaming.
Somewhere behind them, one of the server racks popped and hissed.
Bozer’s muffled voice shouted from Riley’s pocket.
Mac continued.
“I don’t want to take risks alone anymore. I don’t want to come home to a house that only feels like home when you’re there and keep pretending that’s just a coincidence. I don’t want to keep my toothbrush next to yours and act like it isn’t the best evidence I’ve ever had.”
He swallowed.
“I don’t have a perfect speech. I had notes. They were bad. There was a metaphor about circuits that got out of hand.”
Riley laughed then.
A real laugh, breaking through tears.
The sound almost took him apart.
“So I’m just going to ask before this building makes the decision for me,” he said, reaching for the ring with unsteady fingers. “Riley Davis, will you—”
She crossed the space between them and kissed him before he could finish.
It was not gentle at first.
It was fear and relief and anger and love all moving at once. Her hands caught his face, one against his jaw, the other at the back of his neck. She kissed him like she had been waiting through every not now with him and had finally decided the universe no longer got a vote.
The ring box pressed awkwardly between them.
Mac almost dropped it again.
He wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her close, careful of the wires, not careful of much else.
She tasted like dust and adrenaline and Riley.
Alive.
Warm.
Shaking.
The kiss softened because they softened. Her thumb brushed the cut near his hairline with impossible care. His breath caught. She felt it and smiled against his mouth.
Then a piece of ceiling tile fell three feet away with a wet slap.
They broke apart.
Riley rested her forehead against his for half a second, breathing hard.
“Yes,” she said.
Mac blinked.
“Yes,” she repeated, louder now, laughing and crying at the same time. “Obviously yes, you beautiful disaster. But we are leaving before I become engaged and incinerated in the same five-minute window.”
“Right,” Mac said, because his brain was mostly light. “Yes. Good. Leaving.”
“Ring later.”
“Ring later.”
She grabbed his hand.
Then she stopped, looked down at the box, and gave him a look.
“Actually, no. Give me that.”
“What?”
“Mac.”
He fumbled the ring out.
She held out her left hand with no patience and no ceremony, standing in a smoking sub-basement under red emergency lights while alarms screamed above them and a criminal server farm died around their ankles.
His fingers shook as he slid the ring onto her finger.
It fit.
For one second, everything stopped.
Riley looked at her hand.
The ring caught the ugly red light and somehow made it beautiful. Mac watched her face change. Shock becoming wonder. Wonder becoming a smile he had never seen before.
Then she squeezed his hand so hard it hurt.
“Now we leave.”
They ran.
The corridor outside was worse. Smoke had thickened near the ceiling. The emergency strips along the floor pulsed red, showing them the way out. Mac kept Riley’s hand in his because his body had apparently decided that letting go was no longer an acceptable design option.
She ran beside him, coughing once into her sleeve, tablet bag hitting her hip.
“Bozer,” Mac said, shoving his earpiece back in. “We’re evacuating. Sub-basement compromised. Possible electrical fire.”
“You think?” Bozer’s voice nearly cracked. “Also, did somebody say engaged? Because I swear I heard—”
“Not now,” Riley said, pulling her own earpiece out of her pocket.
She tried to sound stern.
She failed.
“Oh my God,” Bozer whispered.
Then louder, “Oh my God. Matty, they’re engaged in the fire basement.”
Matty’s voice cut in, calm and sharp.
“Congratulations. Evacuate faster.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mac said.
They reached the stairwell. Heat moved behind them. Not movie fire. Not yet. But enough to remind him that fire was real and did not care about major life events.
He pulled the door open and sent Riley ahead.
Then he paused long enough to wedge a strip of metal through the latch so firefighters would not be locked out if they came down.
Riley looked back from the stairs.
“Mac.”
“I’m coming.”
“You better be, fiancé.”
The word hit him so hard he almost missed the first step.
Fiancé.
He knew the word. Obviously. It existed in language. In paperwork. In movies. In Bozer’s terrible speech titles.
But it had never been something Riley could throw over her shoulder in a smoky stairwell with a ring on her hand.
He followed her.
They climbed.
One flight.
Then another.
The alarms grew louder as they rose. Smoke thinned out, replaced by dust and old stairwell air. Riley slowed near the basement landing, one hand on the railing. Mac put a hand at her back.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” She coughed once and shook her head. “Just got engaged in a server fire. Need a second.”
“We can pause.”
“We cannot pause in the murder building.”
“Records annex.”
“Murder building.”
“Fair.”
They kept moving.
At the loading bay, daylight hit them hard.
The exterior door stood open where firefighters had forced it wider. Outside, the world was full of engines, radios, boots, shouted orders, and flashing emergency lights bouncing off wet pavement and beige concrete.
They came out hand in hand, covered in dust and coughing.
Bozer was there.
He had clearly been told to stay behind the tape. He had technically obeyed. Emotionally, he was halfway over it, leaning forward so far the tape bowed against his chest.
The second he saw them, relief crossed his face. Then it turned into a grin so large it became a public safety issue.
“Are you kidding me?” he shouted. “Are you actually kidding me right now?”
Riley lifted her left hand.
The ring flashed.
Bozer made a sound between a cheer and something wounded.
“I knew it! I knew it! I mean, I didn’t know today, because today is insane, but I spiritually knew it.”
Matty stood beside him, arms crossed, expression severe.
Her eyes moved to Riley’s hand.
The corner of her mouth shifted.
Barely.
For Matty, that was confetti.
“Debrief in one hour,” she said.
Then, after a pause, “And congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Riley said, still breathless.
Mac expected Matty to add something operational. Something dry. Something about paperwork.
Instead, she looked at both of them for one quiet second, and something almost soft moved through her face before she covered it with command again.
“Get checked by medical,” she said. “Both of you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mac said.
Riley leaned toward him without taking her eyes off Matty.
“She’s emotional.”
“I heard that,” Matty said.
“I know.”
Firefighters moved past them into the building. Police started asking questions. Someone handed Riley a bottle of water. Someone else made Mac sit on the back bumper of an ambulance, and he obeyed mostly because Riley narrowed her eyes at him.
The world did what it always did after disaster.
It turned the impossible into procedure.
Clipboards appeared. Radios asked for updates. A paramedic cleaned the cut on Riley’s cheek and told her not to touch it.
Riley touched it the moment he turned away.
Mac caught her wrist.
“Stop.”
She looked at his hand around her wrist, then at him.
“You’re very bossy for someone who proposed while ignoring an evacuation order.”
“I was efficient.”
“You were panicking.”
“I was efficiently panicking.”
Her smile came slowly.
Warm.
Real.
“You didn’t finish asking.”
“I noticed.”
“So,” she said, leaning closer on the ambulance bumper, her knee brushing his. “Are you going to?”
He glanced around.
Bozer stood fifteen feet away, pretending not to watch and failing with his whole body. A firefighter beside him had started watching too. Matty had her back turned, but Mac had no doubt she was listening with the focus of a satellite dish.
The building smoked behind them.
Sirens painted everything red and blue.
A pigeon walked near the curb, completely uninterested in human milestones.
It was still not the moment he would have planned.
It was messy. Public. Burned around the edges. His shoulder hurt. Riley had soot on her nose. A paramedic was two feet away restocking gauze and trying to look invisible.
Mac looked at Riley’s hand.
The ring sat there like it had always been heading toward her.
Through every delay.
Every hidden box.
Every bad plan.
Every not now.
He slid off the ambulance bumper and lowered himself onto one knee.
Riley’s eyes widened.
“Mac,” she whispered, half laughing and half mortified.
His knee hit damp asphalt.
It was cold immediately.
It was perfect.
Around them, the noise changed. It did not stop. Emergencies did not stop for romance. But people noticed. A few heads turned. Bozer’s hands flew to his mouth. Matty, traitor, did not turn around but lifted her phone.
Mac took Riley’s hand.
The ring was warm from her skin.
“Riley Davis,” he said, and this time his voice held. “Will you marry me?”
Her face changed.
There was laughter in it. Tears too. And something else underneath, something that looked like every version of Riley that had survived enough to reach this moment.
The foster kid.
The hacker.
The runaway.
The woman who had built herself sharp enough to survive.
All of them seemed to hear the question.
“Yes,” she said.
Soft at first.
Then she grabbed his jacket, pulled him up, and said it again against his mouth.
“Yes.”
The kiss tasted like smoke, water, and the faint sweetness of the gum he had not used to fix anything.
Someone whooped.
Bozer, obviously.
The firefighter clapped twice before remembering professionalism.
Matty said, “I need everyone to remember this is an active scene,” in a tone that suggested she would deny smiling under oath.
Mac did not care.
Riley’s arms were around his neck. His hands found her waist.
For once, he did not count exits. He did not measure blast radius. He did not calculate structural load.
He had asked.
She had answered.
That did not make the future safe.
Marriage was not a shield. Love did not stop bullets, fix wiring, or defuse bombs from a distance. It did not erase fear.
But it gave fear somewhere to go.
Into a hand held tighter.
Into a voice saying I’m coming.
Into a toothbrush beside another.
Into a ring catching emergency lights outside a burning records annex.
Later, after medical cleared them with reluctance, and after Matty got the first version of their report with the patience of a woman dealing with agents who had just become an HR situation, they ended up back at Mac’s house.
All roads seemed to lead there now.
The house was quiet when they entered.
Quiet in the lived-in way.
Shoes by the door. A blanket folded badly over the couch because Mac never folded it right and Riley always fixed it later. Two mugs in the sink. A screwdriver on the coffee table. A hoodie over the back of a chair.
Proof of a life that had stopped belonging to one person without anyone saying it out loud.
Riley kicked off her boots and stood in the living room with her left hand held slightly away from her body, as if she was still learning how to carry the ring.
Mac locked the door behind them.
The click sounded bigger than usual.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Late afternoon light came through the curtains in gold bars. Dust floated in it. Not building dust. Home dust. Normal dust. Harmless dust.
Riley stood in the light like someone who had walked out of fire and into somewhere safe.
Mac leaned back against the door and watched her.
“What?” she asked, though her smile already knew.
“Nothing.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Yeah.”
She looked down at the ring and turned her hand slightly. The stone caught the sun and threw a small bright shape onto the wall.
“You carried this for months,” she said.
“Seventy-three days.”
Her eyes snapped up.
“You counted?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
She crossed the room slowly.
“Of course you counted.”
“I count things.”
“You count everything.”
“Not everything.”
“Mac.”
“Okay. Many things.”
She stopped in front of him. Close enough that he could see the soot still near her hairline, even after the paramedic’s wipes. Close enough to see the red mark on her cheek darkening at the edges.
“You were really going to wait for the perfect moment?” she asked.
He looked at the ring, then at her.
“I wanted you to have something normal.”
Her expression softened.
“Mac,” she said. “I fell in love with you while helping you improvise a defibrillator from jumper cables in a meat locker.”
“That was not my safest build.”
“You proposed in a crime basement during an electrical fire.” She slid her hands up his chest. “This is our normal.”
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“That’s concerning.”
“Deeply.” Her fingers rested at the back of his neck. “But I like us.”
“I like us too.”
“Enough to marry me, apparently.”
“Apparently.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Say it like you’re not being bullied.”
He smiled.
“I want to marry you, Riley.”
The words felt different here.
In the quiet.
Without alarms.
Without smoke.
They filled the living room gently. They settled among the tools and mugs and badly folded blankets. They did not need drama to matter. They had already survived drama.
Riley’s face changed again, the teasing slipping away into tenderness.
“I want to marry you too.”
He kissed her then because there was no falling ceiling, no active fire, no radio commentary, no reason not to.
This kiss was slower.
It had time.
Her hand slid into his hair. His thumb brushed the ring on her finger by accident, and they both smiled into the kiss like idiots.
Eventually she pulled back just enough to breathe.
“Bozer is going to plan twelve engagement parties.”
“Minimum.”
“Matty is going to make us fill out forms.”
“Definitely.”
“Desi is going to pretend she’s not emotional.”
“She will threaten me first.”
“Probably.” Riley rested her forehead against his. “And you’re going to try to build something for the wedding.”
“I was thinking maybe—”
“No explosives.”
“I wasn’t going to say explosives.”
“Mac.”
“Low-yield pyrotechnics are not—”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She laughed, and the house seemed warmer for it.
Mac wrapped his arms around her. She leaned into him with the ease of habit and the strangeness of something newly named.
Engaged.
Fiancée.
Future wife.
The words moved through him one at a time.
Outside, traffic passed. A dog barked twice. Somewhere far away, a siren rose and faded. Their phones would ring again. The world would ask for them again. It always did.
But for now, Riley’s cheek rested against his chest, and her left hand lay over his heart. The ring was cool between them until his body warmed it.
“You know,” she murmured, “you still owe me the circuit metaphor.”
He groaned.
“It was bad.”
“I want to hear it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I said yes to marrying you in a burning basement. I deserve the bad metaphor.”
He looked down at her.
She looked up at him with bright eyes, full of mischief and softness.
There was no version of his life after this that did not include giving her every terrible metaphor she asked for.
“Fine,” he said. “It was about closed circuits. Current only flows when there’s a complete path. I thought for a long time I had to be self-contained. Like everything had to start and end with me. But that’s not how useful systems work. They need connection. Feedback. Resistance in the right places so they don’t burn out.”
Her smile softened.
“And I’m your complete path?” she asked.
He winced.
“I told you it was bad.”
“No,” she said, brushing her thumb along his jaw. “It’s very you.”
“That’s not always a compliment.”
“It is from me.”
He bent and kissed her forehead.
Her eyes closed.
He stayed there a second longer than necessary, because necessary had become flexible around Riley.
They moved eventually because bodies still needed practical things after life changed.
Riley washed soot from her face in the bathroom while Mac made grilled cheese in the kitchen with the focus of a man handling delicate equipment.
She came out wearing one of his old shirts and sweatpants, ring still on, hair damp at the edges.
She caught him staring at her over the skillet.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like I’m a physics problem you’re happy to never solve.”
He flipped a sandwich too hard. Cheese hissed onto the pan.
“That is very specific.”
“I contain multitudes,” she said, stealing a corner of toast from the plate.
He let her.
They ate on the couch with their knees touching, plates balanced carefully, the TV on low without either of them watching.
Bozer texted seventeen times.
Matty texted once.
Congratulations. Forms tomorrow.
Desi texted:
If he hurts you, I know where he keeps the expensive tools.
Riley laughed so hard she nearly choked.
Mac took the phone and read the message twice, wounded.
“She wouldn’t.”
“She absolutely would.”
“Those tools are organized.”
“She knows.”
Evening settled around them slowly. The windows turned gold, then rose, then dark. The house changed with the light, becoming smaller and warmer against the city outside.
After the second sandwich, Riley went quiet.
Not sad quiet.
Not tired quiet either.
Just thoughtful.
She sat with her legs tucked under her and turned the ring once with her thumb.
Mac watched the movement until she caught him.
“Stop worrying,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“You are. I can hear the gears.”
He leaned back into the couch.
“I know this doesn’t make things safer.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
The honesty landed gently. Not like defeat. Like fact.
She shifted closer and took his hand, threading their fingers together so the ring touched his skin.
“But safer was never really the deal,” she said. “We tried safe in our own ways. You with your rules. Me with my walls. It kept some things out. Not the important things.”
Mac looked at their hands.
At the ring.
At the small scratch across one of his knuckles from the server room.
At Riley’s thumb moving once over his.
“What’s the deal, then?” he asked.
She rested her head on his shoulder.
“This,” she said. “Coming back. Saying the thing. Choosing each other, even when the building is on fire.”
He let the words settle.
They were not neat enough to be rules.
Maybe they were better than rules.
Rules tried to stop disaster from happening. This was about what stayed after disaster and still reached for your hand.
He turned his head and kissed her hair.
“Okay,” he said.
Riley hummed.
“That’s your vow?”
“No. My vows will be longer. Possibly include the circuit metaphor.”
“I will leave you at the altar.”
“You said yes.”
“I can still run.”
“I’ll build a trap.”
“Romantic.”
“Non-lethal.”
“Better.”
They laughed quietly.
The TV murmured. The city moved outside. Their empty plates sat on the coffee table beside a screwdriver and a folded mission report Riley had marked with sarcastic comments.
Mac looked at Riley’s hand in his and thought: this is evidence.
Not proof for anyone else.
Not paperwork.
Not protection.
Just a mark.
Something they had chosen.
Riley shifted against him, already drifting toward sleep.
“Mac?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you hide jewelry from me, do better.”
He smiled.
“Noted.”
“And no robot dog.”
“I vetoed the robot dog.”
“Good.”
A pause.
“Maybe for the wedding rings,” she murmured.
His smile widened.
“You want a robot dog ring bearer?”
“No.” Her voice was almost sleep now. “I want Bozer to think I’m considering it.”
Mac laughed under his breath, careful not to jostle her.
“You’re evil.”
“You love me.”
“Yeah,” he said, resting his cheek against her hair. “I do.”
The words no longer startled him.
They did not feel like falling.
They felt like coming home.
Riley’s breathing evened out. Her hand stayed in his. The ring cooled and warmed again as the room settled into night.
Mac stayed awake a little longer, listening to the house around them.
The refrigerator clicked on. A car passed outside. Somewhere in the walls, old wood creaked as the temperature dropped.
He thought of the records annex. Ash on velvet. Red light in Riley’s eyes. The question half-finished and answered anyway.
He thought of every not now that had somehow led them to now.
Then he closed his eyes.
Not to escape.
Not because the day had finally exhausted him, though it had.
He closed them because Riley was warm against him, because her ringed hand rested over his, because tomorrow there would be forms and jokes and probably three different crises before lunch.
But tonight there was this.
A quiet piece of the world they had reached by surviving long enough to tell the truth.
And in that quiet, Mac let himself imagine years.
Not perfectly safe years.
Not clean years.
Not years without fear.
Years with Riley stealing his hoodies.
Riley rewriting his security systems because his password habits offended her.
Riley calling him out when he forgot his own life mattered too.
Riley laughing in the kitchen with Bozer.
Riley falling asleep against him after missions.
Riley’s ring gathering scratches beside his own one day, both of them worn by ordinary use and still holding.
He breathed in.
The house stayed quiet around them.
And the future, dangerous and ordinary and theirs, waited without ticking.