He dove toward Aiden, grabbing his ankles as he crashed into the ground. Harry’s head smacked on the tile floor.

Get up. Get up.

Through the fuzz in his vision, he saw black boots running by him.

“Face down on the ground!” one of the SIRT officers yelled.

Where was Aiden?

He raised his head. Four SIRT officers pinned Aiden to the carousel.

Harry let his head sink back to the ground.

Thank God.

He knew he should get up, but he needed a minute.

Just one minute.

“Your boyfriend is toast, Harry!” Aiden shouted, his face pressed against the floor, his arms cuffed behind him. “He’s going up in a big mushroom cloud!”

He could barely tear his gaze from the US submarine captain. Rob radiated strength, focus, intelligence, courage.

When they were together, Harry felt invincible.

But those were stolen moments. Rob had been on a deployment for the past three months. Harry hadn’t spoken to him at all. Communications were limited when the sub was submerged. And when Rob was able to use the Wi-Fi for personal communications, he contacted his wife.

The thought of her made Harry’s heart constrict. She was the unseen force that pulled Rob surely and firmly from Harry’s grasp. She and the two children. Rob wanted to end the marriage, but he didn’t want to leave his kids.

And he was afraid for his career.

Just as Harry was afraid for his own. Being gay was more accepted than when he first entered politics, but he was in love with a married man. A man who was a captain in the US navy, and whose work revolved around covert intelligence operations—the ‘Silent Service.’

No question, if anyone knew about their affair it would torpedo their high-powered careers.

But the pain of not being able to admit who he was, who he wanted, and why he had never fathered a child had begun a physical ache in his heart when it was clear his mother was dying. He carried this ball of pain and chain of fear everywhere he went, until he could barely function.

Then the call came that his mother was palliative and being sent home to die. He decided it was time to tell her. And hope that his conservative, religious mother would still love her only child. He had sinned big time.

He needed her blessing.

And so he had come home on that fateful flight a few days ago, full of hope. Hope that his mother would give him release from his pain, and hope that he might see Rob when his submarine came into port.

His mother had died before he could confess his deepest, most raw secret.

Then he had shot a woman. The first time out of fear. The second, out of rage.

And his father had done the unthinkable and tried to finish her off.

And now, now…