I nod, eyes still locked on the shape of her in the tent light.
“I’ll be there.”
But I don’t move.
I’m rooted.
Raging.
Ruined.
Watching the girl I still fucking love flirt with a man who hasn’t earned her scars.
“What the fuck are you doing, Butterfly,” I whisper under my breath, jaw tight. “He doesn’t know you. Not like I do.”
And God help me if he ever finds out.
I walk. Fast. Like I can outrun the ache crawling up my throat.
Like I can outpace the heat in my chest, the phantom echo of her laugh, the way her body angled toward him like he was gravity.
The base stretches out around me in a maze of tents and corrugated metal huts. Lanterns swing from poles, casting long shadows across the dirt. The smell of gun oil lingers in the warm night air. Somewhere, someone is singing off-key—some old country song the boys use to keep the fear from settling too deep.
Fucking Torres.
Golden-boy bastard with that easy grin and those clean hands like he’s never had to earn anything.
He doesn’t deserve her.
He doesn’t even fucking know her.
He thinks she’s pretty and soft but I’ve tasted her when she was shaking. I’ve felt her come apart in my hands. I’ve watched her beg for me with her lips trembling and syrup in her hair and nothing but my name on her tongue and now she’s smiling at him?
No.
No fucking way.
The fire’s already lit when I hit the edge of the camp.
Boys are sitting on crates and upturned helmets, passing around a bottle like it means something. Smoke. Laughter. The faint thrum of a Bluetooth speaker someone rigged up to play country shit that none of us really like.
“Kingston!” Burke grins, raising a metal cup. “Didn’t think you’d crawl out of that ghost cave of yours tonight.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Shit, someone’s cranky.”
Torres’ voice.
My blood fucking spikes.
I don’t look at him. I don’t fucking blink.
Burke tosses me the bottle.
I catch it, unscrew the cap, and drink like it owes me an apology.
It burns.
