1
Beckett
Ihated briefings.
Not the intel, not the mission—it was the talking. The suits. The way River layered his words with politics instead of bullets. I trusted rifles and maps. People? Not so much.
But the moment she walked in, the room shifted.
Elara Voss.
Tall, poised, wrapped in a dark suit that probably cost more than my truck. Her hair was pulled back, away from her face. She moved like she belonged here, like Hydra hadn’t used her face as a mask for their filth. Did he teach her to kill?
My jaw tightened. Because I knew that’s exactly what they had done.
River said she was our “asset.” Said she’d turned. That she was our key to burning Roger Grand and the rest of the Hydra council to the ground.
But the second her eyes met mine—icy, assessing, too calm—I felt two things at once: distrust like a blade at my throat. And an attraction that hit like a sucker punch.
Deadly combination.
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest as Cyclone started droning about encrypted bank transfers. I still couldn’t believe he was an expert on the computer. I didn’t hear half of it. My focus was on her—on the way her fingers laced together on the table, the faint scar cutting along her wrist, the way she didn’t flinch under a room full of men who would gladly put a bullet in her if she blinked wrong.
Beautiful. Dangerous. Untouchable.
And she was mine to guard.
Hell.
2
Elara
The moment I stepped into the room, I felt the weight of their eyes. Distrust rolled off them in waves—soldiers, operatives, men who bled for each other. To them, I would always be the woman who smiled in front of cameras while Hydra chained girls in basements.
They weren’t wrong. Except I didn’t know about the girls.
I sat straighter, refusing to shrink under their suspicion. I’d learned long ago that masks were armor. If they wanted to see a polished, unbreakable Elara Voss, then that’s exactly what they’d get.
Except for him.
Beckett Cole.
His eyes burned into me, sharp and unyielding, like he could strip every layer down to the truth. He was broad-shouldered, scarred, carrying himself with the easy lethality of a man who’d killed more times than he’d counted. Former SEALs, all of them were. And they looked every inch of it.
And I hated that I felt the heat of his gaze settle under my skin. Attraction had no place here. Not when trust was already hanging by a thread.
So I met his stare head-on, my chin lifting just enough to let him know I wasn’t going to break under it. If he wanted a reason not to trust me, he’d find one. But if he wanted to believe I could help them take Hydra apart, he’d have to accept that I wasn’t going anywhere.
When the briefing ended, he didn’t move, didn’t look away. His silence said everything his words hadn’t:
I don’t trust you. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Fine. Trust wasn’t necessary. Results were.
But God help me, the way he looked at me—like I was both the enemy and the only thing keeping him alive—made me wonder what would happen if I proved him wrong.
3
