I met his eyes and didn’t blink. “Then you take me with you. I know how he moves his pieces. I’ll know if it’s bait.”
The room went still.
“Absolutely not,” Gage said. “She’s not field-ready. She’s not cleared.”
“She’s not trustworthy,” Oliver added, bluntly.
I let their words wash over me. This part was familiar—men deciding who I was, what I could or couldn’t do. My pulse stayed steady, my mask intact. “You want leverage? You want Grand exposed? Then you need someone who knows the roads that he doesn’t write on a map. That’s me.”
Silence again.
It was Beckett who broke it. His voice was low, certain. “If she goes, I’ll stay with her. Every second.”
River nodded, already marking assignments on the screen. “Then it’s settled. Wheels up at 0600.”
The others filed out, muttering, shoulders tense. But Beckett stayed, watching me with that same unreadable expression.
“You really want to walk back into Hydra’s fire?” he asked quietly.
I lifted my chin, even though my chest tightened. “Want has nothing to do with it. Survival does. As long as there is a Hydra,I will never be free to walk anywhere. I want them destroyed, more than anyone.”
His jaw worked, the muscle ticking once. And for a second, I thought he might say more. Might warn me. Might even believe me.
But he just turned away, leaving me in the cold glow of the screens, wondering if this was the beginning of proving myself—or the end.
15
Beckett
Convoy ops were supposed to be straightforward. Track, intercept, dismantle. Clean. But nothing about this was going to be clean—not with Elara walking straight into Hydra’s teeth.
I checked my rifle, chambering a round, and the action was smooth and automatic, thanks to muscle memory. Across the hangar, the team moved like they always did—Oliver running checks on the trucks, Gage muttering about angles of approach, Cyclone buried in screens he’d jury-rigged to the inside of the transport.
And Elara.
She stood at the gear table, strapping on a vest that didn’t quite fit her frame, sliding spare mags into pouches with hands that looked too delicate for steel. She moved as if she’d done this before, and that burned me in a way I couldn’t explain. Hydra had taught her how to survive, but I hated knowing they’d been the ones to drill it into her.
I crossed the floor before I could stop myself.
“You know this isn’t a game,” I said, voice low, sharp.
Her head tilted, eyes glinting. “I figured the guns gave that away.”
Not the time. I stepped closer, close enough to smell the faint bite of antiseptic still clinging to her skin. “Listen to me. You don’t move without my say. You don’t break formation. And if things go bad, you hit the ground and stay there. Clear?”
Her mouth curved, not quite a smile—something fiercer. “You planning on giving me orders all day, Beckett Cole? It sounds like you have two first names. Is Cole really your last name?”
“Yes,” I said, flat. “And I’ll give orders all damn day.”
For a second, her mask slipped, just enough for me to catch the flicker in her eyes. Not fear. Not defiance. Something softer, buried deep. Trust, maybe. The kind she’d never admit to.
It hit me harder than it should have.
I adjusted the strap of her vest myself, tugging it tighter until it sat snug against her chest. My hands brushed her shoulders, light but firm, and I felt the way she tensed under the contact. “This isn’t about you proving something,” I said. “This is about you staying alive. Got it?”
She swallowed, throat working. Then she nodded once. “Got it.”
But when she looked up at me, chin lifted, eyes steady, I knew damn well she’d never stop trying to prove herself anyway.
