“Careful, Cole,” she murmured. “You sound like you’re protecting me, not guarding me.”
My jaw clenched. “Maybe there’s no difference.”
I meant it. And that scared me more than Hydra ever could.
22
Elara
The desert heat pressed down, but it wasn’t the sun that made my skin burn. It was Beckett Cole.
He stood too close, his voice still echoing in my chest:You’re glued to me from now on. Where I go, you go.Not a suggestion. A command.
Hydra had spent years chaining me in silks and diamonds, dressing their control as privilege. I should have hated Beckett’s words—should have spit them back at him, should have reminded him I didn’t belong to anyone.
But I didn’t.
Because the truth was simple, and terrifying: Hydra would come for me. They always did. And Beckett… Beckett would kill every last one of them before he let them touch me.
That kind of protection was dangerous. Addictive. And I couldn’t afford to want it.
“You’re really not letting me out of your sight, are you?” I asked, keeping my tone sharp, as if I could cut away the tremor in my chest.
His gaze didn’t waver. “Not a chance.”
I forced a laugh, brittle around the edges. “Sounds less like guarding and more like stalking.”
His mouth didn’t move, but the muscle in his jaw twitched once. “Call it whatever you want. It ends the same way—I don’t let Hydra take you.”
The words slid under my skin, threading through cracks I’d buried deep. For one reckless moment, I wanted to believe him. Wanted to let myself rest in the shadow of his promise.
But resting was a weakness. Trusting was suicide. Hydra had taught me that lesson in blood.
So I straightened, armor snapping back in place. “Fine. Stay close. Just don’t get in my way.”
His eyes darkened, sharp and unreadable. He didn’t argue. He didn’t need to. The space between us already hummed with a truth neither of us would say out loud: I might not trust him, but I’d never felt safer than I did standing in his shadow.
And that scared me more than the convoy, more than Hydra, more than the ghosts I carried. Because if Beckett Cole ever decided to let go—
—I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
23
Beckett
The briefing room smelled like sweat and Hogie sandwiches, the kind of mix that clung to you after a fight no shower could scrub out. We’d dumped the intel Cyclone ripped from Hydra’s crates across the table—drives, manifests, coded ledgers scrawled in neat foreign hands.
River leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes sharp. He wasn’t just another operator in moments like this; he was someone we listened to when he spoke. He was always calm. Calculated. Unforgiving. Except when his wife, Kat, and his kids needed him. Then he dropped everything.
“Convoy’s down,” River said, voice steady. “But it wasn’t Hydra’s A-team. Roger Grand sacrificed pawns to buy himself time, which means he’s already moving the real pieces.” His gaze swept the room, pausing just long enough for each of us to feel it. “We need to know what’s next before we bleed out chasing scraps.”
Oliver grunted. “She fought like she knew what she was doing.” He didn’t bother softening the suspicion in his tone.
“Too well,” Gage added, crossing his arms. “Makes you wonder what else she’s hiding. But she fought with us. She was on our side.”
Elara sat straight in her chair, hands folded neatly on the table, mask flawless. To anyone else, she looked untouchable. But I’d seen the flicker in her eyes when the blood hit her hands. She was holding the mask in place with sheer force of will.
“She held her ground,” I said before I thought better of it. The words came out sharp, defensive. “She didn’t run. She didn’t fold. And she got us information we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
