“She was in my hands,” he snarled, voice low and venomous. “And you let Beckett tear her away.”
His lieutenants flinched. None of them spoke at first. The weight of his fury filled the room like smoke, choking, inescapable.
“She can’t run far,” one dared to say. “She’s weak. Beckett can’t guard her forever.”
Roger turned his head slow, deliberate, his stare cutting sharper than any blade. “Weak?” He slammed his palm down on the table, splintering wood. “Do you know what she carries? What she knows? There is nothing weak about Elara. And Beckett—” His lips curled into a smile cold enough to freeze the air. “Beckett is the nail I’ll drive through her heart when she watches him die.”
The men dropped their gazes, sweat glistening on their brows. Roger paced once, twice, then stilled, his voice smoothing into something almost calm.
“Find them,” he said. “Find them, and when you do, I want the city itself to bleed until she begs for mercy.”
The silence that followed was thick, broken only by the ticking clock on the wall. A countdown. His countdown.
47
Beckett
The safehouse walls pressed in tighter the longer I stared at them. Peeling paint. One cracked window. A front door that wouldn’t last half a clip if Hydra tracked us here. It wasn’t safety—it was a pause. And pauses got men killed.
The others sprawled around the kitchen table, maps and intel scattered under the dim bulb overhead. River leaned on his elbows, rattling off coordinates, his mouth moving faster than my patience could handle. Cyclone’s laptop whirred, drone footage looping grainy images of the desert. Oliver and Gage argued quietly about supply lines.
But my focus wasn’t on them. It was on her.
Elara sat at the far end of the table, pistol cleaned and reassembled, her braid slipping loose against her shoulder. She looked smaller than she had out there in the desert fight—but sharper too, like every edge of her was honed from survival. She hadn’t said a word since we walked in.
“Hydra won’t stop,” I said, voice cutting across the table.
River looked up. “We just bought ourselves time.”
“Not enough.” I planted both hands on the map, the paper crinkling under my grip. “They were already too close. They’ll track us again. We can’t sit here waiting for them to knock.”
Oliver gave a sharp grin. “Always the optimist.”
I ignored him. My eyes went back to Elara. She felt it—my stare—because she lifted her chin, meeting me dead on. No fear. Just fire.
“They’re after me,” she said quietly, finally breaking the silence. “You all know it.”
No one argued. The truth was carved into every bullet hole we’d dodged.
I leaned closer, knuckles pressing into the map. “Then we end it. We take the fight to them before they get another shot at you.”
Gage shifted in his chair. “That’s suicide without intel.”
“Then we get intel.” My voice came out harder than I meant, but I didn’t soften it. Couldn’t. I could still feel her hand gripping mine on that ridge, her weight in my arms when she slipped, the burn in my chest when I thought I might lose her.
“I don’t care how many men Hydra throws at us,” I said, locking eyes with her, letting the whole damn team hear it. “They won’t take you back. Not while I’m still breathing.”
The room went quiet. Even River shut his mouth for once.
Elara’s lips parted, like she wanted to argue—but what came out instead was softer, almost broken. “And if it costs you your life?”
I didn’t answer right away. The soldier in me knew the truth. The man in me refused to admit it.
Finally, I said, “Then it’ll be worth it.”
Her eyes burned, and she looked away first. But my chest stayed tight, because I knew this wasn’t just about a mission anymore. This was war—and for me, it was already personal.
48
