Elara
The safehouse was too quiet.
The air was stifling, but underneath it all, the silence pressed down harder than gunfire ever could. The Team spoke in low voices over maps, their plans a rhythm I didn’t belong to. I cleaned my pistol three times over, not because it needed it, but because I needed the distraction.
Beckett’s voice still echoed in my chest.Not while I’m breathing.
He meant it. Every bone in his body, every beat of his heart, every scar he carried screamed with the same truth: he would die before he let Hydra take me.
And that terrified me more than Hydra ever had.
When I finally looked up, he was watching me again. He always was. Like I was a puzzle he couldn’t put down, no matter how jagged the pieces.
“They won’t stop coming,” I said, breaking the silence.
Beckett’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t answer. The others stilled, listening without trying to look like they were.
“They’ll burn cities to the ground for what I have,” I went on, forcing my voice not to shake. “They’ll turn every safehouse,every street, every ally into ash. Hydra doesn’t forgive. And they don’t forget.”
Cyclone leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “Then what did you take from them, Elara?”
The question sliced straight through me.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. My throat locked around the truth I’d buried so deep it scraped my ribs raw. But Beckett was there—still, silent, steady. His eyes weren’t demanding, just waiting.
I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I didn’t look at the Team. I looked only at him.
“They were building something,” I said. “Something worse than anything they’ve done before. Not just trafficking, not just weapons. It was bigger—global. Files, names, networks. I stole part of it.” My voice dropped. “I shouldn’t have survived taking it, but I did.”
The words spilled into the stale air like blood in water.
“They’ll kill anyone who helps me,” I whispered, my gaze flicking over the others before snapping back to Beckett. “That means all of you. That means you.”
For a heartbeat, fear strangled me. Fear that they’d tell me to leave, that Beckett would finally see how much destruction I carried with me.
But instead, he leaned closer, hands braced on the table. His voice was low, rough, but steady.
“Then we’ll burn it down first.”
The room went silent again. Not with fear this time. With resolve.
And that was the moment I realized—I wasn’t alone anymore.
49
Roger Grand
The cigar burned low between my fingers, the smoke curling like a serpent toward the ceiling. I let it linger, let the silence stretch, because silence made men sweat. And sweat made them confess their weakness.
“They should’ve been ash in the desert.” My voice was calm, quiet—far more dangerous than a shout. “And yet Beckett lives. And he still has her.”
Across the table, my lieutenants shifted uneasily. The overhead bulb hummed, throwing shadows across their faces. One man dared to clear his throat.
“We underestimated the Golden Team’s response. We won’t again.”
I flicked the cigar into the ashtray, the hiss of it smothering heat in cold metal. Then I smiled. The kind of smile that made the strongest men pray for forgiveness.
“No, you won’t.”
