The Team nodded, already shifting into motion, but Elara’s eyes stayed on me—haunted, fierce, and carrying a secret that still hadn’t left her lips.
And I knew one thing with brutal certainty.
This wasn’t just about survival anymore.
This was about her.
51
Elara
His words clung to me long after the maps were folded and the Team shifted back into motion.
I don’t need saving, Elara. I need the truth.
He didn’t know how those words split me wide open. Because the truth wasn’t just dangerous—it was poison. And if I gave it to him, it wouldn’t just kill me. It could destroy him, too.
Beckett stood across the room now, conferring with River and Oliver over entry points into the city. His shoulders were squared, his voice clipped, the soldier in him locked back into place. But I’d seen the man beneath it—the one whose hands trembled when they gripped my chin, whose eyes burned with something more than orders and strategy.
And that terrified me more than anything Hydra could do.
I pulled away from the table, slipping into the narrow hall that led to the safehouse’s back room. My pulse hammered as I shut the door behind me, the weight of the secret pressing until my chest ached.
The files.
The ones I’d taken.
They weren’t just names and numbers. They were Hydra’s spine—their alliances, their payoffs, their reach into governments that swore they were clean. Proof that Hydra wasn’t just a syndicate. It was a disease infecting everything it touched.
And tucked within those files was one more truth. The reason I hadn’t told Beckett.
Hydra had a name for me. Not Elara. Not the ghost who escaped their chains. Something colder. Something I’d never let slip from my lips again. Because if Beckett knew—if the Team knew—they’d look at me differently. They’d see me as Hydra had. Not as a fighter. Not as a survivor.
As a weapon.
The door creaked. My head snapped up, my hand flying to the pistol at my thigh. But it was him.
Beckett leaned against the frame, shadows cutting across his face. He didn’t say a word at first, just watched me with those eyes that seemed to strip me bare.
“You don’t get to run from me,” he said quietly.
I swallowed hard, my throat tight. “I wasn’t running.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, stepping closer. “You were.”
His hand brushed mine, gentle where he was never gentle, grounding me in the middle of the storm. And damn me, but I wanted to give him everything right then. Wanted to lay every bloody truth in his hands and let him decide if I was worth the risk.
But the words caught like glass in my throat. Instead, I whispered the only truth I could bear to give.
“I don’t want you to die for me, Beckett.”
His eyes softened, the soldier giving way to the man again. He cupped the side of my face, thumb brushing dust from my cheek.
“Too late,” he said.
And just like that, the wall I’d built around my heart cracked, piece by fragile piece.
52
