Safe.
I leaned against the SUV, shaking, watching families rush forward as names were called. Mothers clutched children. Fathers wept into their hands. The air filled with sobs, laughter, disbelief.
Beside me, Adam stood tall and silent, eyes scanning everything, never resting. To anyone else, he looked like stone. But I felt the tension in him, sharp as glass. This victory wasn’t enough.
I whispered a prayer under my breath, my chest aching. The girl had a chance. They all did.
Adam’s arm slid around my waist, pulling me close for just a breath. His voice was low, almost too quiet to hear over the chaos.
“You did good, Raine.”
I looked up at him, tears blurring my vision. “We did good.”
But his eyes were already somewhere else—hard, dark, hunting.
This rescue wasn’t an ending.
It was fuel.
And I knew the second the families were safe, Adam Stoker was going after the people who thought they could turn lives into inventory.
And God help whoever he found first.
81
Adam
The hospital was quiet by the time we got back to the motel. The survivors were safe, families reunited, the team bone-tired but alive.
I should’ve been poring over intel, planning our next move, sharpening the blade. But the second the door closed behind us, the war outside slipped away.
Raine stood in the half-dark, her hair falling loose around her shoulders, her eyes still haunted by what we’d seen. God, she was beautiful. Bruised, tired, stubborn as hell—and beautiful.
I crossed the room in two strides and pulled her against me. Her breath hitched, her body melting into mine, and the world narrowed down to the heat of her skin, the press of her lips, the way she clung like she’d never let go again.
Five years without her. Five years of silence, of anger, of empty nights. And now—her, here, alive, fighting beside me, wanting me with the same fire I’d carried all these years.
Clothes hit the floor fast, desperate, forgotten. My hands mapped every curve, relearning the body I’d dreamed of, the body I thought I’d never touch again. She gasped my name, nails raking down my back, and I swallowed the sound with a kiss that was more hunger than breath.
The bed creaked under us, the room filling with heat and the ragged rhythm of two people who’d been denied too long. There was no holding back, no gentleness at first—just raw need, hard and hot, every thrust a vow, every cry a reminder that we were here, alive, together.
But then the edge softened. Her hands cupped my face, her eyes locking with mine, and the fire shifted into something deeper. A claim. A promise. Not just bodies colliding, but souls stitching themselves back together in the only way they knew how.
When release came, it tore through me like the storm on the ridge—violent, unstoppable, leaving me shaking in her arms. She clung to me, sobbing my name against my skin, and I held her through it, my own breath breaking.
After, I didn’t move. Couldn’t. I just lay there with her tangled against me, my chest still heaving, her heartbeat steady under my palm.
For the first time since the storm, I felt the tension drain out of me. Not gone—never gone—but dulled. Muted.
Raine kissed my jaw, soft this time. “We needed that,” she whispered.
I tightened my hold on her, burying my face in her hair. “Yeah,” I rasped. “We did.”
And with her wrapped around me, safe in my arms, I let the war wait until morning.
82
Raine
