Looking at Savannah now, hair spread across the pillow I folded from my jacket, I understand what he meant.
For three years, I've been operating on autopilot, taking the highest-risk positions because I had nothing to lose. Now, watching her breathe, I'm already calculating how to keep her alive, how to end this threat, how to give her a life where she doesn't have to look over her shoulder.
Dangerous thinking. Attachment compromises judgment. Caring makes you hesitate. But I'm already compromised, have been since that kiss on the motorcycle that tasted like possibility.
Savannah Cross.
Five hours ago, she was just a name on a mission brief. Now she's imprinted on my senses—the way she felt pressed against me on the motorcycle, how she tasted like coffee and desperation, the fierce intelligence in her eyes as she works through encryption that would stump most experts.
The challenge coin is warm against my chest, Tyler's memory a constant weight.
He'd like her.
Would laugh at how she turned household items into weapons, respect how she fought instead of froze.
He’d understand the sex, too.
I check my phone—encrypted message from CJ. "Safe house compromised. Three-man team hit it twenty minutes after you diverted. Stay dark."
So they have someone inside CIA, or at least inside Guardian HRS's communication chain. Good to know. I delete the message, pull the SIM card, and snap it. From here on out, we're completely alone.
Dawn creeps across the mountains like spilled honey, painting everything gold and shadow. The temperature drops just before sunrise, and Savana shivers in her sleep, curling tighter into the sleeping bag.
I want to go to her, wrap myself around her, share body heat. Instead, I stay at my post, watching the tree line for movement that doesn't belong.
A deer emerges from the forest, then freezes, head up, ears swiveling. Something spooked it. I glass the area with my scope, tracking slowly across the terrain.
There—a glint of metal where there shouldn't be any.
Could be trash. Could be someone's scope catching sunlight.
I watch for ten minutes, patient as stone. The glint doesn't repeat, but the deer doesn't relax either. It bounds away suddenly, white tail flashing.
Savannah shifts in her sleep, the sleeping bag falling away from her shoulders. Her torn blouse reveals the edge of a bruise from where one of the fake FBI grabbed her.
The urge to kill them again, slower this time, surprises me with its intensity.
I've protected dozens of clients over the years—politicians, witnesses, corporate executives. It's always been professional, detached, mission-focused.
This is different.
The moment I saw her fighting in that apartment, something shifted. Maybe it was the intelligence in how she taped thelaptop to herself, or the way she didn't hesitate to drive an earring into a man's throat. Maybe it was just recognition—another person who'd been betrayed by someone they trusted, who chose to fight rather than break.
Doesn't matter. What matters is she's under my protection now, and I'll die before I let Prometheus touch her.
She stirs, stretches, and blinks up at me with momentary confusion before memory crashes back.
"You didn't wake me."
"You needed the sleep more than I did."
She sits up, hair messy, the morning light catching the gold flecks in her eyes. "How long was I out?"
"Six hours."
"Sawyer—"
"I've gone longer on less. I'm fine." I turn from the window before the sight of her sleep-warm and soft makes me think things I shouldn't. "Get dressed. MREs in the corner if you're hungry."
