I didn't think women like that existed outside of movies. But here she is, taped laptop and all, having just taken out trained killers with kitchen supplies and grandmother's jewelry.
Tyler, you bastard, you were right about everything.
THREE
Savannah
Seventy-two hours ago,I woke up with Nathan Torres in my bed, his arm heavy across my waist, and thought I knew what my life looked like.
Three years as partners, six months as lovers, and I still got a little thrill watching him sleep. He looked younger like this, without the careful FBI mask he wore during the day. His dark hair was mussed, falling over his forehead in a way that made my fingers itch to brush it back.
"Stop staring," he murmured without opening his eyes, voice rough with sleep.
"Can't help it. You're pretty."
He cracked one eye open, mouth quirking. "Pretty?"
"Beautiful. Devastating. Handsome. Absolutely gorgeous." I traced the scar on his shoulder—a bullet graze from our second year together when a crypto-fraud case went sideways. "How'd I get so lucky?"
He rolled over, pulling me against him, and his kiss tasted like morning and promises. "I'm the lucky one, Savi. Smartest woman in the FBI, and she lets me in her bed."
"Flattery will get you everywhere."
"Good to know." His hand slid down my side, and heat pooled low in my belly. "How much time before work?"
I glanced at the clock. "Forty minutes."
"Plenty of time."
Later, in the shower, Nathan washes my back with the careful attention that made my knees weak.
I thought this might be forever.
We'd talked about it—kids someday, a house outside the city, and normal things that seemed possible despite our abnormal jobs. He'd met my grandmother before she died, charmed her completely. She'd given me her pearl earrings afterward, said,"That one's a keeper, sugar."
God, what a fool I was.
Now I'm pressed against a stranger's back on a stolen motorcycle, every nerve ending alive with fear and want, trusting him because the alternative is dying.
The wind cuts cold through my torn blouse as Sawyer navigates San Francisco's maze of streets. I catalog what I know about him: Guardian HRS operator based on the speed with which my desperate call to an old CIA contact for help.
After Nathan destroyed my career, I reached out to my contact. He gave me CJ’s name. Said he worked for a group good at extractions.
CJ got Sawyer to me, military trained from the way he moved through my apartment, comfortable with violence in a way that should terrify me, but doesn't.
His body under my hands is solid muscle, coiled power, and he smells like gunpowder and something woody—cedar, maybe pine.
There's a particular way military men hold themselves—spine straight, even when relaxed, awareness of every exit, hands that move with economy. Sawyer has all of that, plus something else—something darker.
The way he killed those men in my apartment was efficient, almost beautiful in its precision. No hesitation, no excess, just the exact amount of violence needed.
It should scare me.
Instead, I feel safer than I have in three days.
His tactical vest has dried blood on it. The thought that he waded through blood to get to me, that he stepped into my war knowing nothing about me except that I needed help, makes my chest tight with something I don't want to examine too closely.
The rappelling rope left his hands raw where he controlled our descent, and I watched him ignore the pain like it didn't exist. There are scars on his forearms—burn scars, old but extensive.
