We help him get settled on the couch and then Jake serves them each a bowl of chili and sits beside him. I take the other side. Ryder drops into the chair and Damian perches on its armrest, the two of them dwarfing the chair with their size. It looks like it could tip, but Damian manages to lean forward to push a log back into the coals with a poker and the chair doesn’t move. There’s a burst of sparks in the fireplace and soon the flames are jumping higher, throwing shadows across the room.
“You look better than when we left you,” Ryder tells Wyatt.
Wyatt glances down at his shirt with a crooked grin. “Less blood is all.” He’s wearing a faded University of Montana Veterinary Sciences tee that definitely doesn’t belong to him, stretched tight across the muscles of his chest and worn thin.
Conversation drifts from Jake and Wyatt’s drive to getting the cabin set up. Wyatt looks around appreciatively, like he’s a guest here, and it hits me how strange it is that he owns this place. Five hundred miles from Leathernecks.
Five hundred miles from me.
Ryder told me Wyatt bought this place a couple of years ago, before he even met me, but still. I can’t imagine being that far away from Wyatt. Not now, when I just got him back.
Not ever.
When he and Jake finish eating, I gather their bowls and set them by the sink, and when I return and sit back down, Wyatt reaches for my hand and squeezes it—a familiar, grounding gesture.
My thoughts leap back into memory. Sitting in front of Billy, slinging tequila while he pushed Wyatt’s buttons, trying to test him. Wyatt in fullRyan Portermode, calm under pressure, but his thumb brushing mine to remind me that he was there.
His presence always steadies me. Being back with all of these men feels like coming home to something I never thought I’d have again, but only Wyatt knows firsthand the hell we’ve been through, and sitting beside him makes me feel anchored.
“Well, boys,” he says, drawing a slow breath. “You saved our fucking necks, both of us.” He looks at me, blue eyes fierce despite his fatigue, and I can’t help but smile back. “Shit really went sideways back there. Neither of us would’ve made it out without you.”
Ryder nods. Jake and Damian watch him with a mix of respect, grief, and relief.
“We knew this was a tough job,” Ryder says. “But we underestimated it. When you went dark, we were blind. Jake scraped everything he could—chatter, intel—but it was all noise.”
“Shortly after I got in, the club went into lockdown,” Wyatt explains, lifting one hand to his side. His forearm flexes as he braces his ribs, tendons tightening under strained skin. “Surveillance everywhere. They found a drive I’d stashed in a bike going for service—to Redwater Engines, like we planned. Just shots of the grounds, no faces, but the prez lost it. Cameras in the halls, bathrooms, everywhere. Couldn’t risk my old channels. Few days ago, I tried to send an SOS on the radio, channel nineteen like we set, but got caught doing it. That’s how I ended up in that little jail you sprung me from.” He looks between all the men. “How did you know we needed an extraction?”
Damian tips his chin at me, grin tugging at the corner of his lips. “Simple. Max called us and left a message.”
Wyatt’s head snaps my way. “You did? How’d you do that?”
The polished marble and opulent gold of the Astoria Grand lobby comes back to me in vivid detail. Wyatt doesn’t know I was there. Doesn’t know that the minute I was out of his sight, Billy had me dressed up and shipped off to his senator with a case of drugs and cash in my hand. It’ll kill him to know. I decide it’s a conversation for another time.
“Short version is that Billy slipped up,” I say with a shrug meant to look casual, “and I grabbed the opportunity.”
“You were pretending to talk to Billy Manning, right?” says Damian, and I nod, grateful for the redirection. “She left a message like she was on the phone with someone,” he explains to Wyatt. “That told us you were being watched and it had to be fast. It was a distress call, clear as day.”
“Flagging the event was the smart move,” adds Ryder, lifting his eyes to me. The look is brief but loaded, and my pulse jumps in response, the memory of his mouth flickering hot across my skin. “We knew it would mean crowds, chaos, and security stretched thin. We started planning that night.”
“We couldn’t fucking believe you were with the O.D.,” says Damian, shaking his head in disbelief. “We’d been pulling at the wrong thread. We figured whoever took you was tied to the same network we’d been tracking. Guessing Wyatt might’ve filled you in on some of that?”
“Yep,” says Wyatt. “I told her about our work. The broad strokes—private contracts, off-record work, you running point.” He looks at Ryder. “Nothing she couldn’t have figured out after all this anyway.”
Ryder looks at me, raking his fingers through his hair, bicep tightening in a slow, unhurried flex as he pulls his hair back off his face. “Well…we kept it tight for a reason. Back then, we didn’t know who we could trust, or who might be listening. But you’repart of it now.” He drops his arm, dark blond hair falling around his face again, and arches an eyebrow. “No more secrets.”
Secrets.The subtext is very clear. I turn to Jake, catching his eye. He’s the only one I haven’t told about my O.D. past yet.
“Wyatt caught me up on the drive,” he says before I can speak, as if reading my thoughts. The edge in his tone is unmistakable. “He explained why you were there. Why they came for you.”
“I didn’t know—”
“I don’t want to get into it right now,” he cuts me off, voice terse. He’s cold. Angry. A side of Jake I’ve never seen before. “Just want to let you know I’m up to speed.”
I stop myself short. No one jumps to my defense—not that I think they should. They let Jake have his moment. Ryder’s eyes pass from him to me. No judgment. Just patience and watchfulness.
For a beat the silence is uncomfortable, but I don’t dare say anything. Then Damian jumps in and saves the moment.
“You must’ve had a heart attack when you saw Max there,” he says to Wyatt.
