The text message waits on the screen as my finger hovers over the send button. Against me, Wren sleeps soundly, and I press a kiss to the top of her head. My instinct is to get up and force myself through a punishing exercise set, but she needs me.
Jabbing send before I can change my mind, I throw my phone on the couch cushions. I hate asking anyone for anything. Let alone…this. I still think rescuing Elena and Semyon is a suicide mission, but we can’t leave her to Kolya and his goons. I keep replaying her last glance out the door in my head. Fear. Stark, naked, fear churning in her eyes. I know that feeling. Better than most people alive. I won’t leave anyone behind if there’s another option.
My phone vibrates, and the text message settles my nerves—at least a little.
Eighteen hours. How deep is the shit you’re in?
With a grimace, I thumb out a reply.
It’s the fucking Grand Canyon.
* * *
Honeysuckle floats in the air,and something soft tickles my cheek. Jerking awake, I try to make sense of my surroundings. A pale glow from a laptop. The rustle of a sleeping bag. And Wren. She sighs, almost a hum, in her sleep and shifts closer to me. I bury my face in her curls to center myself.
I haven’t woken up screaming once since I brought her to my bed back in Boston. Something about her soothes what’s broken inside me, but this can’t last. Soon, she’ll figure out I’m too fucked up to be worth her time. Once we rescue Elena and Semyon, I’ll have to go back to Seattle, and her life is across the country. Not mine. There’s nothing for me there anymore. Not after losing my brother, my parents, and any hope of a normal life.
“Stay,” she murmurs when I roll onto my back and slide my palm under my head. Sleep isn’t going to come for me anytime soon.
“Not going anywhere, sweetheart.”
Though her eyes don’t open, she drapes her arm over my chest and says, “Promise?”
That one word led us here. Halfway around the world. Too close to a veritable army with guns, drugs, and a penchant for murder and human trafficking. My every instinct screams at me to rub her back and coax her to sleep without answering, but instead, I brush a kiss to her lips. “Promise.”
* * *
“We don’t have any honey,”I say as I set a cup of instant coffee in front of her.
Wrapped up in the sleeping bag with her laptop balanced on her thighs, Wren smiles up at me. “I’m amazed we have coffee.”
Taking a seat next to her with my own mug, I take a sip of the bitter brew. “This isn’t coffee. It’s caffeinated swill.”
She snorts and covers her mouth, coughing as she tries not to let said swill shoot out her nose.
“That’s not funny.” I don’t understand why she’s laughing.
“It is the way you said it. Like you expected instant to taste like anything but flavored water. You’ve gone soft, soldier.”
“Soft?”
“Yes. Soft. Don’t you spend days in foreign countries all the time? You can’t tell me you have access to the good stuff there.”
“Actually…I do. West is responsible for the coffee. Frogman doesn’t go anywhere without his hand-roasted Guatemalan reserve.”
“Sounds like a smart guy. But…Frogman?” Wren presses her index finger to her laptop’s biometric sensor and then types in a ten digit passcode while I wonder how I can feel so…comfortable around her now. Is this what normal people do? Have coffee together in the mornings and talk about their coworkers?
“Ry?” She touches my arm, her fingers warm from the mug. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” Does she remember what she asked me last night? And my answer? “Sorry. Frogman is what guys like me—Special Forces—call a SEAL.”
“What does West call you?” she asks with a smile.
“Asshole, probably. Show me what else you found last night.”
Wren takes a deep breath, then blows the air out slowly. “Zion spent two years here. He kept a diary—kind of. I found it thanks to Inara’s translations. Every few days, he’d write me a letter. But he never sent them.” She shakes her head. “He knew I’d come for him.
“For a few months, he thought everything was great. He had a steady supply of heroin, but he wasn’t using so much he couldn’t function. Kolya likes to keep his runners sober at least half the time. He uses the drugs as…a carrot, I guess. Motivation. Sell enough and you get a present. A bonus. A few days off to shoot up and do nothing.”
