He bowed his head as grief slammed into him, unstoppable. He couldn’t hold it. He couldn’t contain it. It swamped him like a rogue tide, choking and violent.
A hand touched his shoulder. Fly flinched, then looked up and Than was there.
Eyes red. Face hollow. Every line carved out of pain.
Than didn’t say a word. He just pulled Fly up and into a crushing embrace, arms locked tight, bodies shaking against each other, brothers holding brothers the way drowning men cling to something that can float.
Fly gripped the back of Than’s uniform, fingers curling hard, his forehead pressed to Than’s shoulder as they stood there on the dock with the spring wind lifting the sails on the boats around them. Neither of them spoke.
They hung on to guilt, pain, the love they had for the sweetest girl they’d ever known, to the empty space she’d left behind.
Brothers. Still brothers. Now bound by loss as much as loyalty.
When Fly finally lifted his head, the world felt different. Sharper. Heavier. Carved into him. This was the cost of command.
This was the price he would pay, not just for Mei, but for every life that would rest in his hands from this day forward. Every sailor. Every SEAL. Every man he would lead. Every life. He would remember this moment. He would remember her, and he would carry the weight…always.
Because leaders didn’t get to set it down. They absorbed it. Held it. Lived with it. They made damn sure the people under them came home.
Fly closed his eyes and made a silent vow to Mei, to Than, to himself, to the uniform he would soon wear.
I will bear the cost.
I will protect them.
I will lead with truth.
I will never forget.
When he opened his eyes, the grief was still there, raw and bleeding, but beneath it, something steadier lived. Purpose. Resolve. Honor.
The kind that would shape him for the rest of his life.
21
RCMP WILD Headquarters, TOC, Gear Room, Outskirts of Kamloops, British Columbia.
Blair didn’t move in the silence he left behind. Ice slid a knowing look at her, subtle but unmistakable, an expression equal parts exasperation and amusement.
“You good?” Ice asked, voice mild in the way only someone truly dangerous could manage.
Blair breathed once. Twice. Her pulse still hammered from the feel of Kelly’s hands in her hair, the sheer weight of him pinning her to the wall, his breath scorching the hollow of her throat.
“Hell of a day. I’ll let you know when I settle,” she said. She didn’t sugarcoat anything, but discussing Breakneck with his boss wasn’t on her agenda. Ice’s eyebrow twitched upward.
He didn’t call her on it. Instead, he nodded toward the table. “Then handle his kit. He’ll sleep if he thinks someone competent is on it.”
Blair swallowed, nodded, and Ice left her there, alone with Breakneck’s weapons, his scent, his heat still imprinted on her skin.
For long seconds, she didn’t move. The whole room felt charged, like the air hadn’t settled from the storm he’d left behind. She pulled in a shaky breath, stepped to the table, and reached for his sniper rifle like it might burn her.
Like he burned her only moments ago with the sear of that tantalizing, barely there, full, aching lips.
This was his skill measured in metal and glass, a natural extension of the man, part of the machine, not in the cold, calculated way, although snipers did have that kind of focus, but in the preserve-life-by-taking-life way. The way he moved in elegant glides, nothing wasted even when he was twisting his body in midair to get an impossible shot to deflect an RPG that would have ended not only his life tonight, but his teammates, her and Beef’s, and the man he’d come to save. She had to wonder if that was all jumbled up in that impossibly handsome head of his.
Her hands stilled, her breath coming in small gasps. Beautiful. He was beauty in motion, driven with the kind of will that was sexy and made her feel like she had been starving her whole life. She wasn’t used to hunger that felt like there was only one source of sustenance…him. That should scare her, but it didn’t, and she had no idea why.
He was the tip of the spear, as the Americans had described their SEALs. Sharp, measuring every angle around him without conscious effort.
