The raw terror in his eyes gut-punched her.
He covered it in the next breath, jaw clenching, shoulders squaring, but she had seen it. It struck her, hard and deep, that he hadn’t been afraid of the RPG. He had been afraid of what it would do to her.
“We’re here, Ayla,” she said into her mic, voice hoarse. “We’re up. Target’s down. RPG hit the trees. Minor injuries only.”
Her voice came back thick with relief. “Copy. For a second, I thought I’d lost you.”
Blair pushed to her feet, and she offered Breakneck her hand. He took it. He got to his feet. “Are you all right?”
The world tilted, then righted. She dragged the back of her hand across her face, smearing soot and sweat. She nodded, squeezing his arm hard. “We’re good. Marques is alive. We’re moving.”
Ice strode over, shook off a few stray leaves that had landed on his shoulders, and surveyed the group with that flat, ice-blue scan that missed nothing.
“Geezus, kid. Blair was right. We needed your gun,” he said quietly to Breakneck. Then to all of them, “We’re done here. Load up.”
They moved as a unit again, all of them stiff and a little stunned but functional.
Blair reached out and brushed her hand against Breakneck’s arm as they walked, the contact brief, the gesture impulsive and probably stupid.
He didn’t look at her, but his fingers flexed once over the grip of his pistol, like he was holding on to something too fragile to name.
Behind them, the biker compound smoldered in the dark, the echo of the RPG blast still bouncing off the trees.
Ahead, the SUVs waited, engines idling, lights low.
Between the two, Blair felt the shape of her life shifting in imperceptible increments she would only be able to name later.
For now, she lifted her chin, tightened her grip on Marques’s arm, and walked toward the vehicles, Tier 1 at her back and Breakneck’s presence like a steadying ghost at her side.
They were alive.
For tonight, that was enough.
Breakneck rode in silence, eyes fixed on the dark treeline sliding past the window, ribs aching, adrenaline thinning into something sharper and harder to manage. His pulse still hadn’t settled. Every time he glanced at Blair beside him, the memory of her hitting the ground under his hand jolted through him all over again.
He had worked with women before. Competent ones. Warriors. Investigators. Operators. Women who ran their lanes with precision and didn’t need his help. He had never felt compelled to shadow them, never wanted to keep them in his line of sight, never felt this quiet, inconvenient instinct to guard someone who clearly didn’t need guarding.
Blair was different. He hated that he felt it so strongly.
From the back of the SUV came the predictable ribbing, a welcome distraction he couldn’t quite absorb.
“Never seen you move so fast,” Boomer said, the grin obvious in his voice.
“Great shooting on the fly,” Skull added. “Like you were born sideways in midair.”
“That twisting half-gainer was a thing of beauty,” Kodiak chimed in. “Textbook break-dance, junior.”
Beef’s voice followed, amused. “Yeah, that was a hell of a position you got into. Never saw anything like that.”
A low chuckle rolled from Ice. “You always cover our asses, Break.”
Blair spoke last, her tone quiet but edged with awe she wasn’t trying to hide. “I have a feeling that anyone you get a position on is a dead man. The way you shoot is nothing short of masterful.”
Her words hit him harder than the rest combined. Something in him tightened, fractured, reassembled into a shape he didn’t recognize. Praise from the team slid off him easily, routine, comfortable, expected. Praise from Blair worked him over harder than the cartel. His inclination was to expect manipulation.
He couldn’t look at her.
She had no idea what she was doing to him. No idea how fast he had moved the second she was in danger. No idea how close the RPG blast had come to taking her from him. No idea how much of himself he had lost in the span of three seconds when he saw her, illuminated by fire and death.
