“You weren’t thinking,” I snap, the word cracking through the space between us. “That much is clear. You don’t belong in this world, kid. And you definitely don’t belong in this room.”
Her lips press together, the edges flattening, but her gaze doesn’t drop. She holds my stare like she’s been practicing for this exact moment in a mirror. That softness in her expression—it’s not weakness. It’s a front. Underneath it, there’s steel, a fight she hasn’t yet learned how to use.
“I’m not a kid,” she says quietly.
I hate it. The way the words slide under my skin. That flicker of something low in my stomach is not desire—not exactly. It’s an alarm. Recognition. A dangerous awareness that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with inevitability. I know this girl already has a foothold in my mind, and if I don’t shut the door now, I never will.
I’ve built my life around being alone. It’s safer that way—no one to miss, no one to bury, and no one to be used against me when the world turns cruel, which it always does. If there’s no one waiting for me to come home, it’s easier to step into danger without flinching. Easier to pull the trigger. Easier to walk away.
She doesn’t get to change that.
“You’re twenty-one. You’ve got dreams. Soft skin. No idea what it feels like to wash blood out of your shirt at three a.m.” I shake my head, swallowing the heaviness in my throat, the old taste of copper and soap that rises at the memory. “You should be on a beach somewhere, drinking something stupid with your friends. Not in here.”
“My dad was in this world,” she says quietly.
“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be.”
The room goes still. Even the buzzing light seems to hold its breath.
She finally lowers her gaze, just for a moment, lashes brushing her cheeks as if the weight of my words finally lands. Then, like a ghost of a thought, she says, “You know what’s funny? He said you’d say something like that…”
I blink. There’s a pinch behind my eyes I ignore.
“What else did he say?”
She shrugs, but it’s too careful, too controlled. “That you’d act tough. Pretend you don’t care. That you always cared too much.”
My throat tightens. The old wound Will left behind stirs, the one that never really healed, just scarred over enough to ignore most days.
Damn it, Will.
He always thought he knew me better than I knew myself. Maybe he did. But if he knew what was going through my head right now—if he knew how my stomach dropped when she smiled at me, how the sound of her voice grates against every rule I’ve built for myself—he wouldn’t be so poetic about it. He’d drag her out of this building by the back of her shirt and lock her in a house somewhere far away from all of this. From me.
I stand up suddenly, pushing away from the desk as if it might burn me. The chair skids back with a harsh scrape that makes her flinch again, the first real crack in her composure. I need space. I need air. I need something that isn’t her and her father’s ghost between us.
“This conversation is over. You shouldn’t have come in here.”
She stands up slowly, uncrossing her legs with an ease that makes it look like she has all the time in the world. She brushes imaginary dust from her jeans, fingers smoothing over the denim like armor. She doesn’t argue or plead; instead, shesimply gives a quiet nod, as if she’s letting me have the illusion of control.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have,” she admits.
She moves toward the door, footsteps soft against the floor, and the office suddenly feels too empty in advance, like the space is already missing her. Her hand wraps around the handle, fingers pale against the metal, and just before she pulls it open, she glances back over her shoulder.
Her voice is soft, but there’s a glimmer in it—a tease, a goodbye, and a new beginning wrapped into one. “I like Delilah better, anyway.”
And then she’s gone. Just like that.
The door clicks shut with obscene finality, leaving me alone with the hum of the light, the clutter on my desk, and the ghost of her presence tangled in the air.
I stand there, jaw clenched, hands still curled into fists, sweating, cursing, and realizing I’ve just met the one girl I should have never let walk into my life.
Chapter 1
Captain Jonathan
It’s bloody beautiful out here.
Between the crashing waves, the dull thump of bass from distant speakers, and the hum of mingled laughter—some broken, some real—it’s easy to forget who we are. Salt air drifts in off the water, catching the edge of the string lights and making them sway, turning the whole beach into something soft around the edges. For a moment, all our secret little military societies gathered together look less like a world built from fire and fractured bones and more like a place that knows how to celebrate something as simple as love.
