And for one disorienting second, everything else disappears.
He’s tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in black tactical gear dusted from the road. Rifle in hand. Face streaked with dirt.Eyes the color of a storm and locked on me like I’m the problem he intends to solve whether I like it or not.
There are three more men behind him, moving with lethal efficiency as they cover the perimeter.
Americans.
Not aid workers.
Not soldiers from here.
Something else entirely.
I stare at him. “Who are you?”
His jaw tightens like he doesn’t have time for this.
“Your ride out.”
“I’m not leaving.”
He actually blinks.
Like maybe he expected gratitude.
Then his expression turns cold enough to freeze the whole damn country.
“Yeah,” he says. “We’re going to have a problem.”
65
Russ
I’ve been shot at in six countries.
Blown out of vehicles twice.
Stabbed once.
Had a building come down around me in Syria and a river turn red beside me in Colombia.
And somehow, standing in the middle of a half-destroyed clinic arguing with a furious American doctor while gunfire cracks outside might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.
“I said I’m not leaving,” Olivia Taylor snaps.
Up close, she’s even more dangerous than the photo suggested.
Not because she’s armed.
Not because she’s trained.
Because she means every word she says.
Her blue eyes are blazing, her chest rising and falling too fast, one strand of hair stuck to the smudge of dirt on her cheek. She’s got blood on her sleeve that I’m pretty sure isn’t hers, and she’s staring at me like if she had a scalpel handy, she’d absolutely use it.
Behind me, Miles leans into the doorway and fires two controlled shots toward the road. “Russ, little busy here.”
“I’ve noticed.”
