"Because you need a pilot."
"Do not insult my intelligence." His voice drops an octave. He bleeds through the cold exterior. "I do not care about needing a pilot. I care about the woman."
My throat goes dry. The intensity in his eyes presses against me.
"Your world is a warzone." I grip the Glock tighter. The metal digs into my palm. "Extraction is coming. That means yoursoldiers are coming. That means your enemies could be tracking them."
"I will not let them touch you."
"You can't control everything, Santi." I toss the gun onto the cot. It lands with a muffled thud against the rusted springs. "Bullets don't care about your family name. Bullets don't care about your possessive streak."
He steps closer. The distance between us vanishes. He towers over me. He does not touch me. He simply fills the space in front of me without moving.
"You are angry."
"I am practical." I look up at him. "I don't rely on people. I don't depend on protectors. The minute you trust someone to keep you safe, you hand them the power to destroy you when they fail."
Santi studies my face. The stillness in him is unnatural. He absorbs my words without a trace of defensiveness.
"Who failed you?"
The question is a scalpel. It cuts straight through the armor I have spent years building.
I want to look away. I want to tell him it is none of his business. I want to walk back out into the blizzard.
I stand my ground. He gave me the truth about his lethal world. I owe him the truth about my isolated one.
"My father." My voice does not shake. I refuse to let it shake. "He didn't mean to. But he did."
Santi does not interrupt. He does not offer a comforting platitude. He just waits.
"I was nineteen." I stare at the center of his chest. The dark fabric of his thermal shirt rises and falls with his slow, measured breaths. "I just got my private pilot's license. I came home to celebrate. I bought a cheap bottle of champagne. I walked into the kitchen."
The memory flashes behind my eyes. Vivid. Sharp. Unforgiving.
"He was on the floor." The words taste like ash. "The groceries were scattered everywhere. The milk carton had burst. It was mixing with the blood from where his head hit the counter. He was dead before he hit the linoleum."
Santi remains still. He does not reach out to stroke my hair. He does not pull me into a suffocating hug. He anchors me with his absolute attention.
"I dropped the champagne." I swallow hard. The tightness in my throat is suffocating. "It shattered. I sat on the floor with him for three hours before I called the ambulance. I knew he was gone. I just did not want the house to be empty yet."
The fire crackles loudly in the stove. The wind howls against the frosted glass of the cabin window.
"After the funeral, the debt collectors called." I force my gaze up to meet his. "The house was mortgaged. The flight school loans were crushing. I had twenty dollars in my bank account. I had to sell his watch to pay for the cremation."
I square my shoulders. The armor locks back into place.
"Nobody came to save me." I state it as a fact. "No rich relatives. No charitable organizations. The world just kept spinning. I learned how to spin with it. I learned that depending on a man to provide a safety net is a lethal mistake. The sky is the only thing that never lies to me. Gravity is the only rule I respect."
Santi absorbs the story. He absorbs the pain, the isolation, the stubborn willpower it took to survive it.
He does not sayI am sorry for your loss. He does not sayit gets better.
"You built a fortress." His voice is low and rough.
"I built a life."
"A solitary life." He steps into my personal space. The heat radiating off his body wraps around me. "You decided that needing someone was a weakness. You decided to fly helicopters because the ground was too full of ghosts."
