Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Your contact offer anything besides bad news?” Buck asks.
I bark out a laugh. “Yeah. Extraction.”
His face doesn’t change, but his eyes do. “Federal?”
“Through a friend of a friend, with enough pull to make it happen if we say yes,” I say. “Temporary first. Full relocation if it goes that way. New names, new place, new school for T.J., a new job and cover for Elena. A clean split from Moon Ridge.”
Neither of them responds, but I know what they’re thinking. We fit here. More than anywhere else we’ve been, and more than any place I’d ever called home.
To walk away would be survival, and to stay might be a death sentence.
Weston lets out a long, heavy breath. “Shit. Witness protection?”
“Potentially,” I say. “If it comes to that.”
“We all leave,” Weston says flatly.
“We run.”
Buck settles into the chair again, slow and deliberate, but the movement reads more like containment than calm. “It’ll keep them alive.”
I turn on him. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”
“Same thing I am,” Buck says evenly.
I stare at him. “It sounds a lot like you’ve already decided.”
“It sounds like I’m considering every option.”
“Every option except the one where we don’t tear apart their lives?”
Buck sets his mug down with deliberate care. “You think getting stalked and burned out of her home and school isn’t tearing apart her life?”
Weston moves to the side of the desk, effectively coming between us in his subtle way. The move should cool the room, but it only makes me more aware of how tight my body has gone, like I’m braced for impact.
I should back off. I know that, and I know the heat in my chest isn’t all anger. There’s panic there, too, and the sick feeling that comes when there are too many variables and no clean solutions.
But once the pressure finds a crack, it keeps going.
“She won’t thank us for dragging her into some federal hole in the ground,” I say. “Pulling T.J. out of school, taking them both away from friends. It makes them pay for our past all over again.”
Buck’s eyes flash as he gets back to his feet. “Our past is already on her doorstep.”
“If we go, we’re not keeping this thing together, are we?” I gesture around at the three of us, meaning to include Elena, too.
He doesn’t have a comeback for that. Neither of them does. It’s what’s under the argument. The thing I’ve been trying not to say, because saying it makes it real.
“Calder—” Buck’s tone is lower now, but I cut him off with a rough laugh.
“Let’s say it. Extraction sounds real clean when you don’t talk about the rest of it. Elena and T.J. can disappear. Maybe one of us goes with them. Maybe two, if we’re lucky. Maybe the rest stay behind to deal with Kozlov, or keep the trail muddy, or do whatever ugly work needs doing.” I look between them. “And if that happens, we know exactly who gets left behind.”
CHAPTER 36
CALDER
“Don’t.” Weston’s voice is sharp.
It’s too late. The words are already there in my throat. “I’m the one she can live without. Buck’s stable. T.J. already trusts you. I’m the guy who wakes up half out of his head, bringing nightmares instead of peace.”
Buck takes a step toward me. “That’s not true.”
“It’s practical.”
“It’s bullshit.”
The force in Buck’s voice should check me. Instead, it makes something in me bare its teeth.
“You want practical? Fine. This only works—” I point around at the three of us again, more sharply this time. “—when everybody gets to pretend there’s enough time. Enough room. Enough safety. But under pressure? Real pressure? This gets people killed.”
Weston goes still, never a good sign.
Buck’s stare hardens. “You think this is pretend?”
“I think it was easier before.”
Before Elena. Before feelings were involved. Before love—yeah, shit, I’ll admit it to myself—turned every decision into a question of who matters the most and who gets left bleeding.
“Careful.” Buck’s tone is low and dangerous now, but I still don’t stop. Maybe I’ve been wanting this fight. Might as well rip the wound open instead of hiding it under strategy and logistics.
“I’m serious,” I say. “Before now, sharing a woman was physical. No claims, no promises. The future wasn’t hanging on it, and nobody had to wonder who got chosen if things went bad.”
Weston flinches. It’s a small movement, and most people wouldn’t see it, but I do, and so does Buck.
“You think that’s all this is to her?” Buck asks me.
“No.”
“Then what the fuck are you saying?”
“I’m saying feelings complicate the chain of command.”
Buck stares at me like he wants to grab me by the shirt and shake sense into me. “This isn’t a mission.”
“It becomes one when there’s a hostile operator with a kill list.”
Weston finally speaks, his tone sharper than either of ours. “Enough.”
He turns to Buck first and says, “He’s scared.” Then, to me, “And you’re being an asshole about it.”