Page 71 of Duty Devoted
My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I pressed them flat against the tile, watching water swirl down the drain. Pink traces from cuts I didn’t remember getting. Story of my life—wounds I couldn’t recall accumulating.
Stand down. Mission’s over. She’s safe.
But my body didn’t know how to stand down. Adrenaline still flooded my system like I was back in that jungle, waiting for the next threat. In the field, that kept me alive. Here, in this five-star fortress, it just made me feel like I was coming apart at the seams.
I stayed under the spray until the water ran cold, then toweled off with automatic movements. The mirror showed a face I barely recognized—hollow eyes, three days of stubble, a fresh scar along my jaw I hadn’t noticed before.
I looked like what I was: a killer pretending to be human.
The bedroom was lighter now, dawn painting the walls pale gold. Lauren hadn’t moved, still lost in whatever dreams found her here. I pulled on yesterday’s pants, grimacing at the dirt still ground into the fabric. My shirt was beyond salvaging, stiff with dried sweat and someone else’s blood.
I needed to get back to my team’s suite. Get fresh clothes. Get my head straight. Get the hell away from this woman before?—
That was when I saw it.
The bruise wrapped around her upper arm in perfect finger-shaped bands. Four distinct ovals where my fingers had gripped, a thumb mark on the opposite side. Purple-black against her pale skin. Fresh enough that the edges still looked angry.
My stomach dropped.
I flexed my right hand, watching the tendons move. Then I placed it in the air above the bruise, not touching, just hovering. The marks aligned perfectly.Myhand.Mygrip.Myfailure to control my strength when it mattered.
When? Using her as a shield at the dock? Those terrifying moments when I’d held death to her temple, gripping her tight enough to sell the performance? Or in that seedy safe house room when trauma and need had tangled together until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began?
She hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t flinched when I touched her last night. Just let me put my hands on her again like I hadn’t already marked her. Like I wasn’t exactly what I’d always known I was—too broken for gentle things.
I sank into the chair by the window, unable to look away from those bruises. The morning light streaming through expensive curtains illuminated every detail—the way the purple deepened to almost black at the center, the perfect spacing that screamedgrabbed too hard, held too tight.
My hands started shaking again. I clenched them into fists, nails biting into my palms. The pain helped, gave me something to focus on besides the way she’d trusted me. The way she’d looked at me like I was something more than a weapon pointed in the right direction.
She shifted in her sleep, and the sheet slipped lower. More bruises along her ribs, older ones from the jungle mixing with fresh marks. A catalog of failures written on her skin.
I needed to leave. Now. Before she woke up and looked at me with those green eyes that saw too much. Before I had to watch her realize what I already knew—that getting close to me meant getting hurt.
But I couldn’t move. Just sat there staring at the evidence of what I’d done, what I always did. Left marks. Even when I tried to save people.
Especially then.
The suite’s walls—papered in what was probably hand-painted silk—felt like they were shrinking. All this luxury, crystal chandeliers and Italian marble, and I was the thing that didn’t belong. Too many sharp edges for soft furnishings.
Lauren made a small sound in her sleep, fingers curling into the pillow. Trusting. Peaceful. Everything I’d never be again.
She was good. Not naive like I’d accused her of being, but genuinely good. The kind of person who delivered babies in war zones and stayed with dying men so they wouldn’t be alone. The kind of person who saw injured things and tried to heal them instead of walking away.
The exact opposite of everything I was.
Last night had been selfish. Using her warmth to chase away the cold that lived in my bones. Pretending for a few hours that I could be the kind of man who touched without bruising.
She deserved someone whole. Someone who could hold her without calculating pressure points. Someone who woke up from dreams instead of combat flashbacks. Someone who could give her more than purple souvenirs and borrowed time.
I finished dressing in silence, movements instinctive from years of predawn exits. Boots laced tight. Wallet. Room key.Everything I’d brought fit in my pockets—traveling light meant leaving fast.
At the door, I turned back one last time. She’d rolled onto her stomach, face turned toward where I’d been lying. The morning light caught in her hair, turning it to spun gold. Beautiful. Unmarked, except where I’d touched her.
I stepped into the hallway and let the door click shut behind me. No goodbye. No note. Nothing to suggest this had been anything more than proximity and adrenaline.
It wasn’t the most honorable way to handle the situation, but it was the kindest. Lauren would eventually be able to appreciate the surgical precision of it. The kind of cut that healed fastest.
My footsteps echoed on marble as I headed for the elevator. Each step put more distance between us, which was exactly what she needed. What we both needed.
