Page 72 of Duty Devoted
By the time she woke up, I’d be gone. Just another ghost from a week she’d probably want to forget.
The elevator opened with a soft chime. I stepped inside and hit the button for the team’s floor, not looking back.
Mission accomplished. Asset secured. Time to move on to the next one.
That was what I told myself as the doors closed, sealing me away from the best thing I’d never deserve.
The hallway on the tenth floor looked identical to the one I’d just left, but the air felt different. Familiar. Military-grade coffee and gun oil bleeding through the door of suite 1012. My people. My world.
I knocked twice, paused, knocked again. Old habits.
Footsteps approached the door. The sound of locks disengaging—multiple dead bolts, from the sound of it. Jace peered through the cracked door, weapon likely in hand just out of sight, before recognition hit.
“About time you showed up.” He stepped back, letting me in before immediately securing the door behind me.
The suite was command central compressed into luxury accommodations. Laptops covered the dining table, surveillance feeds running on multiple screens. Weapons cleaned and sorted on the coffee table. Ty sprawled on the couch, already showered and dressed in fresh clothes that made me acutely aware of my own disaster state.
“Well, well.” He sat up, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. “The walk of shame in yesterday’s jungle couture. Bold choice.”
“We knocked on your door an hour ago.” Jace didn’t look up from whatever he was typing, fingers flying across keys with the speed of someone who’d hacked into too many secure systems. “Figured you were enjoying the thread count. Guess we were wrong.”
They knew exactly where I’d been. No point denying it.
“Error in judgment.” I headed for the coffeepot, needing something to do with my hands. “Won’t happen again.”
“Error in judgment?” Ty swung his feet to the floor, that particular gleam in his eye that meant incoming bullshit. “Brother, most of us call that getting lucky. But sure, let’s go with error in judgment if it helps you sleep at night.”
“Leave it alone.”
“I’m just saying, beautiful doctor, life-and-death bonding, actual chemistry? That’s not an error. That’s a fucking unicorn in our line of work.”
The coffee burned my throat, but I welcomed the pain. “Most unicorns don’t end up with bullet wounds because of me.”
“Most unicorns aren’t badass enough to save their own lives.” Jace finally looked up from his laptop, pushing wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Sounds like she handled herself pretty well out there.”
“Yeah, she really did. She survived despite me, not because of me.”
“Bullshit.” Ty stood, crossing to the weapons table with that loose-limbed grace that fooled people into thinking he was harmless. “Look, I get it. Post-mission crash is hitting you like a freight train. But don’t rewrite history because your brain chemistry’s doing the mambo right now.”
My hands tightened on the mug. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” He picked up a pistol from the table, checking the chamber with practiced ease. “Let’s review. You got her through forty kilometers of jungle with cartel hunting parties on your ass. Kept her alive through a Category 3 hurricane in a structure held together by rust and prayer. Killed four hostiles in hand-to-hand combat while fatigued. And when Silva had twenty guns on you at that dock, you and Lauren worked together to play human shield so perfectly that crazy bastard bought it completely. Yeah, you had nothing to do with it.”
“I only killed three. Lauren took out the fourth. Not sure if he’s dead. If not, he’s got one hell of a headache.”
Ty and Jace both turned to stare at me.
“Hold up.” Ty set the pistol down slowly. “The doctor took out a cartel soldier?”
“He was about to shoot me in the back. She hit him with a branch.” I was never going to forget Lauren standing there with blood on her shirt, fierce and terrified and absolutely magnificent.
Ty’s grin spread wide. “A woman who can save livesandtake them when necessary? That’s not a unicorn—that’s a whole mythical creature we haven’t even named yet.”
“This is different.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Incoming,” Jace interrupted, laptop chiming with an incoming call. “Ethan’s dialing in.”
