She had her hand on the red welt on her neck, the shape of the chains she’d removed already forming, and when she looked at me in the mirror, I didn’t see panic. I saw anger. I set the ice bucket down.
“Fenway threatened to do this to me,” she said.
My entire being convulsed.
“What?”
“A belt around my neck,” she said. She had every right to be angry.
“I’m so goddamn sorry,” I told her gently, self-reproach coloring every word.
She shook her head. “I’m not angry at you.” The rasp in her voice was doing nothing for my waves of regret. “I’m angry at seeing my face like this in yet another mirror. I’m tired of being a victim.”
“You weren’t a victim tonight. You’re Athena and Isis rolled into one. You were—youare—a warrior.Sometimes, there are wounds from a battle, but that doesn’t mean you lost.”
Her eyes filled with tears that she blinked back like I’d been blinking back my own.
She turned the water on, washing the makeup from her face. I handed her a towel and then wrapped ice in two others. I pulled her hand into mine and guided her to the bed. “Lie down.”
She did as I asked, and I placed the first towel along her neck and then surrounded her knuckles with the second one, tying a knot to keep it there. The clip she’d had in her hair earlier had disappeared somewhere along the way, and the dark silk was tumbling about her face and shoulders. I brushed it aside tenderly.
“How’d she get in the bathroom?” she asked. Every time she spoke, her torn voice hit me in the gut.
“She killed the agent at the door,” I told her, and Dani winced, eyes shutting. “That isn’t your fault,” I said with force.
Dani nodded.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked her.
She shook her head, eyes opening. “No, I want to stop thinking about it. For just one damn moment.”
I understood.
As the adrenaline that filled you on a mission drained off, it was hard to shake the scenes that replayed in your mind. As a team, we got rid of them with laughter by ribbing each other constantly. When we got back home, many of us used alcohol and sex. Things that required us to think little and feel even less of what had happened.
“Lie down with me?” she asked.
I took off my jacket, undid the two top buttons on the dress shirt, toed off the dress shoes, and joined her on the bed. I pulled her body so it was curled into mine so I could reassure myself?and her?that she was okay. As the adrenaline left her, she closed her eyes with exhaustion taking hold, even though neither of us would sleep yet. I stared at the ceiling and just breathed her in.
Once, in a different lifetime, I’d seen man after man ring a bell and walk away from BUD/S and SEAL qualification training, from SERE and sniper school. I’d thought then, and every single moment since then, that there was nothing in this world that would make me ring those bells or any other. But as I lay there, with Dani tucked up against me, I realized I would.
There was no question about it. There was no choice to make. I would have rung the bell for her. I would have rung any bell there was to ring, thrown in the towel, and sprinted away if it meant she was safe for eternity.
And I knew what I needed to do. I’d thought it would be impossible, the hardest thing ever, to turn in my Trident and walk away. But it was quite the opposite; it was the easiest thing to do because it meant a life at her side.
My phone buzzing from the pocket of the jacket I’d thrown on the floor never stopped. Dani stirred next to me, and I looked down, noticing her grimace as she swallowed.
“Ibuprofen?” I asked quietly.
She nodded. I left her side to dig in my bag for the pain meds, handing her several. She choked a little, trying to get them down, and my worry ratcheted up a notch.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
The incessant buzzing reminded me others needed to reassure themselves that she was safe. That I was being a selfish asshole. I retrieved my phone and saw a string of messages from Garner, Brady, Lee, and Malone. All checking in, all asking for a status. Some demanding we contact them. I was surprised no one had knocked on the door.
“Can we just get it over with?” she asked.
