I bite back a curse.
She still doesn’t get it. Doesn’t realise how close she is to being dragged into the same darkness.
“I’ll handle Darcy,” I say, sharper than I intend. “Once this part’s in place, and no one screws with the plan, I’ll get some answers. Their extraction teams aren’t as sophisticated as they like to think.”
“You really think they’ll talk?”
I glance at her, a cold edge settling into my voice.
“I’m persuasive.”
Most break within a day. That program was built to find every nerve, every fracture point. It doesn’t end with mercy. It ends with answers.
“Okay, I can do it. I can fight too, you know. I’ll have your back when we go in—”
“I don’t need you to have my back,” I cut in, silencing her. “That’s why I have Talia.”
Christ, the thought of Nell charging in with her trusty rolling pin is enough to give me a migraine. The carnage would be biblical.
“All you need to do is stick to the routine. Nothing more.”
She mutters under her breath, “Still managed to take you out just fine.”
I grit my teeth. I’m not in the mood for games. She’s relentless—stubborn, and dangerously unaware of just how high the stakes are.
“You think so?” I say, voice low. “Come with me.”
It’s a challenge, and she takes it like bait, head held high, not realising she’s walking straight into a lesson.
She doesn’t ask questions, just follows—but I don’t slow down. If she wants to play soldier, she can keep up like one. She’s jogging by the time we reach the gym, breath catching, pace scrambling to match mine.
Let’s see how invincible she feels after this.
“Pick your weapon,” I signal to the box of rubber knives and hard wood sticks we use for practice.
“Don’t you want one?” her question brings the smallest of smiles to me; she’s overestimated herself entirely.
“Nope.”
She picks a knife. Interesting choice. It’s a decision I clock immediately—filed away for later.
But when she turns to face me, my hoodie hanging off her shoulders like it belongs there, I shake my head.
“Lose the jumper. That shit’s just going to slow you down.”
She frowns but doesn’t argue. Tosses it to the corner of the mat, revealing a fitted vest and absolutely nothing beneath it. As infuriating as this woman is, she’s doing things to my cock that I can’t admit.
I exhale through my nose.
Focus.
She’s chaos in human form—loud, stubborn, unpredictable—but her body… that’s something else entirely. I haven’t seen her like this before, all edges and tension and far too much skin.
If this were a different life, a different mission—I wouldn’t have hesitated.
But thisisn’tdifferent. She’s in danger. A target. Just one more name on a list the world forgot how to care about. And I won’t be the man who fails her.
“What now stalker boy?”
