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Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not asking,” I said. “You saw what he is. I know what he is.”

“So do I,” she snapped. “That’s the point. I know how they move. I know how they think. You go in blind, and you’re dead before you open your mouth.”

“Then give me the intel,” I said, lowering my voice. “Give me everything. Every location. Every contact. Every pattern. And then letmego after him.”

“I’m not some asset that needs protecting, Cyclone.”

“No,” I said softly. “You’re not. You’re the only thing in this whole damn world I can’t lose.”

She froze.

I hadn’t meant to say it like that. Not yet. Not when everything was coming undone.

But hell if I was going to take it back.

“You’ve been surviving alone for too long,” I said. “But this—this—you don’t have to do alone anymore.”

Her throat bobbed. Her fingers dug into the hem of the shirt like she needed something to hold onto.

After a beat, she nodded once.

Not a surrender.

A trust fall.

“I’ll tell you everything,” she whispered. “But if something goes wrong—if you get hurt—”

“Then you come drag my ass out,” I said, brushing a kiss across her forehead. “Just like I’d do for you.”

She gave me a watery smile. “Deal.”

I exhaled, finally letting the mission mode click in behind my ribs.

This wasn’t just a recon op.

This was personal.

Whoever that bastard was out there, whatever he thought he could pull—

He had no idea what was coming for him.

39

Cyclone

The conference room at Golden HQ wasn’t fancy.

Just ten chairs, a long table, a pot of burned coffee, and enough history between the men inside to level a country.

I stood at the head of the table. River, Gage, Sean, Tag, Gideon, and Oliver sat around it, watching me with the kind of focus we usually saved for warzones.

Because that’s what this was now.

A war.

And it hadJude’s name on it.