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“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He was pleased to hear he sounded cool and unbothered, as he should.

“None of us are unmarked,” Isaac said quietly. “None of us walked through those fires and came out the other side unscathed. That’s not how it works. But all that means is that you were marked. That you have scars. They’re part of you, but they’re not you, Jonas.”

But Jonas had always known exactly who he was. He hadn’t had the benefit of a before-and-after scenario. He had no fond memories of a portion of childhood without darkness. He had no fond memories at all until the service.

He wasn’t like these people who called himfriend, and he never had been.

“I have no problem with my scars,” Jonas told the man who had led him into more hells than he could count, yet still didn’t understand whom he’d had at his back. “I was little better than dead when I started. The fires we walked through didn’t mark me any, Isaac. I was born ash, crushed into coal, and never had a single thing to lose when the service made me a monster.”

And that, too, felt like another solemn vow he could feel in every part of him. A part of the very shape of his face. His true reflection, the one he’d always been brave enough to face.

It was other people who objected.

“Let’s say any of that is true, which it isn’t.” Isaac almost sounded mad, somewhere beneath that calm tone he was using. “So what? You have a hell of a lot to lose now, my friend. Are you willing to do that just to prove you can?”

Jonas hung up, which was kind of like standing naked in the middle of the lodge in Fool’s Cove and offering a three-hour theatrical performance of all his issues.

He knew Isaac would see it as more or less the same. With popcorn.

There was nothing he could do about that.

There was nothing hewantedto do about that.

He called the local team next and ordered them to stand down, break down the command center, and get ready for an early-morning return to headquarters.

“The party’s that good, is that it?” Jack asked.

Jonas hung up on him, too, before he started making derogatory remarks about flyboys.

And if he was grateful that the local team on this op was made up of newer guys, none of whom would ever dare challenge him on anything—much less confront him about hisfeelings—he was wise enough to pretend he didn’t.

Because there was only so much quicksand he could take.

He turned his back to the comfort of the dark and ducked back into the wedding tent. He found Carter in another little knot of high-placed, highly ranked people, and it took everything he had to keep from going over there and handling the situation here and now.

He knew it would be foolish. It would be acting from emotion instead of any tactical advantage, and that wasn’t him.

That hadn’t ever been him.

Jonas forced his carefree expression back into place on his face as he weaved his way through the reception tables. He found Bethan where he’d left her, still with her sister out there in the middle of the dance floor.

And there was no time for this. They should be plotting, planning, coming up with strategies and backup strategies—

But he knew, whether he planned to admit it or not, that the real reason he didn’t get her attention and indicate that it was time to go was because she looked so happy.

Happy.

His beautiful Bethan with her arms in the air and sheer joy on her face.

Jonas didn’t have it in him to cut that short.

He pulled out a seat at the nearest table, smiled at the other guests as he sat himself down, and... waited.

Because he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt much in the way of joy, but she made him think it was possible. Even for someone like him. And he was going to sit here and bask in it a while, because deep down, Jonas figured that quicksand or not, Bethan was the only human thing about him.

And she wasn’t his.

Which meant this was as close as he was ever likely to get.