Page 120 of Zorro

Tears slipped down her cheeks, hot and fast, but they didn’t slow her.

She was about to fix the damage.

She was about to save his fucking life. Not because she saved lives as a surgeon. But for her. Selfishly. For fucking her sake.

She leaned in, kissed him hard, salt and blood and desperation. He tasted like everything she hadn’t known she wanted until he gave it to her.

His voice was a rasp at her lips. “I’ll see you when I wake up.”

Another breath. Another whisper. “I love you, Everly. This body, this heart? They’re yours. You’ve made me see so much in the last few days, I’ll never be the same…but fix me, babe. So I can love you for the rest of our lives.”

She swallowed a sob, turned her head to the anesthesiologist, and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Cover that damn beautiful mouth and get him under.”

The mask came down.

Her eyes fused with his as he blinked, slowly, then slower still, closing and opening like he needed one more glimpse of her. His love. His heart. His faith in her, written in that final look. She bent down, kissed his forehead, whispered her promise…then turned, bloody, breathless, and determined.

“I need ten seconds. Get him prepped.”

A trauma nurse was already moving, tossing her a clean set of scrubs. She ripped off the blood-soaked top as she crossed to the scrub sink. Hot water. Soap. A ritual she’d done a thousand times, but never with her heart this loud.

Gloves. Gown. Cap. Mask.

Her armor. Her battlefield. Her love, her very lifeblood, on the table.

She stepped back into the OR.

Everly Quinn, doctor, woman, warrior, a woman forged in the crucible that was Mateo Martinez, picked up the scalpel.

This was what she’d been forged for, and he wasn’t going to die on her table.

Hours later, the doors to the OR swung shut behind her, the final echo of Everly’s steps swallowed by the antiseptic hush of the corridor. She exhaled, long, slow, as if she could breathe the weight of the last two surgeries from her bones. Her gloves were gone. Her scrub top clung to her spine with sweat. But there was no blood on her now. Just the echo of hands that had gripped two lives and refused to let them go.

She turned the corner.

They were there.

All of them.

Not just the team, though they filled the waiting room like caged predators with no one left to kill, but the women, too. Pippa sat beside Joker’s abandoned chair, her fingers laced tightly in her lap. Julia leaned against Professor’s shoulder, silent and steady. Izzy stood behind Gator, one hand on his neck, the other resting protectively on her hip like she was ready to take the next fight herself. Maritza had her arms wrapped around Buck from behind, her cheek pressed to the top of his shoulder. Bree was perched on the arm of Blitz’s chair, one foot tucked under her, eyes locked on the hallway like she could will good news into being. Helen sat close to D-Day, her arm across his shoulders, her fingers playing with the golden strands on his neck.

Joker stood the moment he saw Everly. No one else moved.

Zorro had been first. She’d transitioned mid-op to assist Jules on Bear. Both men had come through. Fighters, the both of them.

Everly didn’t need to speak. She met Joker’s eyes and gave a single, measured nod.

That was enough.

His shoulders dropped like someone had unstrapped the battlefield from his back. The breath he exhaled pulled the tension out of the room like a pressure valve finally released.

The others watched her, Professor with those calculating eyes, Buck and Blitz exchanging the kind of glance only men who’ve bled together understand, Gator murmuring something low to D-Day that was lost beneath the buzz of fluorescent light. The women didn’t speak. They just watched her, thanking her, steadying her. Something in Everly released under their gaze. These were the women, like her, with steel in them, who supported the men who saved the world.

Joker crossed the room like a man who’d walked through fire and wasn’t above thanking the one who pulled his brothers back out.

He wrapped her in his arms and held on tight.