Page 43 of Zorro

He didn’t know her story. Not yet. But he knew the signs of a soul caught between here and somewhere else. Even if it wasn’t his to name, it still made his spirit shift.

It drove him crazy. She drove him crazy, but Bailee Thunderhawk was part of their team, and messing with dynamics was never a good idea.

She eyed his hair, the braids, the beads, the length, but said nothing. That silence landed harder than it should have. Lodged deep, sharp in a place still healing.

They’d had that conversation once before. Quiet. Heavy. He’d told her about his brother. About cutting his hair after the funeral. About the burning of what was lost. She knew what it meant that he wore it long now. That he braided it in ceremony. That the beads marked something older than language. Something earned.

But today, her eyes flicked over it, then shifted away, evasively. Like the honor he wore so plainly across his scalp unsettled her. Like it reminded her of something she no longer carried. Or never received.

Like it was a kind of inheritance she wasn’t given.

He didn’t press. He never did.

But the disappointment filtered through him all the same. The feeling didn’t hit like a punch. It came slowly. A quiet kind of weight, building in places he didn’t usually let anything touch.

“What brings you to Rio?” she asked, voice smooth and practiced.

He turned slightly, watching the way her arms crossed, a shield. She always had them in one form or another.

“BOPE and this conference,” he answered. “We’re here for training rotations. A few of us are sitting on panels.”

Her mouth quirked into something like a smile, but it didn’t reach those winter-storm eyes.

“The Sovereign Edge Summit,” she said, voice shifting into something official. “Global Forum on Tactical Leadership, Ethical Engagement, and Special Operations Diplomacy.”

He tilted his head, faintly amused. “That a mouthful or a threat?”

She smiled wider. “Diplomacy?” Her tone edged toward teasing now. “I thought the way special operators negotiated didn’t leave much room for talk.”

His chest expanded, a quiet pressure blooming there. That smile. It wasn’t much, but it was real. It had been too long since he’d seen it on her.

He rumbled a soft chuckle. “What are you saying?”

She stepped a little closer, arms still folded, head tilted. “You know. Shoot first, ask questions later. Are they teaching old dogs new tricks now?”

His lips twitched. “How long were you working on that one?”

She arched a brow. “My whole plane ride over here.”

His brows lifted, slow. “You knew I’d be here?”

“Of course I did.” Her voice dipped, silken now. “CIA, remember? I always know what my boys are doing.”

That last word caught at him. My boys. Damn, that sounded lonely and detached. Like she was too professional to claim them as her team.

He looked at her again, really looked at the way she held herself. The quiet steel in her spine, the measured cadence of her breath, the way her body stood easy but her heart…was withheld.

“You always watch from the edge,” he said quietly.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” he murmured, stepping away half a pace, the moment too raw to name out loud. “I’m just glad you came.”

She nodded once, all professionalism again, like she hadn’t just missed what he hadn’t meant to say.

He turned back toward the team’s check-in table, Flint rising to heel beside him. But the tension didn’t ease. She moved through the hotel like someone trained to disappear. Most didn’t notice. But Bear couldn’t stop himself. Something inside Bear told him…she hadn’t come to Rio for training or threat assessment. She was looking for something. Something she couldn’t name.

Bear had the sinking feeling he might be the one who saw her truth before she was ready to face it.